Commons Sitting of 5 May 1914

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Abertillery and District Water Board Bill [Lords],
Market Rasen Water Bill,
Severn Navigation Bill,
As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Skegness Gas Bill [Lords],
Read a second time, and committed.
Local Government Provisional Orders (Gas) Bill,
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Bourne and Wokingham." Presented by Mr. HERBERT LEWIS; supported by Mr. Herbert Samuel; read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 223.]

ARMY.
Copy presented of Papers relating to the Appointment of Major-General Sir C. F. N. Macready, K.C.B., to command the Troops in the Province of Ulster and to be a Resident Magistrate [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

FINANCIAL STATEMENT (1914–15) (EFFECT OF PROPOSED CHANGES).
Copy ordered, "of Statement explaining the proposals made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Financial Statement on Monday, 4th May, 1914."—[Mr. Montagu.]
Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 212.]

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).
Copy presented of Report of the Committee of Council on Education in Scotland in 1913–14 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
Copy presented of Code of Regulations for Continuation Classes, 1914 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

POLITICAL OFFICERS (PENSIONS).
Return ordered "of the names of all Pensioners under the Political Offices Pension Act, 1869, with the amount of each Pension, together with the date from which and the services for which it was granted; and the total amount paid in respect of each Pension to each Pensioner up to the 31st day of March, 1914 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 362, of Session 1904)."—[Mr. King.]
CIVIL SERVANTS (RETIREMENT AT THE AGE OF SIXTY-FIVE).
Copy ordered "of Treasury Minute, dated the 30th day of April, 1914, stating the circumstances under which certain Civil servants have been retained in the service after they have attained the age of sixty-five; and of the Return therein referred to."—[Mr. Montagu.]
ULTIMUS HÆRES (SCOTLAND) (ACCOUNT AND LIST OF ESTATES).
Return ordered "of Abstract Account of the receipts and payments of the King's and Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer in Scotland in the year ended the 31st day of December, 1913, in the administration of Estates and treasure trove on behalf of the Crown. And of alphabetical List of Estates which fell to the Crown as Ultimus Hæres in Scotland, administered by the King's and Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer, in the same year."—[Mr. Montagu.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Mexico.
  Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether representations have been made to the United States Government asking it to abandon the position that the removal from Mexico of General Huerta is of greater moment than the restoration of peace to that country and the protection of life and industry therein?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey): Mediation is being undertaken by the three Governments of Argentina, Brazil and Chili, and it would serve no useful purpose for His Majesty's Government to make separate proposals on their own account either in Washington or Mexico.
  Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the oilfields of Mexico have been or are being neutralised in order to their protection during the present state of war?
  Sir E. GREY: As the result of efforts which have been made for the protection of the oilfields in Mexico, assurances have been received from the Federal Governor at Tampico and from General Carranza that employés may return to look after the wells in the neighbourhood of Tampico, while General Huerta has promised to issue orders permitting the return of employés of all nationalities to resume work, and to do his best to prevent fighting in the oil district or its use as a base of operations.

  INDIA.

    AGRA COLLEGE (MEDICAL STUDENTS).
    Mr. KINGasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that all the medical students at the medical college of Agra and Lahore went on strike; whether these strikes are now ended; how long the strikes continued; what were the alleged grounds of these strikes; and will he state what steps are being taken to prevent a repetition of such disturbances?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Charles Roberts): The Secretary of State has not yet received an official report, but understands that a Committee, with Surgeon-General Sir Pardey Lukis as president, is inquiring into the alleged grievances of the Lahore medical students.

    PRICES (REPORT OF COMMITTEE.)
    Mr. TOUCHEasked whether the Report of the Committee appointed to investigate the question of prices in India has been received or is nearing completion; and when it is likely to be issued?
    Mr. C. ROBERTS: The Report is now in the hands of the Government of India. The full statistics on which it is based have only become available to them within the
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    last few days, but it is now hoped that the question of publication may be decided at an early date.

    SCHOOLS OF ART.
    Mr. KINGasked whether Mr. Abanindro Nath Tagore, C.I.E., was passed over by the Government of Bengal some years ago when a vacancy occurred in the principalship of the Calcutta School of Art; whether the attention of the Secretary of State has been drawn to his work, and that of a number of Indian artists trained by him, now being exhibited in the Indian Section of the Victoria and Albert Museum; and whether the capacity of these artists for giving instruction in Indian art will be considered when such vacancies occur in future?
    Mr. C. ROBERTS: Mr. Tagore's merits as an artist and teacher of painting are fully recognised by the Government of Bengal, and for this reason he has been placed in charge of the Fine Art section of the Calcutta School of Art in the capacity of vice-principal and on a special salary. He was not appointed principal as he was not held to be qualified and he himself agreeing that the supervision and development of the school on its industrial side would be better left m other hands. The answers to the second and third parts of the question are in the affirmative.
    Mr. KINGasked whether the vacancy caused by the retirement of Sir Swinton Jacob as adviser to the new Delhi architects in matters relating to Indian craftsmanship has been, or will be, filled up.
    Mr. C. ROBERTS: A successor to Sir Swinton Jacob has not been appointed, but when work at Delhi is further advanced the establishment of a school of Indian craftsmen under Indian guidance to work in connection with the architects is the probable form that the action of the Government of India will take.
    Mr. KING: Will the hon. Gentleman go further, and, instead of saying that it is probable, will he say that it is certain and so allay any suspicions I may have?
    Mr. C. ROBERTS: I am afraid it is not possible for me to allay the hon. Member's suspicions, but I will convey his request for further action to the Secretary of State.
    Mr. KINGasked whether the Secretary of State adheres to the principle laid

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    down by his predecessors that Government schools of art in India exist for the promotion of Indian art; and whether the qualifications of Indian teachers have been fully considered in appointments to the staffs of those schools which come under his patronage?
    Mr. C. ROBERTS: The answer to the first question is in the affirmative on the understanding that Indian art includes applied design and industrial art. The Secretary of State appoints to Indian art schools only in cases where the Indian Government is not able to find in India persons with the required qualifications. He has no reason to suppose that the qualifications of Indian teachers are in such cases overlooked.

    IMPERIAL LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
    Mr. RUPERT GWYNNEasked whether he will state the total number of non-official members of the Imperial Legislative Council; how many of them were present at the meeting on 22nd March, 1912; and how many of them supported the resolution of the Council recommending to the Governor-General in Council that a substantial portion of the Gold Standard Reserve be held in gold in India?
    Mr. C. ROBERTS: Out of a total number of thirty-two non-official members then serving on the Council, twenty-five appear to have been present, of whom twenty-four supported the resolution.

    GOLD STANDARD.
    Mr. RUPERT GWYNNEasked at what date and under what circumstances the India Office changed the Gold Standard of India into the Gold Exchange Standard; and was the Government of India or the Indian mercantile community consulted regarding this change in the currency policy of India?
    Mr. C. ROBERTS: So far as a change has taken place in the direction mentioned it has been the outcome of a gradual development since 1893, of which the history is summarised in paragraphs 13 to 51 of the Report of the Royal Commission on Indian Finance and Currency. Correspondence at various stages with the Government of India and Indian mercantile bodies will be found among the Papers laid before the Commission.
    Mr. R. GWYNNE: Are we to assume that the correspondence shows that the
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    Indian Government and the mercantile community concur in the present system?
    Mr. C. ROBERTS: I think I might direct the hon. Member to the Papers. They are published.

    CURRENCY SYSTEM.
    Mr. R. GWYNNEasked what is the ultimate aim of the India Office in regard to the Indian currency system; and what effective measures are being taken to reach the same?
    Mr. C. ROBERTS: The chief aim is the maintenance of the exchange value of the rupee at 1s. 4d.; the chief measures are the provision of a gold standard reserve and other sterling reserves and the regulation of the coinage of rupees and of the sales of drafts between England and India.
    Mr. R. GWYNNEasked whether, having regard to the fact that the Fowler Currency Committee recommended in its Report of the 7th July, 1899, that the Indian currency system should be a gold standard based on gold currency, he will say if this recommendation was accepted by the Indian Council and the Government of India?
    Mr. C. ROBERTS: It would be more correct to describe the system favoured by the Committee of 1899 as a gold standard accompanied by, than as one based on, a gold currency. Their recommendations were generally accepted by the Government of the time.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.

    SICKNESS BENEFIT.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is his intention to appoint a Committee or Commission to report on the working of the National Insurance Acts, and to make suggestions for Amendment?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN (Lord of the Treasury): The answer is in the negative. My hon. Friend will be aware that a Departmental Committee on Sickness Benefit Claims is now sitting.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the hon. Member for St. George's-in-the-East, as representing the Insurance Commissioners, whether an insured person who is in prison is entitled to sickness benefit while he is an inmate of the prison if he becomes ill; and whether the sickness benefit would be administered under Section 12 of the original Act?
    Mr. W. BENN: The Act does not deal expressly with the ease referred to by my hon. Friend, and the Commissioners are advised that Section 12 of the 1911 Act does not apply. The conditions of the Act, and of the rules of societies, for the payment of sickness benefit could not, however, ordinarily be satisfied in such a case.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Do I gather, if a man is ill in prison and certified to be unfit for work, that a claim from him for benefit would be a valid claim?
    Mr. W. BENN: I do not think that I can add anything to the answer I have given already. The case is a very difficult one to decide.

    DEPOSIT CONTRIBUTORS (GLASGOW).
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the hon. Member for St. George's-in-the-East whether deposit contributors in Glasgow, who have never received a deposit contributor's book and who wish to transfer to an approved society, have often to wait for months after applying before their cards are returned, and thus, in many cases, lose benefit to which they would be entitled if the transfer were effected more expeditiously: and whether he will take steps to remove the cause of these complaints?
    Mr. W. BENN: A deposit contributor who is accepted as a member by an approved society is at once entitled to claim benefit from the society under the usual conditions. If my hon. Friend will furnish me with particulars of any ease of delayed payment I shall be glad to make inquiries.

    AGENTS' REMUNERATION.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked whether the Government has interfered with the discretion and control of the approved societies by limiting the amount which they may spend on administration expenses to 3s. 8d. per member; whether the Government took any steps to satisfy itself that this sum is sufficient to pay adequate remuneration to insurance agents who are employed to do the work of approved societies; and whether the Government has given any consideration to the repeated complaints of insurance agents that their remuneration for such work is inadequate?
    Mr. W. BENN: As regards the first part of the question, I would refer my hon. Friend to Section 35 (2) of the National
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    Insurance Act, 1911; and, as regards the second part, to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for North Islington on the 16th March. As I have previously stated, my right hon. Friend is of opinion that he cannot properly interfere in this matter.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Is it a matter of absolutely no concern to the Government whether the 50,000 agents, who are employed in the administration of the Act and whose work has made the Act successful, are adequately paid or not?
    Mr. W. BENN: No, Sir. What I said was that the Commissioners cannot properly interfere in this matter.

    TRANSFER VALUES.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked, in the case of a woman who joined an approved society and became an insured person on 15th July, 1912, who paid contributions until 25th March, 1913, when she married and was suspended from receiving ordinary benefit, and who did not become a married woman voluntary contributor, whether she is entitled to have two-thirds of her transfer value set aside for the purpose of making payments to her of 5s. a week during confinement during a period not exceeding four weeks on each occasion; and what is the amount of the total sum which would be set aside in such a case?
    Mr. W. BENN: If my hon. Friend will furnish me with full particulars of the case which he has in mind I shall be pleased to send him the information desired.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON EVANS: Is it not a fact that no reserve values have yet been credited to any women's society; and, until they have, is it possible to give them any such benefit?
    Mr. W. BENN: I could not without notice say whether any reserve values have been credited.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether, in the case of a woman who entered insurance at twenty-five, as stated here, two-thirds of her transfer value would be set aside fox the purpose indicated; and, if so what would be the amount?
    Mr. W. BENN: No, I cannot add to the information given in the Act itself. There are several circumstances, as well as age, which would determine the amount.

    SANATORIUM BENEFIT.
    Mr. F. HALLasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he will give information with regard to the case of a youth named Youatt, a contributor under the National Insurance Act, who has been turned over to the South Stoneham guardians by the Southampton insurance committee; when Youatt commenced to contribute to the Act; how long his contributions continued and the total amount paid by and on his behalf; when he first applied for sanatorium benefit; the date when his application was dealt with, and the nature of the benefit accorded him and the period for which it lasted; the reasons for his being compelled to leave the sanatorium; the total cost to the insurance committee of dealing with his case; the date when he entered the union infirmary; and whether any contribution has been or could legally be made towards his upkeep by the insurance committee?
    Mr. W. BENN: The person referred to applied for sanatorium benefit on the 17th September, 1913, and this application was considered on the same day. He received domiciliary treatment from the 17th September to the 17th October, on which day he was sent to a residential institution. Treatment at this institution was discontinued in his case on the 17th January, 1914, for the reasons already stated in my previous reply to the hon. Member, and he applied to the relieving officer on the 2nd February. The rest of the information asked for is not available. The insurance committee are not empowered to make any contribution to the cost of maintenance or treatment in Poor Law institutions.
    Mr. F. HALL: Had this poor man been restored to health and strength on the 17th January?
    Mr. W. BENN: I should like notice of that question.

    Transvaal Small Holdings Commission.
    Mr. WEDGWOODasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the Report of the Transvaal Small Holdings Commission and their recommendation to introduce a tax on land values in order to make land available for farming purposes at reasonable prices; and if he will propose similar steps with a similar object in this country?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second, I can add nothing to my statement of yesterday.

    Super-Tax.
    Mr. CASSELasked whether, in cases falling within Section 11 of the Revenue-Act, 1911, it is necessary, in order to prove that Super-tax is payable by the wife, and what is the proper proportion payable by her, that her husband's income, or figures from which her husband's income can be ascertained, should be disclosed?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The Section to which reference is made provides that in cases where it is not found possible to obtain a satisfactory return of the wife's income from the husband, the Special Commissioners may call for a separate return from the wife, and make a separate assessment upon her. From the figures of this assessment it would, no doubt, be possible for her to infer those of the assessment on her husband.
    Mr. CASSEL: Is the husband's income in these cases disclosed to the wife?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I could not tell: the hon. Member exactly without notice.

    Local and Imperial Taxation (Departmental Committee).
    Mr. WATSONasked whether there is any intention of dissolving the Departmental Committee on Local and Imperial Taxation without inquiry by them into the circumstances and requirements of Scotland?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I fear I can add nothing to the reply which I gave on the 16th March to the hon. and gallant Member for Midlothian.

    Small Holdings (Scotland).
    Mr. CATHCART WASONasked the Secretary for Scotland if his attention has been called to the application of a number of residents at South Cunningsburgh, Shetland, for the enlargement of their present holdings; and whether, in view of the circumstances of the case, he will at the earliest possible moment send a representative of the Board of Agriculture to make full inquiry into the position?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): My attention has been called to the case referred to by my hon. Friend. The Board of Agriculture for Scotland is at present in communication with the landlord.

    Shops Act (Edinburgh and Leith).
    Mr. CURRIEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether the town clerk of Edinburgh, under date 9th May, 1912, gave expression to the opinion that tradesmen in Edinburgh were at liberty to sell fresh butter and fresh eggs on weekly half-holidays, and that the sanitary inspector in Leith, which place for such purposes is practically indistinguishable from Edinburgh, has prohibited such sales in Leith; and whether he will consider the advisability of putting an end to this difference of practice, which is regarded as operating hardship in Leith?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I am aware that an opinion to the effect mentioned has been expressed by the town clerk of Edinburgh. I understand that subsequent to the date of that opinion a prosecution against a Leith trader was taken as a test case in the Sheriff Court of Midlothian, when it was decided that eggs were not perishable articles within the meaning of the Second Schedule of the Shops Act. This decision has been taken by the local authority of Leith as ruling the case of fresh butter also. The question is one of interpretation of Statute, which it is for the Courts to decide, and I have no authority to give a binding opinion on the subject.

    Uganda.
    Mr. CATHCART WASONasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether it is the policy of His Majesty's Government to preserve to the natives of Uganda the land that was already reserved to them by the treaty made with Sir Harry Johnston in 1900; and whether, in view of the consequences to natives which have invariably followed the alienation of their reserves, he will refuse to sanction further alienations of land?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Harcourt): Under the agreement which was entered into by Sir Harry Johnston with the Baganda in 1900, large tracts of land were granted as freehold estates to the natives, and it is not an infrequent occurrence for a native to hold eight square miles or more, of which
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    only a small area is under cultivation. As a rule the native possesses neither the means nor the desire to develop his large holding. The procedure for the alienation of such land to a non-native purchaser is as follows: The consent of the native council has first to be obtained, and then the application is referred to the Governor, who, before giving his approval, carefully considers the purchase price, the amount of land in the possession of the native, and the amount he will retain if the sale is sanctioned. I understand from the Governor that the native council are fully alive to the desirability of land being retained by the Baganda, and scrutinise carefully all sales before giving their sanction. The general rule is that a native is not allowed to sell more than half the area allotted to him under the agreement. Information regarding the amount of land disposed of in this manner is given to Parliament in the Annual Report of the Protectorate.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: Arising out of that answer, may I ask whether the Governor will take steps to reserve sufficient land for the future increase of the native population?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Yes, I have no doubt that forms one of the elements in his consideration of the matter.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: Will my right hon. Friend be good enough to instruct the Governor in that direction? This question of the alienation of the land is rather important at the present time.
    Mr. HARCOURT: If my hon. Friend will communicate with me on the subject, I will consider what communication I will make to the Governor.
    Mr. JAMES HOPE: Is any part of this undeveloped square mileage subject to Un developed Land Duty?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I believe not at present.

    East African Protectorate (District Commissioner).
    Sir WILLIAM BYLESasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to the allegations of Mr. Drought before the Labour Commission of the East African Protectorate that the District Commissioner, the Hon. K. Dundas, tortured a native by burning his tongue with a hot

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    knife; and what action was taken when this incident was reported to the administrative authorities?
    Mr. HARCOURT: The matter was reported to me by the Acting-Governor at the time, and it is clear to me that the original charge was maliciously brought and was without foundation in fact. What happened was this: A native chief was investigating a case of cattle theft in the presence of the District Commissioner, Mr. Dundas. The chief called on the accused of his people to go through the native form of ordeal by fire by licking a hot knife. Mr. Dundas did not prohibit this procedure, but took care that the knife was not sufficiently heated to burn the tongue of the accused. The Acting-Governor was of opinion that Mr. Dundas had committed an error of judgment in admitting this method of trial, and severely censured him. In my opinion the action taken was sufficient.

    Somaliland.
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can give the House any information regarding the defeat of the followers of the Mullah in Somaliland?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I have received no information on the subject, and therefore discredit the report.

    Scotland Yard (Criminal Investigation Department).
    Mr. WEDGWOODasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the special or political branch of the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard forms a part of the Metropolitan Police, and is under the authority of the Commissioner?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): There is no "political" branch of the Criminal Investigation Department. As regards the special branch, the answer is in the affirmative.

    Old Age Pensions.
    Mr. WEDGWOODasked the Home Secretary, with reference to the case of John Smith, of Tunstall, who escaped from the workhouse in workhouse clothes, was imprisoned for technically stealing those clothes, and so lost his old age pension, whether, seeing that the workhouse
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    master, on whose report it was that his-conviction was not quashed and his pension restored, has since been sent to prison, he is now prepared to reopen the case?
    Mr. McKENNA: After full consideration of the circumstances, I am sorry that I must adhere to the decision that the case is not one for a free pardon. The suspension of right to pension will end in August next.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that, as the officer upon whose report he refused to allow this man a free pardon, has himself been sent to prison for gross illegalities, he might reopen the case and allow the man to have that part of the pension of which he has been unjustly deprived?
    Mr. McKENNA: No, Sir. I went fully into the circumstances of the case, and I was bound to come to the conclusion that John Smith was not a man to whom a free pardon should be given.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: I know the man very well. He is a very decent man.
    Mr. WATSONasked the Secretary to the Treasury to whom an old age pensioner should apply for payment of the weekly orders which have been inadvertently mislaid by such pensioner and not found until more than three months had elapsed from the due date of the last order, and as to which the local pension officer has declined to receive or transmit to his superiors any representation?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Montagu): On the facts stated payment of the orders in question-would prima facie be precluded by the pro visions of Section 5 (b) of the Old Age Pensions Act, 1911, but if the hon. Member will communicate the full facts to the Board of Customs and Excise, inquiry will be made.

    Police Pay.
    Mr. F. HALLasked the Home Secretary the minimum and maximum rates of pay for sergeants and constables in the case of the following police-authorities: Metropolitan Police, City of London, Liverpool, Sheffield, Bristol,. Edinburgh, and Glasgow; and in each case whether these rates apply to all the men in the force or only to those possessing a certain number of years' service?
    Mr. McKENNA: If the hon. Member will allow me, I will circulate the figures with the Votes.—[See Written Answers this date.]
    Mr. F. HALL: May I ask whether the pay of the Metropolitan Police is smaller than in many of the other provincial towns?
    Mr. McKENNA: Of course, the hon. Member is right so far as the substance of the pay goes, but when he considers the terms of the pension, the prospects of the police, and also the housing, I am not sure that the conclusion which he wishes to draw is the correct one.

    Registration Act, 1874.
    Mr. HIGHAMasked the President of the Local Government Board whether the regulations in regard to uncertified deaths recently issued by the Registrar-General, with the approval of the Board, have not been issued in the manner provided for in Sections 44 and 48 of the Registration Act, 1874; and whether he proposes to withdraw the regulations?
    The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Herbert Samuel): I am aware of the provisions contained in the enactments referred to. The requirements of Section 44 of the Act of 1874 refers to Orders made in pursuance of that Section. These were not such Orders. The answer to the last part of the question is in the negative.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    SHEERNESS DOCKYARD (SHIP PAINTERS).
    Mr. WHELERasked the First Lord of the Admiralty the wages of ship painters of His Majesty's dockyard, Sheerness; and when the last rise in wages was given to ship painters?
    The CIVIL LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. G. Lambert): The rates range from 32s. to 34s. in the case of established, and 30s. to 33s. in that of hired men. The last improvement in wages was granted on 1st October last.
    Mr. WHELERasked how many ship painters at Sheerness dockyard are on he establishment; and when the last ship painter at Sheerness dockyard was established?
    Mr. G. LAMBERT: The answer to the first part of the question is six; to the second 1st June, 1912.
    Mr. WHELER: Is it not a fact that whereas there have been rises, generally speaking, throughout the dockyard, the ship painters have not had a general rise in wages for a good many years?
    Mr. G. LAMBERT: I do not think that is quite accurate, but, if the hon. Member will kindly put down a question I will refresh my memory on the point.

    ROYAL FLYING CORPS.
    Mr. GRETTONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if one of the dirigible balloon sheds at Farnborough, after being taken over by the Admiralty from the War Office, was found to be of insufficient height; if the shed is being raised by the Admiralty; and if he can state the probable cost of the necessary alterations?
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Churchill): The airship sheds at Farnborough are only intended to house small ships for training purposes. It is under consideration to remove these sheds to another site, and if this is done, it may be found convenient to slightly alter and improve them at the same time.
    Mr. GRETTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that workmen employed by the War Office are engaged in finishing one end of the sheds while workmen employed by the Admiralty are engaged at the other end razing them, and, if not, will he make inquiries?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I will, indeed, inquire if anything of that nature is taking place.

    OIL FUEL.
    Mr. F. HALLasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will state the total number of battleships, battle cruisers, second-class cruisers, and destroyers, respectively, now in commission which are equipped for the use of oil fuel; if a record has been kept to show how the running costs of such vessels compare with those equipped for coal consumption; and, if so, whether it has been found that oil fuel has proved more economical than coal?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I must refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave the Noble. Lord the Member for Portsmouth on the 18th February, and to the statement I made to the House when introducing the Navy Estimates.
    Mr. F. HALL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in that reply there is no answer given to the last part of the question, and will he kindly give the reply?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir, I have nothing to add to the statement which I then made.
    Mr. F. HALL: Is the House to understand that it is not entitled to ask which is the best means, either coal or oil fuel, for the use of the ships of His Majesty's Navy?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, Sir, that would be a very proper question, but I cannot deal with it at Question Time. I have frequently addressed myself to it at other times.

    India Office (Conditions of Service).
    Mr. KINGasked the Prime Minister whether an Order in Council can be issued by which the conditions of service in the India Office may be made those which are obligatory in other departments of the Civil Service?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): To make the Order in Council of January 10th, 1910, applicable in its entirety to the establishment of the India Office, the Secretary of State for India would have to initiate an Order in Council, as his establishment is not under Treasury control. I understand from him that he is not disposed to consider the matter until His Majesty's Government has decided the action to be taken on the Report of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service.
    Sir J. D. REES: Is not the India Office admittedly well managed? If the answer to that is in the affirmative what can be the object in altering it in search of uniformity?
    Mr. KING: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a great amount of suspicion owing to the fact that other Departments in the Civil Service have been the subject of inquiry, while the India Office has not?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I can only repeat that the Secretary of State is not disposed to consider the matter until the Government has decided on their action on the Report of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service.
    Colonel YATE: Would it not be much more advantageous for officials of the
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    India Office to be interchangeable with the Indian Civil Service?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I should not like to answer that off-hand.

    Committee of Imperial Defence.
    Mr. GRETTONasked if records of the Reports considered, the subjects submitted, and minutes of the decisions arrived at are kept by the Committee of Imperial Defence?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Yes, Sir.

  GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.

    CIVIL AND MILITARY FORCES.
    Lord ROBERT CECILasked the Prime Minister whether he proposes to take any steps to give effect to his approval of the suggestions put forward by the First Lord of the Admiralty last Tuesday?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I am taking the steps which seem to me most likely to conduce to a possible settlement.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Is the House of Commons to be allowed to have no voice in this matter at all?
    The PRIME MINISTER: This House has ultimate control.
    Lord ROBERT CECILasked whether the Government propose to continue Sir Nevil Macready's appointment as resident magistrate; if so, whether he will be able in that capacity, in case of civil disturbance, to call upon himself as a miltiary officer to give assistance to the civil power; and whether it is proposed, in any case of apprehended disturbance elsewhere, to make the commander of the troops a magistrate?
    The PRIME MINISTER: As I have already stated, it is not intended that Sir N. Macready should supersede the local authorities. The object of his appointment was, and is, that, in case of necessity, he should be in a position to co-ordinate the actions of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the troops. It would still be open to and the duty of the local authorities to call upon the military to assist the the civil power. Although the last part

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    of the question is based on a hypothesis, and I cannot therefore give a definite reply, I think that the answer is in the negative.
    Mr. DILLON: Has the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been called to the precedent set by the appointment in 1887 of Sir Redvers Buller by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour), with full control over the police authorities throughout Ireland?
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to answer the second part of my question: Will Sir Nevil Macready be able in that capacity, in the event of civil disturbance, to call upon himself as a military officer to give assistance to the civil power?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I thought I had answered that. It is not the intention at all. The intention is that the civil magistrates shall still be the persons to call upon the military and to accompany the troops.
    Mr. DILLON: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my question and say whether, in the case of Sir Redvers Buller and other divisional magistrates appointed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London, they had full authority, apart from the civil magistrates, to control both the police and the military?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I believe that is so. But that is not an exact analogy, because Sir Redvers Buller was appointed Under-Secretary.
    Mr. HARRY LAWSON: Will the Chief Commissioner of the Royal Irish Constabulary at Belfast be directly under the command of General Macready and report to him?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Not under his command, but under the command of the head of the Royal Irish Constabulary, but he will be in close contact with him.
    Mr. JAMES HOPE: What was the opinion of his Majesty's then Opposition on the appointment and powers of Sir Redvers Buller?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I should have to look that up.
    Viscount HELMSLEY: What steps have-been taken to carry out the intention just expressed by the right hon. Gentleman if it should be necessary to call upon a civil magistrate to act?
    The PRIME MINISTER: We rely on the civil magistrates to do their duty. I hope the occasion may never arise.
    Viscount HELMSLEY: But has it been made clear to General Macready that he is not to usurp the position of the civil magistrate?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No question of that kind has arisen. In cases of great urgency he will act as a civil magistrate.
    OTHER MEMBERSrose—
    Mr. SPEAKER: Further questions must be put down. I think we have exhausted this.
    Mr. F. HALLasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if the application of the Admiralty of 19th March to Messrs. Norman, Hallett, and Company, for the profile and general arrangement plans of the steamship "Bright Wings" was connected with the precautionary operations which were then being taken against Ulster; if similar applications were made to any other steamship owners; and if at the time any other and, if so, how many vessels for transport purposes were at the disposal of the Admiralty and free for immediate use?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir.
    Mr. F. HALL: Is it not very significant that these owners should have been asked for the profile of this ship, and that it must have been well known that it was the only one unchartered at the time, and therefore the only one that could be utilised by the Admiralty?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I have answered the question in the negative.
    Mr. F HALL: And I have asked a supplementary question.

  BRITISH ARMY.

    LIMERICK BARRACKS (PAINTING CONTRACTS).
    Mr. JOYCEasked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the repeated complaints made by the trade societies of Limerick against the man who has the contract of the painting, plumbing, and other work of that kind at the military barracks at Limerick; whether he is aware that this contractor is contravening the Fair-Wage Resolution of the House of Commons by the manner in which he is employing what are called handy men, at less than the standard trade union wages of the district, to do the painting and plumbing work at the Limerick barracks, and whether the War Department will put a stop to this practice of evading the Resolution passed by this House by men of this kind who do not want to pay a fair wage?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Baker): About two months ago on investigation it was found that the work under this contract was satisfactorily done, and that the recognised rates of the district were being paid in accordance with the Fair-Wages Clause.
    Mr. JOYCE: Has the hon. Gentleman made any inquiry into the complaints made by the trade societies in Limerick that they see this thing going on every day under their own eyes?
    Mr. BAKER: Yes, Sir, full inquiry was made, and this is the result.

    SPECIAL RESERVE AND TERRITORIAL OFFICERS (MUSKETRY COURSE).
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINEasked whether it can be arranged for Special Reserve and Territorial officers to have the same privileges of obtaining officers' tickets from Hythe to London as Regular officers when attending a musketry course?
    Mr. BAKER: An endeavour was made to obtain this privilege for Special Reserve and Territorial Force officers in 1909, but without success. It is not a matter which the Army Council can press upon the railway companies.

    Dwelling Houses.
    Sir ARTHUR GRIFFITH - BOSCAWENasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Report of the Commissioners
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    of Inland Revenue giving the figures showing the increase in the number of dwelling-houses under £20 yearly value for the year 1912–13 has yet been published; and, if not, whether he will state the source of the figures given upon this subject on page 72 of the recently issued Report of the Land Inquiry Committee?
    Mr. MONTAGU: The figures referred to were given by my right hon. Friend in this House as early as the 16th February last in reply to a question from the hon. Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire.
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Have the figures been published and circulated?
    Mr. MONTAGU: All answers to questions are published and circulated.

    Port of London (Watchers).
    Mr. F. HALLasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state the average weekly earnings of watchers in the Port of London during the three months preceding the coming into force of the new Order of June, 1913, as to the rates of pay of this class; and the average weekly earnings of the men affected by such Order for the three months subsequently?
    Mr. MONTAGU: The figures asked for are not available, and their preparation would involve a good deal of labour. In any case they would not be strictly comparable, as the amount of overtime work, which affects the average overtime earnings, is not a constant but a varying factor.
    Mr. F. HALL: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman state what are the ordinary wages of watchers? That is all I ask. There are only about 1,500 of them, and surely it would not require an enormous amount of work to get out the information.
    Mr. MONTAGU: The hon. Member asks for the average weekly earnings, and that would necessitate the calculation of overtime. I am not prepared to ask the Inland Revenue authorities to do it.
    Mr. F. HALL: Is it because they are so small a number that their voting power does not command much attention from the Government?

    School Attendance (Birkenhead).
    Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education whether his attention has been called to statistics recently laid before the Birkenhead education authority which show that from free schools in Birkenhead one child in every 180 was summoned for non-attendance, whereas from the fee-charging schools one in every eighty was summoned for non-attendance during the last six months; that from free schools one child in every eighty has to be provided with free meals while in fee-charging schools one in every forty was so provided; and whether, in view of these figures, which show the greater poverty and worse attendance of the fee-paying schools, he will urge on the Birkenhead local authority to abolish all fees in their elementary schools?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. J. A. Pease): I have not seen any statistics of the character described by the hon. Member. With regard to the last part of the question, I may refer the hon. Member to my answer to a similar question put to me on 14th April, a copy of which I am sending him.
    Mr. KING: Will the right hon. Gentleman try and find out from the local authorities, if he cannot accept the figures from me?
    Mr. PEASE: I shall be glad to communicate with the local authorities if the hon. Member desires.

    Land Purchase (Ireland).
    Mr. BOLANDasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the Trent Stoughton estate, near Waterville, has not yet been vested in the tenants who purchased their holdings several years ago; and the reason of the delay and give approximately the date when the transfer will be completed?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): This estate is the subject of a direct sale under the Irish Land Act, 1903, and the holdings were vested in the purchasing tenants on the 15th April, with the exception of seventeen in the Town-lands of Kilmackerrin East and West. Having regard to the congested condition of these lands, the Commissioners are not prepared to vest them in the tenants, and they are in communication with the Congested Districts Board with a view to ascertaining whether the Board will purchase them.

    Belfast Police Court (Exclusion of Public).
    Mr. WEDGWOODasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland why the Press were excluded from the suffragette trial in the Belfast Police Court on Tuesday, 21st April; and by whose orders this was done?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I am informed that on the occasion referred to the public and the Press were excluded from the Court by order of the resident magistrate under the powers vested in him by Statute.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: Are we to understand that in Ireland the resident magistrate has power to try a case in camera?
    Mr. BIRRELL: No person, with the exception of the attorney or counsel has the right to enter the Court except with his permission.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that serious charges have been made regarding the arrest, without warrant, and searching of this woman?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I am not aware of that.

  POST OFFICE.

    NORTH END (HENDON) POST OFFICE.
    Mr. MALLABY-DEELEYasked the Postmaster-General whether the Post Office at North End, Hendon, has ceased to exist; and whether, in view of the fact that the nearest post offices are now two miles apart, entailing each week considerable hardship on old age pensioners in-being forced to climb a hill to obtain their pensions, and considering the new and additional duties imposed on all householders by the National Insurance Act, he will see the necessity for restoring immediately North End, Hendon, to the dignity of possessing its own Post Office?
    The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Captain Norton): It was necessary to take the office out of the hands of the late sub-postmistress, and it has not hitherto been practicable to find a successor. I shall be pleased to reopen a post office in the locality as soon as a successor is forthcoming.
    Sir J. D. REES: When is the Postmaster-General going to make the conditions of service of sub-postmasters sufficiently attractive to enable him to find a successor.
    Captain NORTON: That has nothing to do with the question.

    National Education (Ireland).
    Mr. HUGH BARRIEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether, under the new scheme of the National Board of Education, the first grade teachers are allowed variation in attendance of thirty-five, and second grade of thirty, without loss, but the first-class teacher suffers if there is a fall in his average attendance of even one unit; and whether, seeing that such conditions create dissatisfaction and lower the general quality of the service, he proposes to take any action in the matter?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The hon. Member appears to be under a misapprehension. The Commissioners of National Education inform me that the salary of a teacher is not reduced until the average attendance falls, in the case of a first-of-first grade teacher from seventy to below thirty-five, in the second of first grade from fifty to below thirty-five, and in the third grade from thirty to below twenty. The reference to the case of a first-class teacher is not understood, as classification was abolished in 1900. When the average attendance in the case of a teacher of any grade falls to the minimum, it is evident that a further drop of even one unit will result in a loss of salary.
    Mr. HUGH BARRIEasked when it is proposed to give effect to the recommendations of the recent Vice-regal Committee of Inquiry into Irish primary education?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Commissioners of National Education have the recommendations of the Vice-regal Commission at present under consideration. It cannot be stated when a decision in regard to them will be arrived at.
    Mr. HUGH BARRIEasked the Chief Secretary whether, under the former system, national school teachers in Ireland were classed third, second, second-of-first, and first-of-first, the successive steps being attained by examination and good school-keeping, second-class requiring an average attendance of thirty pupils, first-class and first-of-first requiring an average of thirty-five pupils; whether to first division of first-class was attached the highest salary attainable by a teacher, and it usually took a teacher ten to fifteen years to reach the first division of first-class, whether under recent changes the average attendance of first grade was raised to seventy from thirty-five; whether the effect of this change is to abolish 4,000 positions carrying the highest salary, and has reduced
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    hundreds of teachers formerly classed first-of-first to second and even third grade under the new scheme; whether after the new scheme was brought into operation an assurance was given by the National Board that no teacher would suffer under it; and what steps he intends to take to have justice done to the teachers who have been penalised?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Commissioners of National Education inform me that the facts are generally as stated in the first paragraph of the question. Under the former system the first-of-first class salary was the highest obtainable, but there was no fixed time for a teacher to attain that rank—many teachers never reached it. The average attendance for the present first-of-first grade is seventy, and for the second of first-grade fifty, but in neither ease is the salary reduced unless the average falls below thirty-five. No equitable comparison can be drawn between the salaries of the old first-class and the present first grade. The latter represent much more than the former, as they include the equivalents of results fees, gratuities, etc. The effect of the change of system is not as stated in the fourth paragraph. There are many more highly-paid teachers in the service now than before the change. The Commissioners claim that they have fulfilled the promise given in the circular issued in 1900, that every teacher in the service on the 1st April of that year would be awarded an income equal to the average amount drawn from State sources during the previous three years. The matter is not one in which I can intervene.
    Mr. HUGH BARRIEasked the Secretary whether, under the new scheme of the National Board, teachers of the highest qualifications suffer severely both in salary and in pension by a fractional fall in the average attendance of their pupils; whether this presses with harshness on a large number of teachers with first-class records who are stationed in the country districts where there has been a general decline in population; whether there is any precedent in public service for reducing gradings, salaries, and pensions as is at present being done; whether he has addressed representations on the subject to the Commissioners, and with what result?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Commissioners of National Education inform me that the average attendance necessary to warrant

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    the grant of a salary of the first division of first grade is seventy or over. The salary, however, is not reduced unless and until the average falls below thirty-five. The pension rights of teachers are not necessarily affected by a reduction in their incomes. The Commissioners are not aware that this rule presses with undue harshness on any considerable body of teachers, and they do not admit that the gradings, salaries, and pensions of teachers are being reduced under the present Regulations. The answer to the final paragraph of the question is in the negative.
    Mr. HUGH BARRIE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this Report has not been applied to the model school teachers?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I believe that is so.
    Mr. HUGH BARRIE: Why should this discrimination be made?

RAILWAY BILLS (GROUP 3).
Mr. Soames reported from the Committee on Group 3 of Railway Bills; That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned till Monday next, at half-past Eleven of the clock.
Report to lie upon the Table.

LOCAL LEGISLATION COMMITTEE (SECTION A).
Mr. Middlebrook reported from the Local Legislation Committee (Section A); That the parties promoting the Sheffield Corporation Bill had stated that the evidence of Mr. William Booth Bryan, Engineer to the Metropolitan Water Board, Savoy Court, London, W.C., was essential to their case; and, it having been proved that his attendance could not be procured without the intervention of the House, he had been instructed to move that the said Mr. William Booth Bryan do attend the said Committee upon Tuesday next, at half-past Eleven of the clock.
Ordered, That Mr. William Booth Bryan do attend the Local Legislation Committee (Section A) upon Tuesday next, at half-past Eleven of the clock.

PRIVATE BILLS.
South Suburban Gas Bill,
Reported, with Amendments.
Leave given to the Committee on Group O to make a Special Report.
Special Report brought up, and read.
Report and Special Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Isle of Thanet Gas Bill,
Reported, with Amendments [Title amended]; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Wadhurst and District Gas Bill,
Tees Valley Water Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Private Bills (Group C).
Sir Harry Samuel reported from the Committee on Group C of Private Bills; That Mr. France, one of the Members of the said Committee, was not present
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within one hour after the time appointed for the meeting of the Committee this day.
Report to lie upon the Table.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
Sir Daniel Goddard reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee A (in respect of the Education (Administrative Provisions) Bill): Mr. Attorney-General and Mr. Herbert Lewis; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the said Bill): Mr. Joseph Pease and Mr. Trevelyan.
Sir Daniel Goddard further reported from the Committee; That they had added to Standing Committee A the following Fifteen Members (in respect of the Education (Administrative Provisions) Bill): Dr. Addison, Mr. Alden, Sir Henry Craik, Mr. Denison-Pender, Mr. Field, Mr. Walter Guinness, Mr. Hoare, Mr. Holmes, Mr. Jowett, Mr. Lough, Mr. O'Donnell, Mr. Parry, Mr. Peto, Sir J. D. Rees, and Mr. Rowntree.
Sir Daniel Goddard further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee A: Earl of Ronald-shay; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Gibbs.
Sir Daniel Goddard further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee A (in respect of the Motor Traffic (Street Noises) Bill): Mr. Attorney-General; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the said Bill): Mr. Herbert Samuel.
Sir Daniel Goddard further reported from the Committee; That they had added to Standing Committee A the following Fifteen Members (in respect of the Motor Traffic (Street Noises) Bill): Sir William Collins, Mr. Dixon, Mr. Du Cros, Mr. Field, Mr. Haslam, Mr. Jowett, Mr. Joynson-Hicks, Mr. Morison, Captain Murray, Sir Henry Norman, Mr. O'Donnell, Mr. Arthur Stanley, Mr. Stewart, Mr. Arthur Strauss, and Mr. Cathcart Wason.
Sir Daniel Goddard further reported from the Committee; That they had appointed the following Member to Stand-Committee B: Mr. Albert Stanley.
Reports to lie upon the Table.

BILLS PRESENTED.
  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT (1913)
    AMENDMENT BILL.
    "To amend the National Insurance Act, 1913." Presented by Sir EDWARD BEAUCHAMP; supported by Mr. Russell Rea, Mr. Peto, Mr. Cathcart Wason, and Mr. Charles Duncan; to be read a second time upon Tuesday, 19th May, and to be printed. [Bill 224.]
    PUBLIC HEALTH ACTS (BUILDING BY-LAWS) AMENDMENT BILL.
    "To amend the Public Health Acts with respect to Building By-laws." Presented by Lord ROBERT CECIL; supported by Sir Hildred Carlile, Mr. Henry Maclaren, Sir Charles Nicholson, Mr. Ormsby-Gore, and Sir Tudor Walters; to be read a second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 225.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  RULE OF ANTICIPATION.
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): I beg to move, "That, in determining whether a discussion is out of order on the ground of anticipation, regard shall be had by Mr. Speaker to the probability of the matter anticipated being brought before the House within a reasonable time."
  I do not propose to say more than a very few sentences in explanation of the Resolution. It is now exactly seven years since a Select Committee of this House, over which I had the honour of presiding when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer, considered this matter. We unanimously agreed to a Report, the principal recommendation of which is textually repeated in this Resolution. I need not go into the past history of the matter, which is some what obscure, because it is one of the many peculiarities of our Parliamentary procedure that this Rule or practice, now so well established and of late years so constantly applied, or, as some would say misapplied, does not rest upon the authority of any Standing Order. It has been evolved in the course of time, and, indeed, is of comparatively recent date, and, like the common law of this country, by the dicta and revisions of successive Speakers. I think I am right in saying, if my memory he accurate, that it is not to be found
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  even in the "Journal" beyond the tenure in your Chair, Sir, of Mr. Speaker Dennison, not very much more than sixty years ago. But that it is now a well-established Rule of Parliamentary procedure we are all only too well aware, and the possible abuses to which it may lead have never, I think, been more signally illustrated than during the last two or three Sessions.
  It is a curious paradox that the practice or Rule, as is pointed out in the Report of the Select Committee, was intended to serve a very useful purpose, namely, to prevent a Member from forestalling unfairly discussion by moving a Motion for the Adjournment on any matter of which notice had already been given, either by a Notice of Motion or by the introduction of a Bill. That, I think, was a possible abuse which makes it undesirable to abrogate altogether the Rule against anticipation. In practice, particularly of recent years, it has been perverted to the precisely opposite purpose. In fact, as we know well, from our experience of recent years, it enables a man, by putting down, I will not say a bogus notice, but a notice which he really intends to give effect to, to prevent any discussion whatever on a matter, which may be of the highest urgency and importance. I want to deal with the matter in a purely non-controversial spirit, and I do not think there is any difference of "opinion on either side of the House as to the necessity of reforming our procedure in this respect. The Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil) anticipated it by putting down a Motion in precisely similar terms. He was a member of the same Committee by which the matter was discussed and which came to a unanimous conclusion. We thought then, and I think now, acting, as we did, on the advice of persons skilled in the procedure and practice of this House, and of the additional knowledge gained for our own personal experience, that the best way of dealing with the matter is not to abolish the practice. There are undoubted cases in which, if no such practice existed, there might be very great-abuse. Frivolous Motions for the Adjournment might be encouraged, and a Member who had honestly given notice of his intention to deal, either by Notice of Motion or by Bill, with some matter of urgent public importance, might be forestalled, and opportunity altogether removed by the action of some more or less irresponsible person. On the other hand, it is perfectly plain that the Rule in its

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  present naked and absolute form reduces the proceedings of this House to something in the nature of an absurdity, and even more than an absurdity. We saw a recent illustration which was, I suppose, intended to make plain to all who can run and read, the absurdity of the Rule by which a number of hon. Members putting down Motions which dealt with almost every conceivable topic of public interest.
  Mr. PRINGLE: They were not entirely successful.
  The PRIME MINISTER: That only shows that the most perfect human ingenuity is not always capable of foreseeing everything. It was intended that no possible subject which could conceivably fall under the purview of discussions should be raised. I am told the only-thing they left out were the Mental Deficiency Act and Wick Harbour. It must be a very fine net that no fish could escape through. With a little more practice they would have obviated the possibility of even such a small loophole as that. To speak quite seriously, it is time we brought this state of things to an end. Neither the dignity nor the interest of the House is served by the continuance of such a practice and I hope I shall have with me practically the universal assent of the House when I ask them to adopt the pew Standing Order in the form which the Committee recommended, which is now on the Paper. I think that will be found to meet all the necessities of the case. I see that there are one or two Amendments down. That in the name of my hon. Friend (Mr. Booth), that Mr. Speaker should have regard to "all the circumstances of the case and particularly to," is, I think, a little vague and might seem to circumscribe the new Rule, at least to make it too elastic to be useful for its purpose. The other is by the Noble Lord (Viscount Helmsley), that Mr. Speaker should have regard to the public interest. I think the Noble Lord himself put a question when the Clerk of the House was under examination. The Noble Lord asked—
  Whether it is desirable in the public interest that there should be unrestricted power of discussing anything in the House of Commons? I rather gather that you do not think that any restrictions ought to be placed upon the power of moving the adjournment on that ground."
  The reply was:—
  'What I feel is that it would be dangerous to confer such power upon the Government because any Government
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  would be tempted to abuse it and say that it was not for the public interest that a particular matter should be discussed. I should not like to entrust such a power to the Speaker, because I think it would be imposing upon him the invidious duty of determining whether it was or was not in the public interest that a matter should be discussed."
  I think that is a consideration which the Noble Lord ought to bear in mind, whether he is not casting upon the Speaker a duty in the exercise of which, though we may repose the utmost confidence in the manner in which it was exercised by you. Sir, the Speaker is required to pronounce judgment on what may be a very delicate question. I suggest, therefore, that it is really better in the interest of the House and the dignity of the Chair to relieve Mr. Speaker of that duty, and to fashion the proposed change of the Rule in the manner I have suggested. I am quite sure neither you nor any successor you may have in the Chair would shrink from performing that duty if the House in its wisdom thought fit to entrust it to you. The duties of the Chair are so great and laborious and so increasingly complex and responsible that, although I am not speaking in any controversial sense, I should myself rather hesitate to advise imposing upon Mr. Speaker that fresh obligation. I think, on the whole, having regard to the unanimous report of the Select Committee and to the fact that the experience of the three years which has since elapsed tends to show that this is an increasingly urgent matter, in the interest of the dignity and efficiency of the House of Commons, the House will do well to accept the Resolution as it stands.
  Mr. BOOTH: I do not propose, after what has been said, to move the Amendment, of which I gave notice, to insert the words "all the circumstances of the case and particularly to" before the words "the probability of the matter anticipated being brought before the House within a reasonable time." I would like to say that, in my view, the Resolution itself will not solve all the difficulties. I have picked out, since I have been a Member of this House, ten instances of Blocking Motions, and I am not at all clear that they come under the head of "anticipation." Members, to my knowledge, have put down blocking notices deliberately because they did not desire that a question should be reached, others because they did not wish the Member who would bring forward a question should be the person to introduce it, and others because they could not attend

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  when a question was coming up and who wished it to come on at a time when they could be present. I put these under the head of public reasons for what they are worth. But there have been cases where a Member, being chagrined because he has failed to catch the Speaker's eye, has put down a notice on the Paper to block a subject. I am pleased to say that, in one instance, the Member on reflection took off the notice. These are cases which may be classed under the head of retaliation, and it is surely an open secret that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who sit on the Front Benches on both sides have not always been hostile to the placing of Blocking Motions on the Paper. I do not wish it to go abroad that these Blocking Motions are merely brought forward by factions. Sometimes a Minister does not wish to be detained on a holiday Motion, and sometimes the Member who would be the principal speaker on the other side does not wish to be detained by the Debate until the time when it might be his duty to answer. One can see very many points in regard to which ingenuity maybe exercised in the bringing forward of Blocking Motions deliberately, but, of course, there are a large number which come about inadvertently. I would like to point out as an illustration the National Insurance Act administration. Suppose there is a proper and legitimate notice on the Paper to arraign the Government's administration of health insurance, I say that is no reason why a Member should not bring forward on the Motion for the Adjournment his own complaints about the administration of the Act. I submit that some of the Blocking Motions are very wide. If a Member puts down a Motion dealing with the administration of the National Insurance Act, although it may well be that the hon. Member wants to deal with medical benefit or casual labour almost entirely, I do not think the mere fact that the Motion will come on in a week or two should deprive any Member of his right to arraign the Government upon the general administration of national health insurance, because that is a point which would probably not be touched at all in the subsequent Debate In regard to many of these large questions, I say that a notice on the Paper should not deprive any Member of the Opposition, or any supporter of the Government, of the opportunity of raising urgent questions at any time on a Motion for Adjournment at night, or on a Motion for a Holiday Adjournment,
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  if he believes that it is in the interest of good administration throughout the country that these questions should be brought forward and discussed. I put my Amendment down in order that Mr. Speaker might have the power to protect any Member of the House if he thought at any time that a Member was being deprived of his right of legitimate criticism, whether in the immediate future or at some more remote time. It was in that spirit I acted when I gave notice of the Amendment.
  Viscount HELMSLEY: I beg to move, after the word "the" ["to the probability"], to insert the words "public interest and to the."
  I still feel inclined to move the Amendment in spite of what the Prime Minister has said. I move it in no hostile spirit to the Motion. I quite agree that the time has come to deal with the question of Blocking Motions, which have been used to an absurd extent. I am in full sympathy with the movement that there should be a reform in that direction. It appears to me that by carrying the Prime Minister's Motion as it stands the House would be depriving itself of a power which it ought to possess to stop a discussion when that discussion would be dangerous to the public interest. As a general principle I think we should protect the rights of the private Member. A private Member should be, able to discuss any matter upon a Motion for Adjournment, but at the same time we all know very well that occasions do arise, especially with regard to foreign politics, and matters of very grave concern, when an incautious word spoken by any Member of the House might do infinite harm. It is in cases of that kind that a Rule of this nature ought to be able to operate, so that a discussion raised probably contrary to the wishes of the majority of the House by a single Member might be stopped. I remember that during the whole time of the Balkan crisis we were frequently told by the Prime Minister that it was not advisable to say more, or to have any further discussion. One can imagine that when foreign affairs are in an acute and delicate position a Debate in this House might do a great deal of harm, and ought to be avoided. If that can be done by putting down a Blocking Motion, I think it would be a good and legitimate use of it, because if the discussion took place foreigners might take a wrong view of the opinion of this House, on account of something said which was merely the

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  opinion of an unimportant private Member. A good deal of harm might be done to the House in that way.
  It depends entirely on circumstances whether a discussion should be allowed, and that is what I have in my mind in moving the Amendment. That is why I think this is a matter of some importance. The Prime Minister has said that it is putting a great responsibility on Mr. Speaker. I am aware of the tendency of the House nowadays to put further responsibility on Mr. Speaker, but I do not think that this responsibility would be as great for the occupant of the Chair as he has already been asked to undertake. What would be the procedure? The Minister would give Mr. Speaker reasons why he thought it was not in the public interest to discuss a particular subject. Mr. Speaker would be able to judge whether they were adequate or inadequate, and therefore the Minister would have the protection which was necessary from his point of view. I do not think that the responsibility would be so great as the Prime Minister suggested. May I remind the Prime Minister that some time ago the Government conferred greater responsibility on the occupant of the Chair, because, by what is called the "Kangaroo" Closure, the Chairman of the Committee can select the Amendments to Bills which are to be moved? That imposes a greater tax on the impartiality of the Chairman than anything suggested by this Amendment. In that case I do not think it is desirable, but in this case it is in the public interest, and I do think the Amendment would be highly beneficial.
  Sir J. D. REES: I beg to second the Amendment. The reasons which have been stated by the Noble Lord appeal to me. I can remember occasions when discussions on Russia, the Congo, India and Persia have been prevented in this House, which, if they had proceeded, would inevitably have given, as I think, a false impression of the opinion of this House. At any rate, they would have made it appear in those foreign countries that the opinion in this country was that represented by the particular Member who brought forward the subject. The Blocking Motions which have prevented such discussions have not been unwelcome to the greatest purist in Procedure sitting on the Ministerial Front Bench. I think that the Prime Minister
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  when he said that there was no actual Rule to justify this process, overlooked for a moment the fact that many of our most valued institutions are not based upon any rule or Standing Order, and I submit, as regards the serious responsibility thrown on the Chair, that, even by the Prime Minister's Motion, that responsibility is thrown on the Chair, and that there is really no very great difference between the words of my Noble Friend in that respect and those of the Prime Minister, except that the words of my Noble Friend are preferable as they give the Chair some opportunity of enabling a private Member for a good and worthy object to block a discussion which it may be the general opinion of the House it would be well to avert.
  Colonel SEELY: As I was a member of the Committee presided over by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister which made the recommendation embodied in the Resolution now before the House, and as we then discussed the point raised by the Noble Lord in the Amendment, I am anxious to say one word. Although I know that the House is practically agreed upon the general question, still a definite question of importance is raised by the Noble Lord in his Amendment. I may say at once that I think that the House would be well advised to reject the Amendment of the Noble Lord. It so happens that during my official life I have had charge of more than one of those matters to which the Noble Lord referred, especially the Official Secrets Act, in which it was considered very desirable to have little discussion, and to have matters passed with exceptional rapidity, so much so that I rather doubt whether the particular method to be adopted commends itself to you or to other officials of the House. Nothing struck me more in dealing with these matters which I have had to do than the fact that the House responds with extraordinary readiness—indeed, I sometimes thought with too much readiness—to any appeal in the public interest. I think apart from the point raised that it would throw an unfair burden on you; I can go further and say that if we ever appealed to this House not to raise a discussion on a matter because it is not in the public interest to do, we will never appeal in vain.
  The Noble Lord said that one incautious word might be used which would damage our official relations, but no arrangement

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  such as he proposes could prevent one incautious word, or half a dozen incautious words, or a great many more which might be uttered at Question Time, above all, or on other occasions. The real point is: Are we going deliberately to block Debates in this House by giving any authority, however exalted or impartial, the power of saying that the House shall not talk what it pleases? I am sure that it would be a fatal error. The only safe rule is to make this House absolute master of its own fate, and if it wishes to discuss a matter which the Minister or anybody else considers to be a delicate matter which should not be discussed, that it should have the power to commit an indiscretion if it pleases; because by giving that absolute power there is no doubt that the safeguard automatically imposed will be far more potent than any device which you can adopt to check discussion. Experience has shown that the device suggested by the Noble Lord is unnecessary. On reflection I am sure that he will agree that experience has proved that to be the case in the past. I therefore suggest respectfully to the House that they would be well advised to reject the Amendment which he has proposed.
  Lord ROBERT CECIL: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. I do not think that the Amendment of my Noble Friend is a desirable Amendment. The truth is that if a Minister does not wish to discuss a matter he can always refuse to discuss it, and, so far as any other Member of the House is concerned, ha cannot stop him from talking about it if the hon. Member wishes to do so. If he cannot talk about it here, an hon. Member can talk about it outside, and what he says outside may do just as much harm as if it were said in this House. Therefore, I am myself against, limiting discussion in an artificial way on matters of public interest. Apart from that, I confess that when listening to my Noble Friend I was struck with his statement that he would willingly trust the Ministers of the day, and that they would go to the Speaker and explain that discussion was not desirable, because unscrupulous Ministers, if you can imagine that such people could exist, might go to the Speaker and say, "We cannot explain fully to you the reason, but we do think that it would be very disastrous to have this subject discussed in the House"; and a Speaker might feel that, if he disregarded that warning, he might be doing a
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  great deal of harm to the country, and, if he complied with it, he might be doing a great deal of harm to free discussion in this House. I venture to think, therefore, that the Amendment is not a desirable one, and I hope that the House will not accept it. I wish to say one word of thanks to the Prime Minister for introducing this Motion. The matter is one in which I have taken a great deal of interest for some years. I think that it was originally raised by my friend, Mr. George Bowles, when he was a Member of this House, and I think that I had something to do with raising the matter in the early part of 1906, and the right hon. Gentleman gave us very valuable assistance.
  The PRIME MINISTER(who was indistinctly heard): I hope that the Noble Lord (Viscount Helmsley) will not press this Amendment. I quite recognise the force of what he said, but it would be undesirable to lay down that if the House desired it was not to be able to discuss these matters. I think that there is great force in what the Noble Lord who has just sat down (Lord Robert Cecil) has said—that it is possible to picture a time, which, as he says, would not be corresponding to the time in which we live, in which we might have a Ministry devoid of scruple, and not animated by the strictest regard to the public interest and a single-minded sense of public duty, and it might be very difficult for the occupant of the Chair, if one of that hypothetical Ministry in future were to suggest to him that the raising of a particular topic was not in accordance with the public interest, to disregard it. He could hardly be indifferent to a suggestion of this character made by a Minister of the Crown occupying a responsible position, and although I do not quite agree with what the Noble Lord has said, that what people say outside this House bas the same weight or influence as what they say on the floor of the House—I do not go quite so far as that—yet I do agree that persons who are determined to make certain statements can make them. I think, on the whole, that the Noble Lord would be well advised to withdraw his Amendment.
  Viscount HELMSLEY: As my Amendment does not seem to meet with acceptance on either side of the House, I will take the Prime Minister's advice, although I am not altogether convinced by what he has said.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  4.0 P.M.
  Mr. JAMES HOPE: There is one matter which I think is rather vague. Might I ask what interpretation the Prime Minister would put on the words "reasonable time"? Does he mean in the space of time before the next holiday adjournment, or what does he mean? I do not know whether it would be possible to put it more exactly, but the words seem to be so very inexact that they might mean any day before the end of the Session.
  The PRIME MINISTER: As the hon. Member knows, we can always rely on the discretion and authority of the Chair.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Question, "That this be a Standing Order of this House," put, and agreed to.
  Resolved, That, in determining whether a discussion is out of order on the ground of anticipation, regard shall be had by Mr. Speaker to the probability of the matter anticipated being brought before the House within a reasonable time.
  Resolved, That this Resolution be a Standing Order of this House.—[The Prime Minister.]

  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (DEFECTIVE AND EPILEPTIC CHILDREN) BILL.
  As amended (in the Standing Committee) considered.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (DEFECTIVE AND EPILEPTIC CHILDREN) BILL.

    NEW CLAUSE.—(Certification of Children.)
    Section one of the principal Act shall be construed and have effect as if the following words were added at the end of sub-Section (3) of that Section:—
    "Such duly qualified medical practitioner shall, if so directed by the local education authority, before giving a certificate under this Section, consult the head teacher of the school, if any, which the child has been attending, or such other person as the local education authority may appoint for the purpose, and a copy of any report made by the head teacher or such other person shall be forwarded to the local education authority."
    Clause brought up, and read the first time.
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. J. A. Pease): I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
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    The object of the Clause is to carry out a suggestion made to me in Grand Committee, and also by representations in the country. It is thought desirable that in addition to the notice of certification to the medical man there should also be a notice of certification to the head teacher of any child who is defective. I see that there is no opposition whatsoever to this proposal, and therefore, without further words, I beg to move.
    Mr. GEORGE THORNE: I have an Amendment upon the Paper in the same direction, but I am very grateful to the President of the Board of Education for moving his Clause, which is one that considerably develops mine and makes it more satisfactory.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

    NEW CLAUSE.—(Discontinuance of Certified School.)
    In the event of a local education authority proving to the satisfaction of the Board of Education that the average attendance of mentally defective children at a certified class or school provided by such authority has during the previous three years been less than fifteen, it shall be lawful for such authority to discontinue the maintenance thereof, and thereupon the authority shall make such alternative provision for the mentally defective children belonging to their area as the Board of Education, after consultation with such authority, may approve.
    Clause brought up, and read the first time.
    Mr. PEASE: I beg to move "That the Clause be read a second time."
    It is framed with a view to carrying out the wishes of the hon. Member for Wilton (Mr. C. Bathurst), who has a similar Amendment on the Paper. There are two or three small variations in his Clause which make it desirable that, it should appear in the form in which I have placed it upon the Paper. There is no opposition to it, and I simply move.
    Mr. CHARLES BATHURST: The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the new Clause which stands on the Paper in my name. I am bound to say that, so far as I have read his Clause, it does not seem

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    to meet the case which my Clause is intended to meet. The object of my Clause is to render it unnecessary for the local education authority to retain the machinery set up by this Bill in the event of their being less than fifteen children in attendance at the day school during the previous three years. Surely that point is not met by the new Clause which the right hon. Gentleman has just moved.
    Mr. PEASE: Yes; I think it is. The words of the hon. Member's Clause would mean this, that upon any particular day, owing to a storm or stress of weather, the attendance at any time might fall below fifteen, and then there would be no justification for the school; but my Clause makes it quite clear that it has to be an average of less than fifteen during the previous three years, in order to justify the closing of the school.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause read a second time, and added to the Bill.

    NEW CLAUSE.—(Return of Certificate.)
    When a child is discharged from a special school or class on the ground that he is no longer mentally defective the local education authority shall return to the parent of the child any certificate certifying that the child was mentally defective, and such certificate shall not be received in evidence ill any legal proceedings without the consent of the child or its parent.
    Clause brought up, and read the first time.
    Mr. G. THORNE: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a second time."
    The object of the Clause is that when the local education authority shall have decided that a child is no longer defective, the certificate shall not be in any way used adversely to his interests. The suggestion at first was that it should be cancelled, but, on further consideration, it was considered that the interests of the child would be better served by its being landed back to the parents, and not allowed to be used in evidence against the child, except by consent of the parents or the child's personal desire. As this proposal is in the interests of the child, I trust the President of the Board of Education may be willing to accept it.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. PEASE: I take no objection to this Clause, and propose to accept it, but I think its right place in the Bill would be after Clause 4.
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: I believe I am right in saying that the certificate which is issued when a child goes first to a special school is annulled when that child is returned to the ordinary elementary school. Under the present law, if a child is returned from a special school to the ordinary elementary school, then before the child can be sent to a special school again a new certificate has to be issued. I do not quite see the object of this new Clause. It will not do away with the record that the child has been to a mentally defective school. I take it that under the Regulations which the Board of Education has framed, there is going to be a register of the mentally defective. Under the Regulations which the right hon. Gentleman has issued to the local education authorities in the country, the education authority is asked to notify to the local authority under the Mental Deficiency Act every child in its area, that not only comes within the Act but which may come within the Act. This proposal is going much further than the Mental Deficiency Act really intended last year, and I should like to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that it is really not of much use to accept this Amendment moved by the hon. Gentleman behind him, because it means absolutely nothing, I think the right hon. Gentleman knows that perfectly well. I want to know from him whether he means the local education authority to report to the authority which was set up last year under the Mental Deficiency Act, and which has to report all children which are and may possibly be mentally defective in their area, and I should like to know, further, whether that authority which was set up last year is going to have a register of defective persons or persons that may possibly become defective? That is the first question.
    If that be so, the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me that it is not of much use returning this certificate to the parent. The second point I wish to put to them is this: The right hon. Gentleman says that if this certificate is returned, on no occasion would it be possible for it to be brought up against the child as showing that it was ever at a school for the mentally defective. That is the object of this Clause. I should like to point out that it would involve a really great hardship that

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    it should never be possible for the certificate to be brought up. It might happen age in after life, the person might commit a crime, and it might be that the defence that at the age of eighteen, twenty, or any desired to bring up, as a mitigating circumstance, that the accused, when a child, was at one time considered mentally deficient. Therefore we may be going too far if we say that under no circumstances whatever shall the certificate be brought up against a child who had once been admitted to be mentally deficient. The right hon. Gentleman is very often too anxious to accept amendments because they get him out of a slight or temporary difficulty; he wants to get his Bill; but I urge him, before accepting the Amendment, to consider very carefully what it really means.
    Mr. PEASE: With the indulgence of the House I will say a few words to show the real bearing of this proposal. It is often found that these apparently defective children, after they have been in the school for some time, are only sufferers from dullness of faculties and from their having been under improper conditions, and the experience is that, after a little training, they become normal. It seems to us, who have considered this matter very fully, that in the case of those children who have developed after being trained and taught in some of these special schools, and it has been proved that they are only backward children and not really mentally defective, it would be very hard upon them if in after life they were going to be marked as mentally defective, although they had been discharged from the special school as normal children. Therefore we suggest that the certificate of mental deficiency should not be brought up against the person in after life, because at one time he was backward and sent to one of the mentally defective schools for a period in his early life. It is solely in the interests of these children that I accept this Clause, and I think no danger is likely to ensue from it. In the event of a child developing into a perhaps dull individual in after life, it might be desirable in his interest, at the wish of the parents, that the certificate should be brought up, and, in that event, with the consent of the child or the parent, the certificate could be alluded to. I might give an illustration of it, namely, that of a child who, having become a young man, is brought up for some particular crime.
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    It was thought, in the interest of the person, that allusion should be made to the fact that at one time he was a dull and backward child, and in that case it would still be open for the certificate to be referred to, but only with the consent of the individual or the parents. I believe it is in the interests of backward children that a provision of this kind should be included in the Bill, and I hope the House will accept it.
    Mr. RENDALL: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain the manner in which the certificate is to be got after it has been returned to the parent of the child should it be required for production in a Court of Law? Will a register of it be in the hands of the local education authorities?
    Mr. PEASE: No doubt there will be a record of the certificate in the hands of the local authority.
    Lord ALEXANDER THYNNE: The right hon. Gentleman assumes that the return of the certificate to the child's parent wipes out all record of the child having been at a mentally defective school and that that certificate may not be brought up against him again. I quite admit that is true if you read the Bill as it stands alone, but it must be read in conjunction with the Regulations under the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913. Under those Regulations it is laid down that a dossier shall be kept of each individual case. I should like to point out that the mere keeping of a dossier is in itself very repugnant to a great many Members of the House, and if we had known on Standing Committee C that a Regulation of that sort was going to be grafted on to this Bill, then I venture to think we would have taken a very-different view of the position of the mentally defective child. I would also like to point out that the Regulation which practically enacts the keeping of a dossier is contrary to the intention of Parliament. It was originally brought forward in the Mental Deficiency Act of 1912, and it was suggested that a dossier should be kept. Such was the feeling expressed in all quarters of the House with regard to the keeping of a dossier of this sort with regard to mentally defective children, that the provision in that Act was struck out by the Government themselves. It did not reappear in the Bill of 1913, and we all thought that this question of the keeping of a dossier was dead for good and all. What hap-

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    pened? The Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 was passed by this House on the assumption that this question of a dossier was dead. This present Bill is brought forward with no mention of a dossier, and we pass it through Standing Committee C on that assumption. After the Bill has passed through Standing Committee C, and when it is no longer possible for us to consider this point, these Regulations are brought forward.
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is now speaking of Regulations made under an Act of last year. He must bring his observations into relation with this Bill.
    Lord A. THYNNE: My point is that the Regulations issued under the Act of 1913 cover the child contemplated under this particular Section. The right hon. Gentleman suggests that by passing this Clause we obliterate once and for all any record as to the child having been mentally defective. I submit that the mere fact of this dossier, which is bound to be kept under the Regulations, stultifies the whole of the proposal with regard to the record as contemplated by this new Clause. I think that this Clause does not meet the objection we have got with regard to the permanent record of a child having been mentally defective.
    Mr. PEASE: If I may say so, I will take care that the matter shall be so framed as to meet the views expressed by the Noble Lord.
    Lord A. THYNNE: Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman is withdrawing his proposal, or does he say that the Regulations regarding a dossier under the 1913 Act do not apply to children contemplated in this particular Clause?
    Mr. PEASE: It is not intended that they should apply. It is, of course, a little difficult to deal with these Regulations which are not before the House. I believe the matter is going to be raised to-night after eleven o'clock, and I shall be very glad to deal with the subject then, when it will be in order.
    Lord A. THYNNE: Surely I understand that those Regulations are now in force from 30th April?
    Mr. PEASEwas understood to dissent.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause read a second time, and added to the Bill.

    CLAUSE 1.—(Duty to Provide for Education of Mentally Defective Children.)
    (1) It shall be the duty of the local education authority, for the purposes of the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Act, 1899 (herein called the principal Act), to make suitable provision, either alone or in conjunction with another local education authority, for the education of children belonging to their area whose age exceeds seven years and who are ascertained to be mentally defective within the meaning of the principal Act, and accordingly after the words "they may" in Sub-section (1) of Section two of the principal Act there shall be inserted the words "and in the case of mentally defective children whose age exceeds seven years shall":
    Provided that the duty of a local education authority under this Act shall not include—

    (i.) A duty to make provision for boarding and lodging a mentally defective child unless the Board of Education are satisfied, after considering the report of a duly qualified medical practitioner approved by the Board under Section one of the principal Act, and after consultation with the local education authority, that suitable provision for the child's education cannot be made in any other way, and unless the Grants payable out of moneys provided by Parliament in respect of a mentally defective child so boarded and lodged amount to not less than one-half of the cost of educating, boarding, and lodging that child (including in the case of a school provided by a local education authority expenditure out of income by the authority by way of interest on or repayment of capital raised, or by way of rent or other similar payment, for the purposes of the provision of the school); or

    (ii.) A duty to establish a certified school for boarding and lodging mentally defective children, unless the Board of Education are satisfied after considering such reports, and after such consultation as aforesaid, that there are not less than thirty such children belonging to the area for whoso education suitable provision cannot be made in any other way.

    (2) Sub-section (6) of Section 2 of the principal Act and the Elementary Education Amendment Act, 1903, are hereby repealed.
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the words "another local education authority," and to insert instead thereof the words "other local education authorities." This is practically a drafting Amendment, and will make a particular point quite clear. I think it is an Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman really intended to accept on Committee.
    Mr. HILLS: If these words are accepted will they not prevent a local education authority from combining with less than two other authorities?
    Mr. PEASE: I understand that the words cover either one or more. If they do not I will see that they are altered.
    Viscount HELMSLEY: Why could you not put in the words "one or more local education authorities"?
    Mr. PEASE: The words proposed are similar to words used previously, and if we adopted a different form now lawyers would want to know what justification there was for an alteration of the words from those used in previous Statutes.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "the" ["for the education of children"], to insert the word "voluntary." I was not on the Committee that considered this Bill, but I do desire to have this Amendment made. There are two sorts of voluntaryism—
    Mr. PEASE: I suggest it would be more convenient if this point could be raised on an Amendment to Clause 4, which I think also stands in the name of the hon. Member. That is a Clause which deals with the duty of the parent. Clause 1 deals with the duty of the authority, and I submit it would be more appropriate to have the question of interference with parental lights raised on Clause 4 rather than now.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: The question comes up again on Clause 2, and I think it is necessary, if we are to discuss whether the education is to be voluntary or compulsory, that the matter should be dealt with at the earliest possible moment when the powers are actually imposed upon the local authority. If we pass this sentence
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    giving these powers to local authorities, I feel that we cannot reasonably or so satisfactorily deprive them of compulsory powers under Clause 4, and therefore, that it would be to the satisfaction of the House to debate the question at the earliest possible moment.
    Mr. SPEAKER: "The voluntary education of children" would mean that you would have to ask a child of seven years whether he wished to be educated or not.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: It is as to the parents alone.
    Mr. SPEAKER: That would not be "the voluntary education of children."
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: In the past when education was voluntary, that meant that the parents might send their children or not. It seems to me if we put the word "voluntary" in here that then we make it voluntary, and that it is the only way in which we can provide that this form of education in residential establishments for mentally defective children is a voluntary system of education, and that no compulsory powers are conferred upon the local authority to enable them to actually compel the attendance of children at those residential schools. I think that this is not only the place where it ought to be discussed, but that the House ought to come to a decision on this question at the earliest possible moment, and that they ought to come to that decision on the ground that we do not want to have children taken from their parents at the age of seven and immured in these residential schools. I move this Amendment on the ground that more and more the people of this country are getting tired to death of the elaborate amount of inspection and control which we here in Parliament decree. It is not as though we were passing laws for ourselves; we are always here passing laws which do not affect us in the least, but which do affect people who have very little power of voicing their resentment against the Acts we pass. What does this mean if it is passed? It means in a rural district, particularly, where it is impossible to have schools in each locality, that there will be residential schools set up in a big county, perhaps sixty miles long and forty miles wide, and such a school may be forty miles away from the home of a child, a mentally defective child of seven who will be sent there. The House knows perfectly well that poor people dislike very

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    strongly having their children sent away to school. They have not got the same traditions that we have of sending children to public schools or residential schools at ten years of age. They keep their children at home, and to have a child taken away, not merely at ten years of age, but actually at seven, seems to be a piece of real tyranny which they resent very bitterly. In addition there is the fact that a child taken away under these circumstances is deemed to be slightly defective, and therefore is a child to whom the mother is more particularly attached.
    That being so, I think we ought to be very careful before we make this form of education compulsory. It seems to me that the powers given under Clause 4, where the parents are allowed to object; are not strong enough. They take away with one hand what is conferred with the other. If the Government genuinely desire not to coerce the parents in such a way, then surely this would be the place to put in the voluntary provision, and not wait for the exceptions provided for under Clause 4. In Clause 4 it is "provided that no order shall be made requiring the child to be sent to a certified class or school which is not within reach of the child's residence or to a boarding school without the consent in writing of the parent." That is admirable, and I am very much obliged to the President for putting those words in, but he will observe that no sooner has he made that concession, admirable concession, than he takes away with the subsequent proviso the principal benefit of that concession, because the Clause goes on to say, "unless it is proved to the satisfaction of the Court that such consent is unreasonably withheld." What on earth that means the Court alone is to decide.
    Many magistrates, I do not blame them, genuinely think that they are better able to judge what is for the welfare of the child than are the parents of the child. They believe that they are inspired by providence and by superior education to decide what a child ought to do and what ought to be done to a child. Human nature being what it is, these magistrates may very naturally decide that the objection of the parents is absolutely unreasonable, that they are not acting in the interests of the child, and that therefore no attention ought to be paid to them. We know how difficult some benches make it for the man who conscientiously objects to vaccination. They take advantage of everything in the Act to prevent exemptions
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    being granted. Here, too, these words will make it very possible for magistrates holding certain views to overrule the wishes of the parents. If, however, it it definitely laid down that this education is to be voluntary, the whole difficulty will fall to the ground, and there will be enormous saving of time and trouble, both to the Board of Education and to the courts. How many cases will be affected by this proposal? Probably in ninety-nine cases out of 100 the parents will be very glad for the State to take charge of their defective children. Is it worth while, in order to rope in the remaining 1 per cent. and to compel the parent who has a particular affection for his child to send that child to one of these schools, that this compulsory power should be given? If my Amendment is accepted, you will require less cumbersome machinery, you will not be committing what I can only describe as an outrage on the affectionate parent, and you will not lose the benefit of this Bill in regard to ninety-nine out of every 100 children concerned.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I do not know whether the expression "voluntary education" really has any meaning at all. I should have thought that what the hon. Member really meant would be secured by the insertion, after the word "education," of the words "with the consent of their parents." But if he says that "voluntary education" is a term of art, and means education which is not compulsory, I will accept it.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: I am inclined to think that your words are better.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I will propose the Question, "That the word 'voluntary' be there inserted."
    Mr. HILLS: May I point out the effect of this Amendment? The Clause imposes upon local education authorities the obligation of making suitable provision for the education of mentally deficient children. If the word "voluntary" is inserted there will be an obligation to provide schools to which the mentally deficient children may go, or not go, as they like. The option is given, not to the parent, but to the child. I do not think the House wants that. It would be imposing on the local education authorities an absolutely impossible obligation. How could they say how many of the mentally deficient children within their area would want to be educated?

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    Most children, if they can avoid education, do so, and I do not think that mental deficiency increases the desire to be educated Therefore, you might impose the obligation of building a school to which no children would go.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: Might I withdraw my Amendment, and move the insertion of the words which you, Sir, have suggested?
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: I beg to move, after the word "education" ["for the education of children"] to insert the words, "with the consent of the parents."
    Mr. PEASE: I hope the House will not agree to insert these words. The hon. Member, in his great interest in these children, will really do them serious injury if he secures the insertion of these words. Either it is good for these children to be educated, or it is not. In 1870 Parliament determined that all educable children should be educated, and from that time to the present the tyranny of which the hon. Member has spoken has existed in this country, and all children of school age have been obliged to be educated. But with the experience we have gained under the Act of 1870, we have found that there are a certain number of educable children who hitherto have escaped education because they were regarded as mentally deficient. Some of them are merely backward; some, whilst they remain dull and mentally deficient, are able to be taught how to maintain themselves and to become useful citizens. On the other hand, if they continue to be neglected as they are now, they frequently find themselves, if girls, in the maternity ward of the workhouse, while a large number drift into crime. From our experience we have proved that in nearly every case great good results from their being trained in these special schools. We have had considerable experience, as there are 12,000 children in these schools now. But 12,000 are still at large, and we propose that those who are educable should be educated. We do not want to send them, if it is avoidable, to residential institutions, which, of course, are costly, but there are cases where it may be necessary to do so. That, however, would only be done where it was impossible otherwise to make the necessary provision for the child's education.
    I submit that it is in the interests of the children themselves, as well as of the
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    parents, that these children who are educable should no longer be allowed to run at large, and very often to become a charge upon the State through the neglect of the authorities to educate them. I have endeavoured to look after the interests of the parents, so far as it is possible and practicable, in the provisions of the Bill. In Clause 4, as the hon. Member has stated, we insist upon the parents being consulted as to the provision to be made for the children. If they like to make any other provision, the authority will not make provision for them; but if the parents neglect to make the necessary provision, it will be the duty of the authority to step in and do so. A large number of these mentally deficient children are themselves the offspring of mentally deficient parents, and I do not think it is reasonable to leave it entirely to the wishes of mentally deficient parents whether or not their mentally deficient child shall be educated. I have endeavoured to meet the views of the hon. Member by insisting upon the parents being consulted. I believe that no Bill has ever been introduced in which more punctilious regard has been paid to the interests of the parents. In the event of a case ever being brought into Court, all the parent will have to do will be to satisfy the Court that he objects to his child being sent to one of these residential institutions because he bonâ fide believes that he is thereby benefiting the child. I hope, therefore, the Amendment will not be accepted.
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: I agree that the right hon. Gentleman has done a great deal to safeguard the right of the parents, but I do not think he is correct in stating that, this Bill does not propose to go much further than the Act of 1870. There is a great difference between sending a child to a day school and taking a child away from home and placing it in a residential school. I do not know whether the hon. Member (Mr. Wedgwood) wishes to make the whole of this Bill voluntary. If that is his intention, I shall not support him. I think, however, that it is very important that you should not send a child under ten years of age to a boarding school without the consent of the parent, whether that parent is mentally deficient or not. It is perfectly true, as the hon. Member has often stated, that this Bill affects only the children of the poor, and we know perfectly well that very often the child which is not quite normal and has great difficulty in looking after itself is the favourite

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    child of its parents, especially of the mother. To take away a child at the age of seven years and send it to a residential school might cause great hardship.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: With much shorter holidays than our children get.
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: The right hon. Gentleman referred to backward children. This Bill does not propose to deal with backward children at all; it proposes to deal with defective children. It makes the Act of 1899 compulsory, and that Act has to do with children who—
    "not being imbecile, and not being merely dull or backward, are by reason of mental or physical defect incapable of receiving proper benefit from the instruction in the public elementary schools."
    It deals not with backward children at all, but with a special class of mentally deficient children. That is all very well in the large towns, where you will be able to send all the children to day schools, and they will be able to spend the rest of the time with their parents. Only in very exceptional circumstances will you send children in a town to a residential school. But it is different in country districts. You cannot have day schools all over the country, and therefore you will have to have residential schools. In those cases proper safeguards are necessary. If the right hon. Gentleman can assure me that he does not propose to send away children under ten years of age—I have an Amendment to that effect later on the Paper—but that his proposal applies only to children above ten years of age, for whom no provision can be made in day schools, I shall not support the Amendment of the hon. Member opposite. But if the right hon. Gentleman cannot give me that assurance, I hope the hon. Member will go to a Division, when I shall certainly support him.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I trust that this Amendment will not be accepted. After all, the authority that under the principal Act has to decide who are mentally defective is the local education authority. If this Amendment were carried it would result in very great pressure being put, in certain cases, upon the local education authorities, or the county council's representative, in order to enable the child to be excused from school on the ground, not that he was backward, but that he was actually, to some extent, mentally defective. So long as you have got a compulsory
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    system of education in the country you must surely make it; apply to those children for whom the State provides education, whether they are normal or abnormal. If you allow a loophole to be made such as is here suggested, it seems to me that that loophole will be widened and that great pressure will be placed in certain cases upon the authorities to allow certain children to remain from school who ought to be there.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: I do not think I ever heard a poorer argument from an hon. Member. Our real argument is very much deeper. The President of the Board of Education says that this education should be compulsory in the interests of the community. If legislation in the interests of the community is to be our final touchstone as to whether or not we should pass a law, it would justify this or any other piece of tyranny you like. I believe that the touchstone of legislation should be whether a thing is just or unjust, and not whether it is in the interests of the community or otherwise. It may be urged, no doubt by some, that it is in the interests of the community that mentally defective people should be stamped out. It may, too, be in the interests of the community that people who are not necessarily mentally defective and who think that other people's ideas are wrong should be stamped out! There are many things of the kind in the interests of the community which are unjust. It is desired that the State should decide that in the interests of the community the child should be taken away from home ten months in the year and sent to a boarding-school. I do not care how much it is in the interests of the community, it still remains unjust; and I hope very strongly that there are a certain number of Members in this House who will vote against legislation which is brought in under this specious, but wholly fallacious, argument. We are always being told that we must commit some crime because it is in the interests of the community. I absolutely refuse to be a party to committing crimes in the interest of the community, for, in the long run, what is wrong will never be found to be expedient. It may be thought now that this sort of thing is desirable, but thirty, forty, or fifty years hence public opinion will change in this matter. Public opinion, however, does not change as to what is just and what is unjust. We ought not to be guided by our thought of what is expedient, but by what is just.
    Sir FREDERICK BANBURY: I am afraid I cannot agree with the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for the Wilton Division. So far as I understand my hon. Friend, he said, in effect, if this Amendment were put in, the result would be that certain parents who are desirous that their children should not be educated would say that they were mentally deficient, though, as a matter of fact, those children were not mentally deficient. How can they do that? If my hon. Friend will read the Clause he will find it applies to children who are ascertained to be mentally defective and within the meaning of the principal Act. Therefore it does not rest with the parent at all to say whether his or her child is mentally defective. It rests with the authority as defined under the principal Act. Therefore I am afraid that my hon. Friend—and I cannot really quite believe it—either has not carefully read the Clause or does not quite apprehend what the effect of the Amendment will be, or that he is desirous of removing from the parents the right of saying whether or not the child who is mentally defective shall be taken away from that parent and educated in the manner described by this Bill. I am a sufficient lover of liberty, even in these degenerate days, to hold that, after all, a parent should have some say in the way in which his child is to be educated. I hold that, even in the case of children who are not mentally defective—and I go much further in the case of the child who is mentally defective!
    If the father and mother are decent people—and I really do not know why it is to be assumed that people because they are poor are not just as good as people who are better off, who are rich, and to whom this Bill will not apply!—I do not quite know why it should be assumed that they are less desirous of looking after the welfare of their children than other parents. That being so, I think it is the parents who will know, especially the mother, whether the child is really in a fit and proper condition to go to school and be taught those things, the greater part of which the child will forget in his later days, and very few of which will be of any use whatever to him if he should fortunately get wiser and recover his mental balance when he gets older. I say, therefore, that the Amendment is an extremely good one. I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Durham City (Mr. Hills) a short time ago cheering when my other hon. Friend opposed the Amendment. Of
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    course, I know my hon. Friend the Member for Durham City thinks that the State should become father and mother and everything else to the children, should see that everybody is brought up in the right way, that their noses are blown at the right moment, that they are given milk and bread when it is good for them, and rice pudding ditto. But some of us are old-fashioned and do not agree with that dicta, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman opposite the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme still shows some remnants of that common sense that used to distinguish the Liberal party in days gone by, when it was the Liberal party in the true sense of the word.
    I do not quite know what attitude the Government is going to take up on this point. I suppose we shall hear something from the President of the Board of Education. The only reason that I can see for rejecting the Amendment is that if the Amendment is inserted the probable result will be that this Bill, like the rest of the Radical measures which the Chancellor of the Exchequer told us yesterday, were generally dead letters, will also be a dead letter; because the majority of parents will keep their children where they ought to-be—in their own homes and under their own control! I will make an appeal to the President of the Board of Education. If he will allow me to say so, I think really that he is a kind hearted man, and I am sure that he would be the last to say that the poor little child of seven or eight years—later I am going by an Amendment to try and increase that to ten years—should be taken away from his parents and put under the control of any particular teacher, however good that teacher may be. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman is a little bit inclined to think that there must be no Amendment to a Government Bill. Probably if I myself were in the exalted position of being on the Front Government Bench, I should be a little bit inclined to think that a Bill that I had drafted was a very good one, and had better not be amended. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not be actuated by that feeling, and that unless he has very strong feelings for the rejection of this Amendment—which I shall be delighted to hear—he will accept it. After all if the Bill amended did not work well it could always be altered. I would appeal to him therefore, to allow the parent to have some real voice in the destiny of the child. I note the Solicitor-General is present. I

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    do not know whether he is going to take part in the Debate, but I trust if he does he will also allow his better judgment to be exercised, and support this Amendment. I really believe that in what I am saying I am speaking in the interests of the Radical party. Not that I want to further Radical interests in the country, but I really do believe that this Amendment, if adopted, will do something to mitigate the antagonism which I am perfectly sure will result if this Bill should become an Act, and really be enforced.
    Lord HUGH CECIL: I have a very strong repugnance to legislation of this kind, and shall be glad to see some Amendment in the sense indicated by the hon. Member opposite. I draw, as the hon. Gentleman has done, a very sharp distinction between compelling the parent to send his child to a day school and compelling the parent to send the child away altogether. This latter really involves a degree of hardship which is appalling to contemplate. It is a harsh cruelty to take away a child—and especially a mentally defective child—both a cruelty to the child and a cruelty to the parents. To say that it is to be done in the interests of the community—and here I agree with the hon. Gentleman opposite the Member for Neweastle-under-Lyme—would justify legislation of a far more drastic nature, and methods such as our decadent predecessors adopted when they left unhealthy children out in the cold to kill them. I am not at all sure that such a course was not less cruel than the methods that we are proposing to-day. You are not entitled from motives of public expediency, however great, to inflict more than a certain amount of injustice of this kind on subjects of the King. To break the tender bond between a parent and a young child, and send that child away from its home, is unspeakable cruelty, and is a thing that ought not to be done in a humane and civilised country. I am afraid that I think the safeguard of the judicial procedure, which is relied upon, is not altogether a satisfactory one. The President of the Board of Education, in an answer, drew attention to the language of the Bill further on, where it says:—
    "No order shall be made … unless it is proved to the satisfaction of the Court that such consent is unreasonably withheld, or that the parent cannot be found, but consent shall not be deemed to be unreasonably withheld if
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    withheld with the bonâ-fide intention of benefiting the child."
    5.0 P.M.
    That, I quite agree, it is very desirable to put in, but there is this point which must be constantly in the minds of hon. Members: Poor people have not the same access to Courts of Law as the rich. They are shut out both by want of knowledge and education and by want of means. The procedure of the Law Courts probably seems to them something in the nature of the "Black Art." They do not understand much of it. They have no notion of what their legal rights are. If they do go to a Court of Law they are incapable of pleading their case in person because they have not the education which allows them to speak readily in public. They have not got the means of consulting a solicitor or a barrister. They are, therefore, quite defenceless before the law, and their mind is like that of a domestic animal in the presence of a wild beast. I had occasion to investigate a very touching and striking case in Leicestershire under one of those very oppressive Acts that now exist. It was a case in which the local education authority, in the exercise of an extraordinary policy, proposed to have the child operated on for a disease of the throat, adenoids, against the wishes of the parents. The parents were most respectable people, devoted to their child. Five minutes' conversation with the mother was enough to explain to me what the real reason of this objection was. It was the fear, rightly or wrongly entertained, of an unsuccessful result. They knew of other cases in which operations like that resulted in death. These poor people were prosecuted before the Petty Sessions. My attention was drawn to it. First, the magistrates were very unfavourable to the accused, and the case was adjourned in order to frighten those poor people and with a view to their giving way. I heard of the case, and I wrote an angry letter, and that produced a certain degree of public interest, and the magistrate, on the following Monday, completed the hearing and acquitted the parents.
    Thereupon the local education authority took the case to the High Court of Justice. It was in connection with that that I was particularly interested in the utter helplessness of those poor people in connection with the administration of justice. They received a notice that the case was down for hearing on a particular day in October. Nobody, except a trained

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    lawyer, would know that on that account it was going to be heard on a particular day in November. Now that was all they heard. The next thing they heard was that the Court, not having heard their side of the case at all, and only having heard one side, made an order that if the magistrates were satisfied that the prosecution was a reasonable one, they were to convict the accused. Thereupon the magistrates did convict the accused. At that point I ventured to take the whole case into my hands, and I employed a solicitor and counsel, and we were successful when the case came to be tried, and when the solicitor and counsel from London were got to examine the child, and we were able to prove quite successfully, to the satisfaction of the magistrate, that the whole prosecution was an unreasonable one, and that therefore they must acquit. But if this matter had not been brought to my notice at all these poor people would have been convicted, and there is most outrageous hardship in this case to such people.
    Rich people seem to think that poor people do not mind being convicted in a Court of Justice. The fact is they feel the indignation of it quite as much as any people in this House would feel it. This poor woman said to me, "I have been respectable all my life, why should I be brought up into a Law Court." It is most unreasonable that such a law should be applied to poor people. If rich people were treated in this way they would take the case from Court to Court, and they would tire out the local authority, for they would be resolved that their child should not be treated in such a way; but poor people are in the face of the law quite defenceless. These Acts are passed with the worst kind of all kinds of harshness, the harshness of good persons. Anybody who has studied humanity knows that the worst kind of harshness is the harshness of good persons, their consciences are besotted and blinded, because they know their motives and intentions are good. There should be a general alteration of the law. There should be some machinery set up by which there should be a person in every Court whose business it would be to take the part of the poor litigant, who should see that they should know what their legal remedies are. We need some alteration of the law altogether, but pending that I do think the proper rule in these cases would be to give the parents the
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    absolute right to refuse to send the child from home, unless, of course, the parents were of weak mind. The President of the Board of Education stated that many mentally defected children have mentally defective parents. Well, if the parent is so deficient that would alter the case. But short of that when the parent is capable of exercising a reasonable discretion he ought to be given the discretion to send the child from home or not, and in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred the parent will decide wisely. And because of the hundredth case are we to break away from sound principles of legislation and to apply a degree of coercion to poor people which we should never apply to rich people, and in many cases inflict cruel and tyrannical hardship upon those poor people.
    Mr. F. GOLDSTONE: Sometimes it is contended from these benches that there is one law for the rich and one law for the poor. That has been rather discounted from the other side of the House, but not by the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford. But we have to-day a complete justification of what is urged from these benches that there is in practice one law for the rich and one for the poor. It has been urged, too, from the other side that the kind of thing suggested in this Bill will apply only to poor children. But let us imagine what happens in the case of the children of rich parents. I assume, and I think it is a fact, that children of rich parents go as a matter of fact to institutions.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: Certainly not.
    Mr. GOLDSTONE: I think it is extremely likely they will. They will get the privilege of specialist treatment. We have to consider the child as well as the parent. That has been ignored altogether. The point made is whether we are going to look at this matter from the point of view of the parent or of the child. Frankly I look at it from the point of view of the child. I think we should be guilty of a dereliction of duty if we ignored the opportunities of sending these children into institutions where they can get proper treatment—in institutions established for the purpose. And, forsooth, because certain parents assume rights and say the child will get no benefit, or prefer to have the child hanging about the street door, and refuse the child that excellent treatment which may make it normal before long, they are

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    to be allowed to have their own way! Looking at it from the point of view of the child therefore, I think we must resist this Amendment and give the deficient child a chance of becoming normal as soon as possible.
    Mr. HILLS: The subject-matter the House is dealing with now is a child from the age of seven to ten years. I think it is admitted by all parties—I think the Mover admitted it, and I know my hon. Friend the Member for Stowmarket admitted it—that a child of ten years ought properly to go to a residential school. Now those, who say that seven is too young attack the provisions of the Bill upon two grounds.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Has not the hon. Member gone on to a wrong Amendment? Are we not discussing the question whether the word "voluntary" be inserted?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The Amendment is to insert the words "with the consent of the parents."
    Mr. HILLS: My hon. Friend the Member for the City of London attacked the Bill on the ground of liberty. He says the parents ought to decide whether the child should go at the early age of seven. I ask him to consider who are the people whose interest we ought to take into account. Surely it is not the parents, but the children. Every single reform brought about by legislation could be attacked upon the ground of liberty. Of course, we cannot carry reforms without infringing certain rights. All reforms mean, ex, hypothesi, restrictions of certain powers to be exercised. The question is ought the child to be left to the parents or go to school. The Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University goes much further. He quite supports my hon. Friend on the ground of liberty. He thinks that this Bill is worse than the practice of exposing weakly children, and he said in effect that the Bill commits a crime worse than murder, and imposes penalties worse than death. Does the House really think that? And when we have got to that point have we not got to the reductio ad absurdum? Does anybody think that a child sent to the best of schools, and getting the best of education, is worse than exposing that child to death by starvation? May I very respectfully say to my hon. Friends that they are in this matter disregarding the interests of the child. They do not pretend that the child is better brought up in
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    a small home, with insufficient facilities for education, and that that child when grown up is better off than the child trained at an excellent school. But they say there is the parent. It is so good for the parent that they should have the child. The child is made the scourge for the back of the parent, and the child will suffer. I do not think they mean that. I am sure if my hon. Friend had to deal with the case he would be a despot, and would submit to no parental dictation. Here we have these most excellent schools, where handicrafts are taught, where the low mental capacity of the child is developed and encouraged until finally, in a good many cases, the child is cured, and in nearly all cases it is taught some sort of handicraft. Surely that is a much better place for the child than the home! I appeal to the House to reject this Amendment.
    Lord A. THYNNE: My hon. Friend who has spoken has accepted what I think is the root fallacy at the back of the minds of hon. Members. They talk of those residential schools and assume that they are excellent schools. I do not want to dispute that, but let us be quite clear what they are. We call them residential schools. In a very large number of cases these schools are and, as they are developed, will become nothing less than child asylums. These schools are intended primarily for the mentally defective and for another class of children in an advanced stage of epilepsy. Everybody will recognise that to deal with the class of children intended for these schools would be far more the function of nurses than teachers, and these schools could be just as accurately described in an Act of Parliament as child asylums as schools. I venture to think that if they were so described in this Bill, the House would be very much more reluctant and more careful about the means of committing a child to such institutions than they are now when they are called by the gentler name of schools. With regard to the ordinary mentally defective child, which is well inside the category or the epileptic child suffering from the last stages of that disease, there can be no argument. I would remind the House that you are liable to send, and actually do send to these schools, a number of children who are considered mentally defective at seven years of age when really they are only cases of backward development. It is a great hardship to the child to send it without very great care

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    and circumspection to a school of this character unless you are quite certain that it is really mentally defective and not a backward child. The right hon. Gentleman talked just now as if these schools were going to be the exception, and that the majority of them were going to be day schools. In big centres there is no need to have residential schools, and as a matter of fact I do not think we have a single residential school in London for this class of children or certainly not more than one. On the other hand, in the country these schools will be the rule. In the case of your rural education authorities you will not have day schools. You cannot have day schools in the villages for mentally defective children or epileptic children. I confess that I share the reluctance of the hon. Member opposite to commit children to these schools without very great care indeed. On the other hand, I feel that there are certain difficulties in supporting the Amendment, because it includes day schools as well as residential schools. What will be the result of that method? A parent will be able to withdraw his child altogether from education if he can prove that it is mentally defective, and then the parent will enjoy a privilege which the parent of a normal child does not enjoy.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: They do not enjoy that privilege at the present time.
    Lord A. THYNNE: One of the objects of this Bill is to redress that inequality. The second effect of the hon. Member's Amendment is, as I understand it, to place the whole decision in the hand of the parent. That is a point on which I think a great many hon. Members will find difficulty in giving this proposal their support, because in a large number of cases the parents of this class of children are not entirely normal themselves. One would not go so far as to say that they were mentally defective themselves, but school attendance officers and the officials brought into contact with this class of parents will be ready to agree that those parents are less capable of forming a sound judgment with regard to the future of their own children than the parents of a normal child. One hon. Member referred to the case of rich children, and he stated that rich children who were mentally defective were invariably sent to institutions of this character. Personally, I challenge that view altogether. I think that the natural
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    tendency of all parents is to keep the mentally defective child at home, and it requires a great deal of compulsion or pressure from the State in the case of the poorer classes, or pressure from other relations in the case of the better-to-do parents, to persuade a parent to send a mentally defective child into an institution. There are no statistics available on this point, but we can draw an analogy from the case of mentally deficient adults. What is the experience in that case? In well-to-do asylums you find few mentally deficient adults who have not displayed or given signs of homicidal symptoms. The tendency in well-to-do families is to keep the mentally deficient adult at home so long as he is not dangerous or troublesome to manage. The same tendency obtains with regard to mentally deficient children, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to help us out of the difficulty in which some of us find ourselves. For these reasons we are reluctant to vote for this Amendment, because we feel certain, qualms about placing this power in the hands of the parent. If the right hon. Gentleman was to indicate that he is prepared to reconsider certification not being merely in the hands of medical practitioners, and if he would consider the question of a joint certificate signed jointly by a medical practitioner and by a specially selected teacher from a special school who has had experience of this class of children and who knows their symptoms from day to day observation; if he would give us some sort of undertaking of that character he would certainly help some of us out of the difficulty who are now in doubt.
    Mr. PFASE: I have endeavoured to meet that point. I have met the representatives of local authorities, and we have talked the matter over, and we have come to a general arrangement. Although we think the certificates should not be signed by teachers, we are of opinion that they ought to be consulted, and we have already passed a Clause which enacts that alteration, and other changes will be made with the same object in view.
    Lord A. THYNNE: I am aware of those negotiations, but I do not think the Clause we have passed meets the point raised by the local authorities on that matter nor the point I am raising. I am asking for two things. I am asking for a joint certificate, and that the right hon. Gentleman has not conceded. All he has conceded in the new Clause which he

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    persuaded the House to pass is that the certificate should be signed by a qualified medical practitioner, who, if the education authorities orders him to do so, may consult the head teacher of the school which the child attends. That does not meet our point on two grounds. In the first place, we want a joint certificate signed by the two parties; and, in the second place, we want the teacher to be a selected teacher who has had experience at a special school. I think hon. Members will agree that what the right hon. Gentleman has referred to does not meet the case. It dues not meet our case to take an ordinary teacher, with no knowledge of backward or mentally defective children, in a matter of this kind. We want a teacher with special and expert knowledge, and I cannot understand why the right hon. Gentleman will not concede that point. After all, I should have thought if there was one right hon. Gentleman or one hon. Member who would have appreciated the value of a teacher's experience, it would have been the President of the Board of Education, but it seems that he is prepared to ignore and to sacrifice the valuable fount of knowledge which he has got in the staff directly under him. If the right hon. Gentleman would reconsider his decision on that matter, I think it would
    alter the view of a great many of us with regard to this particular matter.
    Mr. PEASE: In regard to consulting an expert, there is no difference between the Noble Lord opposite and myself. An expert can be appointed, and his knowledge will be of very great value to the Board as well as to the local authority.; We shall take that into account, and provision will be made in the Regulations so that it will be quite clear that experts may be appointed. With regard to the final tribunal for the certificate, I am unable to meet the Noble Lord, because the final decision as to whether a child is mentally defective or not should be a matter for a medical man to decide. Although I agree that those who have had teaching experience of these children ought to be consulted, after all their evidence has been secured, I think the final decision must be with a medical man. There is a provision which provides for a final appeal to the Board of Education, if there is any difference of opinion between the expert teacher and their own medical officer.
    Question put, "That those words be-there inserted in the Bill."
    The House divided: Ayes, 108; Noes, 289.

    Division No. 90.]

    AYES.

    [5.26 p.m.

    Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

    Fiennes, Hon. Eustace Edward

    Pryce-Jones, Colonel E.

    Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R.

    Fletcher, John Samuel

    Quilter, Sir William Eley C.

    Ashley, Wilfrid W.

    Gastrell, Major W Houghton

    Randles, Sir John S.

    Baird, John Lawrence

    Gibbs, George Abraham

    Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

    Baker, Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.)

    Goldman, C. S.

    Rees, Sir J. D.

    Barlow, Montague (Salford, South)

    Goldsmith, Frank

    Remnant, James Farquharson

    Barnston, Harry

    Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

    Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

    Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks

    Goulding, Edward Alfred

    Rolleston, Sir John

    Bonn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)

    Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds)

    Salter, Arthur Clavell

    Bennett-Goldney, Francis

    Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

    Sanderson, Lancelot

    Bird, Alfred

    Hall, Frederick (Dulwich)

    Smith, Harold (Warrington)

    Blair, Reginald

    Hambro, Angus Valdemar

    Spear, Sir John Ward

    Boles, Lieut.-Colonel Denis Fortescue

    Hamilton, C. G. C. (Ches., Altrincham)

    Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

    Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith.

    Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence

    Staveley-Hill, Henry

    Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid)

    Harris, Henry Percy

    Stewart, Gershom

    Bull, Sir William James

    Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)

    Strauss, Arthur (Paddintgon, North)

    Campbell, Captain Duncan F. (Ayr, N.)

    Hickman, Colonel Thomas E.

    Swift, Rigby

    Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

    Hohler, G. F.

    Taibot, Lord Edmund

    Cassel, Felix

    Hope, Harry (Bute)

    Torrell, George (Wilts, N. W.)

    Castlereagh, Viscount

    Hope, Major J. A, (Midlothian)

    Terrell, H. (Gloucester)

    Cator, John

    Hume-Williams. William Ellis

    Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, North)

    Cautley, Henry Strother

    Ingleby, Holcombe

    Touche, George Alexander

    Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

    Jessel, Captain H. M.

    Tryon, Captain George Clement

    Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University)

    Jowett, Frederick William

    Walrond, Hon. Lionel

    Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W.

    Joynson-Hicks, William

    Watson, Hon. W.

    Clive, Captain Percy Archer

    Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts, Mile End)

    Wheler, Granville C. H.

    Clyde, J. Avon

    Mason, James F. (Windsor)

    White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport)

    Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian

    Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honiton)

    Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud

    Currie, George W.

    Newdegate, F. A.

    Wills, Sir Gilbert

    Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)

    Newman, John R. P.

    Wilson, A. Stanley (Yorks, E. R.)

    De Forest, Baron

    Newton, Harry Kottingham

    Wilson, Maj. Sir M. (Bethnal Green, S. W.)

    Donison-Pender, J. C.

    Orde-Powiett, Hon. W. G. A.

    Wood, John (Stalybridge)

    Duncannon Viscount

    Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

    Yate, Colonel C. E.

    Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

    Perkins, Walter F.

    Younger, Sir George

    Faber, George Denison (Clapham)

    Peto, Basil Edward

    Falle, Bertram Godfray

    Pirie, Duncan V.

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

    Fell, Arthur

    Pringle, William M. R.

    Mr. Wedgwood and Sir F. Banbury.

    NOES.

    Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

    Farrell, James Patrick

    Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

    Acland, Francis Dyke

    Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles

    Mackinder, Halford J.

    Addison, Dr. Christopher

    Ffrench, Peter

    Maclean, Donald

    Agnew, Sir George William

    Field, William

    MacVeagh, Jeremiah

    Ainsworth, John Stirling

    Fitzgibbon, John

    M'Callum, Sir John M.

    Alden, Percy

    Flavin, Michael Joseph

    McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)

    France, Gerald Ashbutner

    M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.)

    Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)

    Furness, Sir Stephen Wilson

    M'Micking, Major Gilbert

    Arnold, Sydney

    Gelder, Sir W. A.

    Marks, Sir George Croydon

    Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

    George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd

    Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

    Astor, Waldorf

    Gill, A. H.

    Meehan, Patrick J. (Queen's Co., Leix)

    Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

    Gladstone, W. G. C.

    Middlebrook, William

    Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

    Glanville, Harold James

    Millar, James Duncan

    Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

    Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

    Molloy, Michael

    Banner, Sir John S. Harmood.

    Goldstone, Frank

    Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred

    Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)

    Greene, Walter Raymond

    Montagu, Hon. E. S.

    Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset)

    Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

    Mooney, John J.

    Barnes, George N.

    Greig, Colonel J. W.

    Morgan, George Hay

    Barrie, H. T.

    Guest, Major Hon. C. H. C. (Pembroke)

    Morrell, Philip

    Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

    Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

    Morrison-Bell, Capt. E. F. (Ashburton)

    Beale, Sir William Phipson

    Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S. E.)

    Morison, Hector

    Beauchamp, Sir Edward

    Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

    Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

    Beck, Arthur cecil

    Hackett, John

    Muldoon, John

    Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

    Hall, Frederick (Yorks, Normanton)

    Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert

    Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. George)

    Hancock, John George

    Murphy, Martin J.

    Bentham, George Jackson

    Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis (Rossendale)

    Nannetti, Joseph P.

    Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish.

    Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

    Neilson, Francis

    Bethell, Sir John Henry

    Hardie, J. Keir

    Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

    Bigland, Alfred

    Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

    Nolan, Joseph

    Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

    Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

    Nuttall, Harry

    Boland, John Plus

    Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

    O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

    Bowerman, Charles W.

    Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

    O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

    Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

    Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

    O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

    Brady, Patrick Joseph

    Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

    O'Doherty, Philip

    Bridgeman, William Clive

    Hayden, John Patrick

    O'Donnell, Thomas

    Brocklehurst, William B.

    Helme, Sir Norval Watson

    O'Dowd, John

    Brunner, John F. L.

    Hommerde, Edward George

    O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

    Bryce, J. Annan

    Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

    O'Malley, William

    Buckmaster, Sir Stanley O.

    Henderson, John M. (Aberdeen, W.)

    O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

    Burn, Colonel C. R.

    Henry, Sir Charles

    O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

    Burns, Rt. Hon. John

    Herbert, General Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)

    O'Shee, James John

    Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

    O'Sullivan, Timothy

    Butcher, John George

    Higham, John Sharp

    Palmer, Godfrey Mark

    Byles, Sir William Pollard

    Hills, John Waller

    Parker, James (Halifax)

    Carr-Gomm, H. W.

    Hinds, John

    Parry, Thomas H.

    Cave, George

    Hodge, John

    Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

    Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

    Hogge, James Myles

    Pearce, William (Limehouse)

    Cawley, Harold T. (Lancs., Heywood)

    Holmes, Daniel Turner

    Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

    Chancellor, Henry George

    Holt, Richard Durning

    Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)

    Chapple, Dr. William Allen

    Hope, John Deans (Haddington)

    Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

    Clancy, John Joseph

    Hudson, Walter

    Pointer, Joseph

    Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

    Hughes, Spencer Leigh

    Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

    Clough, William

    Jardine, Sir John (Roxburghshire)

    Pratt, J. W.

    Clynes, John R.

    John, Edward Thomas

    Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

    Collins, Sir Stephen (Lambeth)

    Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

    Priestley, Sir Arthur (Grantham)

    Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

    Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

    Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

    Condon, Thomas Joseph

    Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

    Primrose, Hon. Neil James

    Cotton, William Francis

    Jones, Leif (Notts, Rushcliffe)

    Rawson, Colonel Richard H.

    Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

    Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

    Reddy, Michael

    Crooks, William

    Jones, William S. Glyn (Stepney)

    Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

    Crumley, Patrick

    Joyce, Michael

    Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

    Cullinan, John

    Kellaway, Frederick George

    Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

    Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

    Kelly, Edward

    Rendall, Atheistan

    Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardiganshire)

    Kennedy, Vincent Paul

    Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

    Dawes, James Arthur

    Kerry, Earl of

    Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

    Delany, William

    Kilbride, Denis

    Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

    Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

    King, Joseph

    Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

    Devlin, Joseph

    Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon, S. Molton)

    Robinson, Sidney

    Dewar, Sir J. A.

    Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

    Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

    Dickinson, Rt. Hon. Willoughby H.

    Lardner, James C. R.

    Roche, Augustine (Louth)

    Dillon, John

    Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)

    Roe, Sir Thomas

    Donelan, Captain A.

    Leach, Charles

    Rowlands, James

    Doris, William

    Levy, Sir Maurice

    Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

    Duffy, William J.

    Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert

    Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth)

    Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley)

    Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Sanders, Robert Arthur

    Edwards, Clement (Glamorgan, Mid)

    Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

    Scanlan, Thomas

    Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

    Lundon, Thomas

    Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

    Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

    Lyell, Charles Henry

    Seely, Rt. Hon. Colonel J. E. B.

    Elverston, Sir Harold

    Lynch, Arthur Alfred

    Sheehy, David

    Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

    Lyttelton, Hon. J. C.

    Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

    Essex, Sir Richard Walter

    MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh

    Smith, Albert (Lancs, Clitheroe)

    Falconer, James

    Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

    Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

    188

    189

    Snowden, Philip

    Walters, Sir John Tudor

    Williams, Aneurin (Durham, N. W.)

    Soames, Arthur Wellesley

    Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

    Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

    Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert

    Wardle, George J.

    Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

    Starkey, John Ralph

    Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay T.

    Williamson, Sir Archibald

    Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

    Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

    Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.)

    Taylor, John W. (Durham)

    Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)

    Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

    Webb, H.

    Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

    Taylor, Thomas (Bolton)

    Weston, Colonel J. W.

    Wilson, Captain Leslie O. (Reading)

    Tennant, Harold John

    White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

    Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow.)

    Thomas J. H.

    White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E. R.)

    Yeo, Alfred William

    Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

    White, Patrick (Meath, North)

    Yoxall, Sir James Henry

    Thorne, William (West Ham)

    Whitehouse, John Howard

    Thynne, Lord Alexander

    Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

    Toulmin, Sir George

    Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

    Trevelyan, Charles Philips

    Wiles, Thomas

    Mr. Illingworth and Mr. Gulland.

    Verney, Sir Harry

    Wilkie, Alexander

    Sir F. BANBURY: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the word "seven" ["for the education of children belonging to their area whose age exceeds seven years "], and to insert instead thereof the word "ten."
    The object of this Amendment is to give an opportunity to a child which is mentally defective to remain in the custody of its parents for a rather longer period. As the Bill stands in all the rural districts—I do not know whether it would be the same in London or possibly in any of the large urban centres—a child of seven years of age who has been certified under the provisions of the Act of 1889 to be mentally defective would be taken away from its parents at that tender age and sent to what my hon. Friend just now described as practically an asylum. However good the institution may be, the fact remains that a child of that age would be taken away from its parents and sent to a boarding school—I am quite willing to call it that—if it happened to be in a rural district or, of course, in some urban areas. We all know perfectly well that a child at the age of seven, even if it is the possession of all its faculties, is naturally loath to leave its own home and to be put into the rough surroundings of a boarding school. I do not mean a boarding school in the ordinary sense of the word, but a boarding school where the child lives and sleeps and is with strangers all day. A child of seven is too young, even if its mind is entirely deficient, to be taken away from its parents and put entirely with strangers. As far as my experience goes, the majority of rich parents do not send their children to boarding schools until they are at least nine or ten. I did not go myself until I was eleven years. I did not go to Winchester until I was thirteen, which I think is about the right age, and I did not send my son to a preparatory school until he was ten years of age. My experience goes to
    190
    show that ten years of age is quite early enough in the case of children who hart? all their wits about them, to take them away from the custody of their parents, and, if that is so in the case of children who have all their wits about them, how much more so is it in the case of children who are mentally deficient? To take a, poor little child which is mentally defective and place it in a boarding home, however excellent that home may be, is to my mind a great outrage and perpetrates considerable cruelty both upon the parents and upon the child. I am not at all sure that it is the best way to improve the mental capacity of the child or its future learning.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Durham (Mr. J. W. Hills) said that these were wonderfully good places, and that the result would be that a deficient child in a great many cases would become normal. I believe my hon. Friend is usually accurate in what he says, but I should like to know upon what foundation he goes when he says that these schools are going to be such very efficient places, and on what ground he founds his opinion that in a great many cases the child will become normal. What is the percentage of the cases in which the child does become normal? I admit that I am ignorant upon this matter, but I should be inclined to think, as a matter of fact, that the cases in which the child becomes normal are not very great. As a matter of fact a great many of these children who are supposed to be mentally defective are merely backward children. They are very often shy, nervous children, who want to be encouraged and taken care of; they do not want to be sent out to face the rough-and-tumble even of such a charming place as the school to which my hon. Friend referred. It might be, and I think it would very likely be, that under home influence the child would be much more likely to regain its normal condition than if sent

    191
    out at this early age to a boarding school. My Noble Friend (Lord A. Thynne) tells me that in London there are no boarding schools, but that they are all day schools. That removes a certain portion of my objection, but it does not remove it all. You take a child mentally defective, and you put it at seven years of age in a class amongst a large number of children varying in ages from seven to thirteen or even fourteen. I suppose that they are the same kind of children that I used to meet in my days when I was a boy at school. They are not too considerate of anybody who is all there. They are inclined to take advantage of the unfortunate child which cannot take care of itself, to make a butt of it, and to exercise their wits upon it. Therefore I should say that to send a child of that tender age which is mentally deficient to mix in the rough-and-tumble with a large number of other children is the very worst thing you could possibly do.
    My hon. Friend must not be led away by the insane idea that the moment you set up a State something or other it is going to be very beneficial. Why should a State school be better than a private school? In many cases it is a great deal worse, because the people in charge are not subject to that control to which people in charge of a private school are subject, namely, that they may lose their living and that they will not get their school filled if they do not treat the children properly. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sunderland (Mr. Goldstone) is not here, because no doubt he will have something to say in support of the class which he so ably represents. I do not believe that any class—I do not care who they are—who are paid by the State, and are State officials, are of such a high level that they will carry on all their work in an absolutely irreproachable manner. On the contrary they tend to get into a groove, to become hardened, and to disregard the feelings of the people with "horn they deal. I do not take up the position which appears to be held by hon. Members opposite, that once you have State officials everything they do is right. I do not know what argument the right hon. Gentleman is going to use against my Amendment. It seems to me there are no arguments which can be put forward against it. My last Amendment did to a certain extent, if parents did not wish their children to come under the provisions
    192
    of the Bill, prevent them doing so. But this Amendment only says, "Give the child a chance to develop its mind. For some reason or other it may be behind its age. It may not be more mentally developed than an ordinary child of three or four years of age. Give it a chance, before you take it away from the parents, and put it into one of these schools." I cannot conceive any reason why my Amendment should not be accepted.
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: I should like to second the Amendment. I want to get a statement from the right hon. Gentleman whether he really wishes this Bill to apply, as far as residential schools are concerned, to children between the ages of seven and ten. The Bill proposes to make the Act of 1899 compulsory. That Act only applied to day schools. It laid down that where there are certain day schools established under that Act, parents might be forced to send their children to the schools. But under the Act of 1899 parents could not be forced to send the child to a residential school, even where the Act had been adopted by the local education authority, and where a residential school had been established. This Bill proposes to make that compulsory, both as regard day schools and residential schools. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider the possibility of saying that no child should be sent to a residential school unless or until it is ten years of age. The Board of Education apparently, when the age limit laid down by this House does not suit it, is quite willing to alter it by Regulations. Last year the Mental Deficiency Act was passed, and under it it was laid down that no child should come under the education authority—no mentally defective child—until it had passed the age of seven. But the right hon. Gentleman has now issued a Regulation and Memorandum, the latter of which says:—
    "It will be convenient therefore if the local education authorities, in addition to notifying such cases as fall within the scope of the Regulation, should furnish the local controlling authority information as to other children in their area, whether over or under seven years of age, who are or appear to be, mentally defective within the meaning of the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913."
    Here you have the education authority, in the person of the right hon. Gentleman, going far beyond the limits of the powers which the Mental Deficiency Act conferred on him last year. We expressly laid it down that children under seven years of age should not be interfered with—
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is now discussing some Regulation laid down under some other Act. He must address his observations to the Amendment before the House.
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: These model Regulations issued by the Board of Education deal with the Acts both of 1899 and 1913, and as this Bill proposes to make the Act of 1899 compulsory, I submit that I am in order in discussing the Regulations which have been issued under that Act by the Board of Education.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think this is an opportunity for finding fault with Regulations made under some entirely different Act. Now is the time to consider whether seven or ten is the proper age at which to send children to these schools.
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: I will not pursue that argument. We may have an opportunity of bringing this point forward on another occasion. I will only ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is willing to accept an age limit of ten as far as residental schools are concerned.
    Mr. PEASE: I am not prepared to accept this Amendment, even in the modified form suggested by the Seconder. The hon. Baronet who moved it addressed the House as if he had had wide experience in connection with the teaching and training of these mentally deficient children. Of course I have not had any experience myself but, at any rate, I am in touch with those who have had very wide experience, and they inform me that, having studied this question for sixteen years, under the Defective and Epileptic Act of 1899, and having seen the children who are in these defective schools—there are 173 already established in the country and only two or three residential schools—they are satisfied that when we raised the school age from five to seven we were raising it quite sufficiently, and that it is all-important, in the interests of these children, that they should begin their training at the age of seven. The hon. Baronet has suggested, by way of analogy, that they go to school in the same sort of way as was usual in his school-days, and that they learn Latin and Greek and subjects of that kind. But these children are trained in an absolutely different way to the normal child. They are taught how to use their hands by the simplest processes which the ingenuity of teachers has been able to devise. They gradually develop,
    194
    and unless this manual instruction is given early it is possible that development of a child may be lost for three or four years. These years are required in order to train the children to become self-supporting, and we do not want, therefore, to delay the process of development.
    The hon. Baronet asks as to the percentage of cures. There is for really mentally deficient children no cure, but in connection with those who are merely suffering from retarded development there are cures, and in the first few years, about the ages of seven, eight, or nine, it is often possible to find out whether it is a case of retarded development or whether it is really a case of being mentally defective. These schools to some extent supply a provision which enables children to be classified into either mentally defective or those who are merely suffering from temporary, tardy development. In many cases children between the ages of seven and ten attending these schools will be found only to be suffering from retarded development, and they may be discharged, and sent into the normal schools between those ages. It is all-important that children with retarded development should be enabled to attend the ordinary schools of the country between the ages of six and ten, and be discharged from those schools whenever opportunity occurs. That is one reason, at any rate, why I cannot agree to increase the age from seven to ten.
    Sir F. BANBURY: From whom did the right hon. Gentleman get this information?
    Mr. PEASE: The Board of Education have a very able medical officer in Sir George Newman, and in addition to that they have a staff of inspectors, both male and female, medically trained, who go round these schools. We also collect from the local education authorities statistics as to results which have been obtained by the training of these mentally deficient children, and, speaking in round figures, I may tell the hon. Baronet that of the children who leave these schools 33 per cent. prove able to maintain themselves, and another 33 per cent. are able partially to maintain themselves, although no doubt they will require assistance at a subsequent period of their lives.
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: Has the right hon. Gentleman any figures to show for how many years these 33 per cent. are able to maintain themselves?
    6.0 P.M.
    Mr. PEASE: I have a return of a great number of cases, and if the hon. Member is interested I shall be only too glad to show him the results of the statistics we have obtained at the Board of Education. I have gone through a great number of cases myself and I am satisfied that, although many of these children may not be able to earn very high wages they will get enough to support themselves in after life. Thirty-three per cent. are only able to partially support themselves. They earn from 5s. to 7s. per week. Then there are others who have been taught self-control and self-discipline. Their characters have been very much improved, though they may not probably be able to earn anything for themselves after they leave the school unless they are constantly under some kind of supervision. That is a class, no doubt, which at the age of sixteen will come under the control of the custodial authority, which will take charge of them. There appears to be a feeling that the residential institutions are going to be a sort of asylum. But no one who has seen these schools for the mentally deficient in operation can have failed to realise that the teachers are men and women who are devoted to the service of the children. They are extraordinarily patient with them, and one can understand the love extended to them when it is seen how these children flock around them. Their lives are very much happier than they would be in the majority of cases at home. Of course, where there is a home influence which is useful, I am the last person who would desire to deprive the child of the benefit of it. We have made provision for that home influence, even in cases where the children are sent to a residential institution because no other kind of provision can be made for their education. The Regulations will provide for the normal holidays, and the power of the parents to visit their children in these institutions, and the proposals in the Bill do not compel the parents to send their children to these residential institutions, but only when the parents are unreasonably withholding their educable children from going to these schools. If they have a real reason to state before the local education authority to justify their keeping their children at home, perhaps because the children will be benefited by being at home, they will not be compelled to send them to these residential schools. The apprehensions in regard to the character of these institutions is not justified.
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    We intend to see that they shall be real homes for the children, in which they will be well looked after. I believe that, unless a long period of training from seven to sixteen years of age is given to these children, a great number of the benefits which we realise can be secured for them, of which we have had experience during sixteen years, will not prevail in future. Therefore, I ask the House to allow the word "seven" to remain in the Bill as introduced.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: The President of the Board of Education ought to agree to the age being altered to ten. The ordinary method of conducting these special schools is for the teacher to select backward children from the classes, and to suggest to the authority that they would be better looked after in the special schools. In the first three years of the child's life there cannot be very definite proof that he is backward, but when he gets to twelve or thirteen years of age you find out whether the child is backward from the fact that it is at the bottom of its standard. If in the early years of the child's life you give the teacher the power of sifting out the backward children, you are likely to have the teacher making a great many serious mistakes. After all, teachers are human beings like other people. A boy is troublesome, and he may get into the teacher's bad books for any of a hundred and one reasons. The teacher gets "down" on the child, and can have it relegated to one of these special schools. We must remember, however admirable institutions may be in an Act of Parliament and in a Regulation, and however much you believe they are going to be well-managed and that the teachers are all angels, yet none of us are angels, and you have to provide in legislation against hard cases. The Amendment would be a very valuable safeguard to the children for the first three years of their lives, and while they are at the normal school they should not be liable to be weeded out and sent to a special school. If the hon. Baronet goes to a Division I shall support him.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I venture to hope that in the interest of the child itself this Amendment will not be accepted. A good many of the speakers, but not including the hon. Gentleman who has just addressed us, have assumed that all these children are now at home. My experience is that a considerable number of them who will come under the provisions of this

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    Bill are at present in the elementary day schools, and are not receiving there the sort of education that is most suited to them, or most likely in the future to enable them to get remunerative employment, and they are a source of retardation to the other children in the school. As the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out, the sort of sympathetic instruction which is given in these institutions to defective children is largely of a manual character, and also of a voice training character. A good many of these mentally defective children are unable to express themselves. I think the right hon. Gentleman will admit from his Continental experience that in a large number of similar institutions abroad, in the lower classes in the elementary schools, specially selected teachers are instructing the children how to express themselves vocally, and a most important function it is, so far as these very young children are concerned. The hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury)—the typical laissez faire Whig of this House—told us that his own early instruction and the early instruction of his children began at the age of ten.
    Sir F. BANBURY: At a boarding school.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: But he did not remind the House that both in the case of himself and his children there was, at any rate, the advantage of the possibility of employing a governess. These little children of the poorer classes commence their education in school. They get no education until they go to school. If this Amendment were carried it would be not only a reactionary proceeding—
    Sir F. BANBURY: That is in its favour.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: That may be a proper sentiment, but it is not a sentiment which is likely to actuate any educationist on either side of the House in the year 1914. It would be contrary to the provisions of Section 4 of the principal Act, which says that the duty of a parent under Section 4 of the Elementary Education Act, 1876, to provide elementary instruction for his child shall, in the case of a defective or epileptic child over seven years of age in any place where a certified special class or school is within the reach of his child, include the duty of causing such child to attend such special class or school. If this Amendment is carried, it will repeal that Section and a similar Section in the Elementary Education Act,
    198
    1876, and exempt the parent altogether from sending a child between the age of seven and ten to an elementary school, as is necessary in the case of every other child in the Kingdom. I hope that the House will realise that it is in the best interests not merely of the child, but of those other children with whom he would, in most cases, be thrown in classes 1 and 2 of the ordinary elementary day schools, to insist that the benefit of compulsory elementary education shall apply at that early age to all children, whether normal or abnormal.
    Mr. HILLS: I rise for the purpose of replying to the question addressed to me by the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury), when he rather challenged my statement that a large number of these children do return to normal occupations. I agree with the President of the Board of Education that while you do get permanent mental deficiency and that there are incurable cases, yet a large number of these children can be educated up to a point when they can more or less support themselves. For instance, in the schools in London in 1908, 279 children were discharged, of whom full particulars were known. After five years, 139 were employed earning wages and 140 were not; of the 140, 109 were lost sight of, 27 were out of employment, and four were dead, so that after five years, when the children would be twenty-one years of age, one-half were employed earning wages. That speaks very well for the schools, and shows that in a large number of cases you can train them so as to enable them to earn wages. Although the average wage earned was only 10s. 10d. per week, that is something, and it shows that the boys were capable of earning a certain amount towards their support and were doing well.
    Lord A. THYNNE: My hon. Friend the Member for the Wilton Division (Mr. C. Bathurst) is an example of the want of flexibility and elasticity that always characterises the bureaucrat. He speaks as if there were only one possible age at which you could send a child to school. Because it is laid down in the Education Act that a certain age is the proper age at which to send the normal child to school, therefore that age must necessarily apply to every child in the country, whether he is normal or not normal. The House has not been giving enough serious consideration to this Amendment. If the right hon. Gentleman wants the House to reject this Amendment be must do so on one of two

    199
    grounds—either, in the first place, that it is essential that the child should go to school at the age of seven for the sake of its training and its future life, or, secondly, that the fact that the child is kept at home between the age of seven and ten is detrimental to its present interests, that it is either a nuisance at home or is liable to danger through being allowed to run about the streets. The right hon. Gentleman has not made good his case against this Amendment upon either of those two grounds. His chief argument was that if the child was sent to school at seven years of age it would enable them to classify the backward child and the mentally deficient child. That is a very serious argument in favour of my hon. Friend's Amendment. I want the House to consider for one moment whether it is better to keep a child that is really mentally defective too long in the ordinary elementary school or to take a child that is really only rather backward, who is a normal child, and confine it in one of these residential schools. There is no doubt that every responsible Member of the House will agree that if we are going to run any risk at all, and if we are going to adopt one alternative or the other, we ought to adopt the first and keep the mentally deficient child too long in the elementary school. It is a very serious matter indeed, because it affects the whole future of the child. If you confine it unjustly or improperly in one of these mentally deficient schools, you are inflicting an injustice upon that child which may follow it right through life. There is this question of the training: Does the right hon. Gentleman really contend that in order to train these children properly it is essential that they should be taken into these schools at the age of seven?
    I think it is generally admitted, certainly by the more advanced school of educationists, that the normal child does not benefit by its education between six or seven and ten to the same extent or at the same ratio as it does after ten. I believe it is an established fact that if you take a boy of fifteen who has not begun his education until after ten years of age, he is just as advanced and just as alert intellectually as the boy who began his education at seven years of age. I believe that is an accepted fact among the more advanced school of educationists with regard to normal children, and I believe
    200
    the same is true with regard to the mentally deficients. The real reason why the right hon. Gentleman wants to get them into the schools at seven years of age is because it will facilitate this matter of classification—this power of sorting the sheep from the goats. That is not a proposal that this House ought to consider for a moment. I think what we have to do is to have the sorting done before the child is sent to these schools, and to take very great care indeed that no backward child is allowed within their gates. It is not a few cases, but there is a very large number of cases of children in the infant departments of some of our large towns who are looked upon as mentally deficient and as likely candidates for mentally deficient schools. As these children grow it is found that the symptoms which were regarded originally as symptoms of mental deficiency are nothing more nor less than ordinary symptoms of backward development. If that is true of the infant departments of some of our large towns, I believe it is equally true of children between seven and ten years of age, and, if the House accepts the Amendment, they will be removing it from the power of the Board of Education and those who work under the Board of Education to commit, with the best intention, a very grave injustice to a considerable section of the backward children of the country.
    Sir W. ANSON: I regret that I cannot support my hon. Friend in his Amendment. We have heard to-day of children who are prima facie mentally deficient, and are so regarded by medical practitioners, but it is well-known and admitted that these symptoms may arise from retarded development, whether from growth or from improper care and unwise treatment in their bringing up. But there is room for hope and expectation that these children may either be restored to a normal condition or that their defective condition may be so far ameliorated that they may be able to earn their living wholly or in part, or at any rate, that their habit of life and temper may be so improved that they will be able to conduct themselves reasonably and properly. Surely the best prospect for these children is that they should be subject to special training. Is it worth nothing that they should be sent for special training at the earliest possible age? I cannot help thinking it will give the child the best chance to take it at the age of seven. For these reasons I cannot support the Amendment.
    Mr. POINTER: I cannot understand the awful risks of grave injustice which we are informed are likely to be inflicted upon certain mentally defective children if they are sent to special schools at the age of seven instead of ten. I should have thought the argument was more in the other direction. Obviously, if we are to do anything with young life, you must be careful not to waste any of what may be called the formative period. It appears to me that the whole objection to this and to other points is more or less a sentimental one. Take, for instance, the hon. Baronet's remarks about home influences. I wonder if he really knows what home influences are in so far as they apply in this case. Does he know from first-hand knowledge of the life of a working mother who has several children—let us say four—one of whom is a mental deficient, what it means to have that child at home. Does he realise how absolutely impossible it is for the woman, or even for the father who comes home at night, seeing little of the child, to give any directions to that child or in any way to help him to overcome the obstacles and the handicap which he is faced with? I should have thought if the hon. Baronet was really anxious that these children should have the best done for them, he would not put any obstacles in the way of their being placed under circumstances where attention could be given to them. Even now all over the country there are coming complaints from education authorities, and especially from teachers that they are having too much to do because their classes are too large. If that is so with the normal child, how in the world is it going to work out to the betterment or to the advantage or the well being of the abnormal child, who should at least have more attention and not less? I am pleased that the Minister for Education is not in any way gong to give way to the appeal which is made to him, because I believe if that appeal was successful it would destroy at least half the usefulness of the Bill.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I recognise perfectly well that in the families of the poorer classes the mother has not the opportunity of looking after her children in quite the same way that parents do in those classes which are better off, but the affection of the parent is just the same, and the affection of the child is just the same, and if the parent prefers to keep the child under her protection and with her for a year or two longer, for the life
    202
    of me I cannot see why she should not do it, and I cannot understand the attitude of hon. Members below the Gangway who seem to think poor people are an exceptional class who are not to be allowed to do as they like, but are to be dragooned by officials and other people paid by the State into doing what hon. Members think is best for them. I am not at all sure that I agree that hon. Members are good judges upon that point, or upon many others, and I am inclined to think that it is the parents who ought to be the judge in the matter. The right hon. Gentleman gave us some very interesting particulars. He said there were no cures in the cases of really mentally deficient people, but for retarded development there are cures, and he says that 33 per cent. are cured.
    Mr. PEASE: I did not say the 33 per cent. were cured, but they were trained so as to become self-supporting.
    Sir F. BANBURY: Then the right hon. Gentleman is minimising the arguments against the Amendment which, in my opinion, were never very strong, because now even these 33 per cent. are not cured, but are trained to earn a small amount of money. Then the right hon. Gentleman went on to describe how he went to one of these residential schools, and found the extraordinary affection which subsisted between the teachers and the children. Of course when he was there everything was at its best. It does not follow that everything went on in exactly the same way when he was not there.
    Mr. PEASE: The visits I have paid have not been merely to one school but to several, and they have always been surprise visits, and surprise visits do not really alter the attitude of the children towards the teachers.
    Sir F. BANBURY: But what is a surprise visit? I often have to make surprise visits as a railway director, and if I say a thing is well done I am told, "It is all very well but they knew you were coming." I say, "I have been most careful to keep my visit secret." They say, "It is all very well but these things get out." If that is so in my own case no doubt when the right hon. Gentleman goes down, probably with two or three policeman to see that he is not assaulted by suffragettes, of course it is perfectly well known that he is coming, and everything is in the most beautiful order. I think I caught from the right hon. Gentle-

    203
    man a statement to the effect that there were only two or three of these residential schools. If that is right, and I believe it is, how on earth could you draw a conclusion from two or three schools, with perhaps in all three not more than 150 or 160 children, as to what is going to take place if you put a large number of schools all over the country. I am told these schools are for older children. That brings in the question how far it was wise for these older children to indulge in these hugging operations. I think it shows that, at any rate, the arguments brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman are not founded upon a substantial basis, because everyone must admit that when you have only got two or three schools with a small number of children, because they happen to be model institutions doing their duty, it does not follow that in other institutions, where you are going to have a large number of scholars the same thing will occur. The right hon. Gentleman may have got some very efficient teachers, but efficient teachers do not grow by the roadside. Some are efficient, and some are not, and you may be able to get very easily perhaps half-a-dozen efficient teachers, but it is much harder to get two or three hundred. In answer to an interruption of mine, when I asked in who told him that it was necessary that the age should begin

    Division No. 91.]

    AYES.

    [6.31 p.m.

    Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

    Bryce, J. Annan

    Duffy, William J.

    Acland, Francis Dyke

    Buckmaster, Sir Stanley O.

    Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley)

    Addison, Dr. Christopher

    Burn, Colonel C. R.

    Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

    Agnew, Sir George Wiliam

    Burns, Rt. Hon. John

    Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

    Ainsworth, John Stirling

    Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Elverston, Sir Harold

    Alden, Percy

    Byles, Sir William Pollard

    Esmonds, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

    Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)

    Campbell, Captain Duncan F. (Ayr, N.)

    Essex, Sir Richard Walter

    Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)

    Cave, George

    Farrell, James Patrick

    Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R.

    Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

    Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles

    Arnold, Sydney

    Cawley, Harold T. (Lancs., Heywood)

    Ffrench, Peter

    Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

    Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W.

    Field, William

    Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

    Chancellor, Henry George

    Fiennes, Hon. Eustace Edward

    Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

    Chappie, Dr. William Allen

    Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes

    Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)

    Clancy, John Joseph

    Fitzgibbon, John

    Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset)

    Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

    Flavin, Michael Joseph

    Barnes, George N.

    Clough, William

    France, Gerald Ashburner

    Barran, Sir John N. (Hawick, Burghs)

    Clynes, John R.

    Furness, Sir Stephen Wilson

    Barrie, H. T.

    Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

    Gastrell, Major W. Houghton

    Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

    Condon, Thomas Joseph

    Gelder, Sir W. A.

    Beale, Sir William Phipson

    Cetton, William Francis

    George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd

    Beauchamp, Sir Edward

    Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

    Gladstone, W. G. C.

    Beck, Arthur Cecil

    Crooks, William

    Glanville, Harold James

    Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. George)

    Crumley, Patrick

    Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

    Bennett-Goldney, Francis

    Cullinan, John

    Goldstone, Frank

    Bentham, George Jackson

    Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

    Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

    Bethell, Sir J. H.

    Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan)

    Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

    Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

    Dawes, James Arthur

    Greig, Colonel J. W.

    Boland, John Pius

    Deiany, William

    Griffith, Ellis Jones

    Bowerman, Charles W.

    Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

    Guest, Hon. Major C. H. C. (Pembroke)

    Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

    Devlin, Joseph

    Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

    Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid)

    Dewar, Sir J. A.

    Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S. E.)

    Brady, Patrick Joseph

    Dickinson, Rt. Hon. Willoughby H.

    Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

    Bridgeman, William Clive

    Dillon, John

    Hackett, John

    Brocklehurst, William B.

    Donelan, Captain A.

    Hall, Frederick (Yorks, Normanton)

    Brunner, John F. L.

    Doris, William

    Hancock, John George

    at seven, the right hon. Gentleman said it was their inspectors and the local authorities. That is just what occurs with all these State or municipal institutions. Of course, everybody connected with them thinks it a very good thing, and everybody wants to extend it. They get higher salaries if they point out the enormous importance of their work; they get others under them, and they become great people. They say, "The right hon. Gentleman came down to see us the other day, and expressed great satisfaction with all that is going on." That is all very well, but it does not show any reason why my Amendment should not be accepted. As I have not been able to persuade the right hon. Gentleman to accept a reasonable Amendment, I am afraid I must divide the House. There was one moment when I felt that I might be wrong. That was when my right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford got up and said he did not agree with me. I attach very great weight to his opinion, but I am rather afraid that for once he is wrong. I do not think his arguments were very strong. I consider that the arguments in support of the Amendment are of a stronger and better nature.
    Question put, "That the word 'seven' stand part of the Bill."
    The House divided: Ayes 29:3; Noes, 50.

    Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis (Rossendale)

    McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

    Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

    M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.)

    Roche, Augustine (Louth)

    Hardie, J. Keir

    M'Micking, Major Gilbert

    Roe, Sir Thomas

    Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence

    Marks, Sir George Croydon

    Rowlands, James

    Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

    Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

    Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

    Harris, Henry Percy

    Meehan, Patrick J. (Queen's Co., Leix)

    Sanders, Robert Arthur

    Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

    Molloy, Michael

    Scanlan, Thomas

    Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

    Molteno, Percy Alport

    Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

    Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

    Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred

    Seely, Rt. Hon. Colonel J. E. B.

    Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

    Montagu, Hon. E. S.

    Sheehy, David

    Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

    Mooney, John J.

    Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

    Hayden, John Patrick

    Morgan, George Hay

    Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

    Hemmerde, Edward George

    Morrell, Philip

    Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)

    Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

    Morison, Hector

    Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

    Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)

    Morton, Alpheus Clcophas

    Snowden, Philip

    Henderson, John M. (Aberdeen, W.)

    Mount, William Arthur

    Soames, Arthur Wellesley

    Henry, Sir Charles

    Muldoon, John

    Spear, Sir John Ward

    Herbert, General Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)

    Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert

    Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert

    Hewart, Gordon

    Murphy, Martin J.

    Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

    Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

    Nannetti, Joseph P.

    Starkey, John Ralph

    Higham, John Sharp

    Neilson, Francis

    Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North)

    Hills, John Waller

    Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

    Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

    Hinds, John

    Nolan, Joseph

    Taibot, Lord Edmund

    Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

    Nuttall, Harry

    Taylor, John W. (Durham)

    Hogge, James Myles

    O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

    Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

    Holmes, Daniel Turner

    O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

    Taylor, Thomas (Bolton)

    Holt, Richard Durning

    O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

    Tennant, Harold John

    Hope, John Deans (Haddington)

    O'Doherty, Philip

    Thomas, James Henry

    Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

    O'Donnell, Thomas

    Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

    Hudson, Walter

    O'Dowd, John

    Thorne, William (West Ham)

    Hughes, Spencer Leigh

    O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

    Toulmin, Sir George

    Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh)

    O'Malley, William

    Trevelyan, Charles Philips

    John, Edward Thomas

    O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

    Tryon, Captain George Clement

    Johnson, William

    Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

    Verney, Sir Harry

    Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

    O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

    Walters, Sir John Tudor

    Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

    O'Shee, James John

    Walton, Sir Joseph

    Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

    O'Sullivan, Timothy

    Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

    Jones, Leif (Notts, Rushcliffe)

    Palmer, Godfrey Mark

    Webb, H.

    Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

    Parker, James (Halifax)

    White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

    Jowett, Frederick William

    Parkes, Ebenezer

    White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E. R.)

    Joyce, Michael

    Parry, Thomas H.

    White, Patrick (Meath, North)

    Kellaway, Frederick George

    Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

    Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

    Kelly, Edward

    Pearce, William (Limehouse)

    Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

    Kennedy, Vincent Paul

    Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)

    Wiles, Thomas

    Kilbride, Denis

    Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

    Wilkie, Alexander

    King, Jospeh

    Pirie, Duncan V.

    Williams, Aneurin (Durham, N. W.)

    Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

    Pointer, Joseph

    Williams, John (Glamorgan)

    Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon, S. Molton)

    Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

    Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

    Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

    Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

    Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

    Lardner, James C. R.

    Priestley, Sir Arthur (Grantham)

    Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset, W.)

    Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)

    Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

    Wills, Sir Gilbert

    Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th)

    Pryce-Jones, Colonel E.

    Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.)

    Leach, Charles

    Radford, George Heynes

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)

    Levy, Sir Maurice

    Reddy, Michael

    Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

    Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert

    Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

    Wilson, Maj. Sir M (Bethnal Green, S. W.)

    Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

    Winfrey, Sir Richard

    Lundon, Thomas

    Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

    Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)

    Lyell, Charles Henry

    Remnant, James Farquharson

    Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

    Lynch, Arthur Alfred

    Rendall, Atheistan

    Yeo, Alfred William

    MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh

    Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

    Yoxall, Sir James Henry

    Macdohald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

    Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

    Macpherson, James Ian

    Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

    MacVeagh, Jeremiah

    Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

    Mr. Illingworth and Mr. Gulland.

    M'Callum, Sir John M.

    Robinson, Sidney

    NOES.

    Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

    Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

    Ronaldshay, Earl of

    Ashley, Wilfrid W.

    Fletcher, John Samuel

    Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)

    Baird, John Lawrence

    Gibbs, George Abraham

    Sanderson, Lancelot

    Barlow, Montagu (Salford, South)

    Goulding, Edward Alfred

    Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)

    Barnston, Harry

    Greene, Walter Raymond

    Thomson, W. Mitchell. (Down, North)

    Boles, Lieut.-Colonel Dennis Fortescue

    Gretton, John

    Thynne, Lord Alexander

    Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

    Hall, Frederick (Dulwich)

    Tuillbardine, Marquess of

    Boyton, James

    Henderson, Sir A. (St. Geo., Han. Sq.)

    Valentia, Viscount

    Brassey, H. Leonard Campbell

    Hope, Harry (Bute)

    Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

    Bull, Sir William James

    Ingleby, Holcombe

    Watson, Hon. W.

    Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

    Kerry, Earl of

    Wedgwood, Josiah C.

    Cautley, Henry Strother

    Magnus, Sir Philip

    Wheler, Granville C. H.

    Clyde, J. Avon

    Morrison-Bell, Capt. E. F. (Ashburton)

    Wood, John (Stalybridge)

    Courthope, George Loyd

    Newman, John R. P.

    Younger, Sir George

    Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian

    Orue-Powiett, Hon. W. G. A.

    De Forest, Baron

    Peto, Basil Edward

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

    Denison-Pender, J. C.

    Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

    Sir F. Banbury and Mr. Goldsmith.

    Duncannon, Viscount

    Rolleston, Sir John

    Mr. GOLDSMITH: I beg to move in Sub-section (1) to leave out the word "mentally" ["who are ascertained to be mentally defective "].
    The Amendment is more important than it really looks on the Paper. This Bill, as the House is aware, proposes to make the Act of 1899 compulsory. That Act applies to all defective children—that is to say, defective children who by reason of mental or physical defect are incapable of taking advantage of the education in the ordinary elementary schools. The Act of 1899 made no distinction between mentally and physically defective children. This Bill, which proposes to make that Act compulsory, only deals with mentally defective children. Once we make the Act of 1899 compulsory we ought to make it compulsory with regard to all defective children who may be educated, whether they are mentally or physically defective. The right hon. Gentleman, in his speech on the Second Reading, said:—
    "We, therefore, are not proposing to make the Bill compulsory with regard to epileptic children. What we are doing is to make the present Defective and Epilepsy Act compulsory in regard to suitable special schools for the defectives."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th March, 1914, col. 476].
    Even in his speech he makes a distinction between mentally and physically defective children. If the House had to make a choice between providing educational facilities as between children who are abnormal mentally and children who are physically defective, but capable of receiving a proper education and mentally normal, I am certain that the House would decide in favour of the latter class of children. Under this Bill nothing is going to be done for the physically defective child, the cripple child. If a child is found in a school and is certified by the medical officer as being incapable owing to physical defects of benefiting from the school, that child is turned out, and no provision is made for it. If, by any chance, it is proved that the physically defective child is mentally defective as well, then it is going to be sent to a special school, which is going to be provided under this Act. That is an absurd proposition. Let us provide for the mentally normal child first, and then for the child which is mentally abnormal. A few education authorities have taken advantage of the Act of 1899. The London County Council is one of them. It has at present ninety-one schools for mentally defective children, with an average on the rolls of 7,234. It has fifty-nine schools for physically defective children, including one for
    208
    tuberculous children, with an average on the rolls of 3,184. The physically defective child when at school is more expensive than the mentally defective child. In London it costs the ratepayers £22 for every cripple child and £17 for every mentally defective child. That is due largely to the fact that cripple children have to be collected in ambulances every morning and brought back again to their homes at night.
    Mr. SPEAKER: Is not the effect of the hon. Member's Amendment to increase the cost of these schools?
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: No. I may submit that these cripple children are in an ordinary elementary school at present. It depends on the Board of Education whether they receive a larger Grant. If they are transferred to schools for physically defective children it would, no doubt, involve an additional charge on the ratepayers, but it would not involve an additional charge on the national Exchequer, especially as regards residential schools. Sub-Clause (1) provides that the local education authority need not take any steps unless the Board of Education provide half the cost. It is left entirely in the hands of the Board of Education as to whether they will provide the money or not.
    Mr. SPEAKER: You cannot add a charge on the rates on the Report stage.
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: There might be an increased charge on the ratepayers.
    Mr. SPEAKER: You cannot put an increased charge on the ratepayers at this stage.
    Lord A. THYNNE: On a point of Order. I submit that it does not necessarily involve an increase of the rates. The increase of expenditure is purely problematical. It does not bring any new class of child within the scope of education. These children are being educated already. What my hon. Friend suggests is that instead of being educated in one class of school they should be educated in another class of school. At present their education is being paid for both by the rates and by the national Exchequer, and this does not necessarily involve any charge on either fund.
    Mr. SPEAKER: There is a possibility of a charge, and we cannot discuss that on the Report stage.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: Would not a variation in this Bill in the direction of making it more compulsory on the parent to send the children to such schools involve an additional charge, and if the ruling which you have given now were carried out would not it, in fact, prevent any Amendment in the direction of making the sending of these children to schools more rigid than now, because if even one more child is sent would not that involve an extra charge?
    Mr. SPEAKER: I must first see the Amendment to which the hon. Member refers.
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: My next Amendment is consequential on that which has been ruled out of order, and I do not move it.
    Sir F. BANBURY: In reference to the Amendments which stand next in my name, as the word "seven" has already been rejected and the other Amendments are consequential on the Amendment which I ought to have moved on Clause 1, I will not take any notice of them.
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the words "boarding and lodging" ["provision for boarding and lodging a mentally defective child"].
    I move this Amendment so that the Board of Education shall undertake to pay half the costs of children, whether they are in day schools or in residential schools. I think that the right hon. Gentleman has stated that he is providing something like £6 per child in the case of day schools. I am not quite certain whether £6 per child would really meet half the cost. In some cases it might probably be more, and in others it might be less. In London the cost of a mentally defective child in a day school is £17, and therefore the £6, which the right hon. Gentleman told us he is going to provide will not meet half the cost of these children in the elementary day schools. I am certain that the right hon. Gentleman does not intend to put a further charge upon the local ratepayers. The Chancellor of the Exchequer only yesterday said that the burdens, especially the educational burdens, on the local ratepayers were to be reduced, and it seems to be absurd that to-day we should be putting further charges on the local ratepayer. I move this Amendment to make it perfectly clear that in any case, whether the child is in a residential
    210
    school or not, the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to pay half the cost both, of education and of board and lodging.
    Lord A. THYNNE: In seconding the Amendment I want to enter an emphatic protest against, not merely the new duties, but the new functions which are being imposed upon local authorities, of which this is a very flagrant example. It is no function of the ordinary local education authority to board and lodge. Their function is to educate. The tendency of this Government has been continually to impose upon local education authorities functions which are foreign to their very constitution. We have already had experience with regard both to the feeding and to the medical treatment of children, both of them admirable objects, with which I have great sympathy, but objects which I think ought not to be entrusted from an administrative point of view to the local education authority. This is the only instance in which you are asking the local education authority in England for the purpose of elementary education to start large boarding establishments. I have great doubts indeed about the wisdom of choosing the local education authority as the authority to manage these establishments; but, quite apart from that, I think that the real serious point is the point raised by my hon. Friend, and that is the financial point, a point which I hope we shall have an opportunity of discussing on a subsequent Amendment. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to announce some concession to the local education authority in this matter.
    7.0 P.M.
    Mr. PEASE: The effect of this Amendment would be to provide that authorities shall not be under the duty to educate mentally defective children in these schools unless the Treasury pay half the cost. The practice hitherto in relation to all elementary education has been for the Treasury to give definite Grants. There has been a tendency with which I have tried to associate myself to induce the Treasury to give proportionate Grants in certain cases, and I have secured from the Treasury a proportionate Grant in connection with these residential establishments which may be set up under the provisions of this Bill. But in regard to day schools, the Treasury do not see any reason for departing in the present instance from the principle of a definite Grant for special services. In this connection I am glad to have been able to secure an increase. There has been

    211
    hitherto a special Grant in connection with these day schools. That Grant has been increased from an average of about £4 5s. To £6. It depends upon the passage of this Bill. That is a substantial advance. It will in most instances be half the cost of running these special schools. In some country districts where special day schools have been provided, the cost will be under £12 per head, and therefore, with this Grant of £6, they will get more than half the cost. Taking the average of the cost in the country, we assume that it will run to about £11 per head of the children in these schools, and therefore by taking the £6 grant you get more than half in the majority of cases. I do recognise that there will be some authorities—no doubt London will be one—which will receive a less proportion than will be received by many of these schools, but I am not yet in a position to give a proportionate Grant in regard to these schools nor any larger sum than that which I have been able to extract from the Treasury. I hope the Amendment will not be pressed to a Division, though I quite appreciate the grounds on which it has been moved and seconded.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), paragraph (i), after the word "child's" ["provision for the child's education"], to insert the words "maintenance and accommodation during the period of his."
    With the insertion of those words the paragraph would read, "That suitable provision for the child's maintenance and accommodation during the period of his education cannot be made in any other way." I move this Amendment in order to elicit from the right hon. Gentleman a statement of the exact meaning of this proviso. The House will notice that the first Sub-section provides that" it shall be the duty of the local education authority. … to make suitable provision. … for the education of mentally defective children. The Sub-section goes on to say that it shall not be the duty of the local education authorities to make provision for boarding and lodging mentally defective children. And then you would naturally expect to find "unless the Board are satisfied that suitable provision for the child's maintenance and accommodation cannot fee provided in any other way." You find
    212
    there the word "education." I would like to point out that when you come to paragraph (ii.) you find there, also, ruled out the duty of establishing a certified school if the Board of Education are satisfied there are not less than thirty such children belonging to the area requiring such education. That is to say, taking the Clause as a whole, the local education authority have to provide now, in every case, for the education of these mentally defective children, but they need not provide boarding and lodging in any case where—as I suggest is intention—boarding and lodging can be suitably provided in other ways, and that it shall not provide the actual school for such education where there are less than thirty children. I merely put this fox-ward as a drafting Amendment to meet what I believe to be the meaning of this proviso. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he can explain why the word "education" is found there, seeing that the education is in any case to be provided under the first Sub-section, and what the local education authority is being exempted from is the provision of boarding and lodging. What I am suggesting is that where such maintenance and accommodation of a suitable character can be provided for the defective child there is no reason for stating that suitable provision cannot be made in any other way. Surely it is suitable provision for boarding and lodging which alone is contemplated by this exemption from the terms of Sub-section (1).
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: I beg to second the Amendment.
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Trevelyan): It is rather difficult to follow the hon. Gentleman, but I think his Amendment is really one intended to alter the phraseology and not the substance of the Bill. So far as I understand it, I think it must be taken in this way, "suitable provision for the child's education cannot be made in any other way." That refers to the possibility, of course, of a case where a day school is concerned, but the local education authority cannot have anything to do with boarding and lodging. If a suitable day school cannot be found, the local authority have nothing to do, or are not concerned with boarding and lodging so far as the day school is concerned. A day school is possibly suitable provision, but if the words suggested were inserted they would alter the whole meaning of the Clause.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: The hon. Gentleman will admit that there is no reference to a day school here, and, as the proviso is expressed, it appears to apply to every child in the school. I do not want to pres this Amendment in this place, but I would suggest that if it is found on further consideration of this Amendment—I apologise for not having brought it to the notice of the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Gentleman before to-day—that this proviso goes further than is actually intended—as I submit it does—then I venture to hope that the right hon. Gentleman will see that some alteration is made by an Amendment in another place.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: I beg to move, in paragraph (i.), to leave out the words "one-half" ["not less than one-half of the cost"], and to insert instead thereof the word "two-thirds."
    My Amendment substitutes "two-thirds" for "one-half"—that is to say, the Board of Education should pay two-thirds the cost of these schools. The right hon. Gentleman has only provided one half to be paid by the Board of Education, and we are told that it is a great concession from the Exchequer. We know perfectly well that the Board of Education at the present moment is already paying nearly 50 per cent. of the total cost of education all over the country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told us yesterday it amounted to 46 per cent., and by the increase to which he then referred, I have no doubt that the contribution for education as a whole from the Exchequer will be more than 50 per cent. The right hon. Gentleman proposes to pay 50 per cent. in the case of these schools for the mentally defective. I would point out that in the case of these schools the local education authority will be put to great expense, and in country districts it will be impossible to provide for these children in day schools. Residential schools will have to be erected—four or five in one administrative area—and it would probably involve the ratepayers in a considerable charge. I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will give us some assurance that he will be able to pay a larger, a considerably larger, contribution to the local ratepayers than 50 per cent.
    Mr. HOARE: I beg to second the Amendment.
    It is a very important one. These schools are exceedingly expensive. In
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    London one of these schools costs a good deal more than twice as much as an elementary day school, and, when it comes to residential schools, I think it will be found that the cost is about £30 per child. If, therefore, this work is to be taken up and effectively carried out by the local authorities, it is most important that it should be given good encouragement. A great deal of educational work has broken down in the past because the local authorities have not been given sufficient financial encouragement. It is most important, therefore, that they should be given more than 50 per cent. After all it will not involve a very heavy expenditure. We heard yesterday that they were going to have at their disposal about £4,000,000 extra money to distribute amongst local authorities. There are only 12,000 mentally defective children for whom places have to be found, and therefore I think it is a very moderate suggestion that the Board should use some part of this £4,000,000 to make more attractive the proposal that the local authorities should make provision at once for the very few thousands of mentally defective children for whom provision should be found at the present moment in the local areas. I therefore hope, if the President of the Board of Education does not accept my hon. Friend's Amendment, that it will be carried to a Division, and that it will have the support of a very large number of Members.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: I hope this Amendment will not be pressed to a Division. I am sorry to part company from my hon. Friend opposite or with his Bill, but, obviously, there are very great disadvantages in altering the proportion of one-half to two-thirds. If you make it two-thirds you merely offer an incentive to the local authorities to pass children as mentally defective because of the financial advantage to them compared with passing the children to the ordinary school. I do not want to make it more to the interest of the local authorities to get greater numbers into these schools than it is already. I should deprecate the change from that point of view. Secondly—and apparently I shall not have the support of hon. Members opposite quite so enthusiastically—if it is a question of how the money is to be raised, whether it is to be raised from the rates which are attached to real estate or whether it is to be raised from the general corpus of the taxpayers

    215
    of the country, I prefer to see the money raised by taxes on real estate. In the one case it is a burden laid upon industry, and in the other case it is merely a reduction of the amount of the rent received by the owner of the real estate. It is very obvious that if we take from the taxpayers a large sum of money, which would otherwise conic from the ratepayers, we are thereby endowing the owners of real estate. I do not think at this time of day it is very desirable to endow further the owners of real estate in this country. In both these aspects this Amendment is in the wrong direction. I quite agree that on this occasion we shall have the Conservative party opposite united in pressing for this Amendment, which I submit would benefit the ratepayers at the expense of the taxpayers, and on these grounds would be acting from the point of view of vested interests, and not from the point of view of public interests.
    Sir JOHN SPEAR: I cordially support the Amendment, because provision of schools of the kind required under the Bill will be much more expensive than that of ordinary schools, and, therefore, more liberal treatment from the Imperial Exchequer ought to be made in helping the localities to provide those schools. The hon. Member (Mr. Wedgwood) is afraid this might be the means of inducing the local authorities to bring more children into those schools. The object surely of the Bill is the interests of the feebleminded, and therefore any step that would have the effect of more easily making available the advantages of an improved system would be in the interests of the children. I think we have the right to claim that no further burden should be placed on the local authority. It is surely a national responsibility and in the interests of the nation that we should endeavour to provide the children with such education as would make them useful members of society, in the interests not only of the children, but of the Commonwealth. Therefore so large a share of the cost ought not to fall on the local ratepayers. I think the Amendment is equitable and would be the means of inducing the local authorities to try to give effect to the principle contained in the Bill and make provision for the unfortunate children who, through no fault of their own, are handicapped in the battle of life.
    Mr. PEASE: It is always popular in the constituencies to advocate the claims of ratepayers as against the claims of the taxpayers. In this House, however, we have got the dual duty not only to look after the interests of our constituents and the ratepayers, but it is more our duty to look after the interests of the taxpayer, and it is as interested in the taxpayer that I want to say one or two words. Parliament, in its wisdom or reverse, has handed over to the education authorities the control and administration of education. The State contributes Grants to that cost of education and sees that the education is efficient and justifies those Grants being given, and if a greater proportion than a moiety is given from the State the tendency will be for local authorities to be extravagant. Of course it is always easy to spend other people's money, but if you are to have that principle of local control it seems to me that we have reached a fair proportion when we call upon the local authorities to pay one-half and the State to contribute the other. Under the proposals of this Bill the State is contributing on an average about one-half, and in some cases a little more, to the expenditure which is incurred by the local education authorities in connection with children in their own area, and as the administration rests with the local authorities I do not think the Government is justified in giving more than a moiety towards the expenditure. In the case of day schools we are giving £6 out of £11, and in the case of residential schools we propose to give one-half. It is now suggested we should give a greater proportion than one-half out of Treasury funds. We are endeavouring to readjust the burden between the ratepayer and the taxpayer by the proposals in the Budget, and it does seem to me we have met hon. Gentlemen who have been looking after the interests of the local education authorities fairly well when we are contributing a full 50 per cent. of the average cost which will be incurred by the authorities in connection with the proposals under this Bill. To pass this Amendment would be to make the Bill not operative. The Treasury would not be prepared to give a greater proportion than they have already assented to, and the only effect of passing the Amendment would be that this Bill, which, I believe, is generally desired and wanted by the House, would become inoperative. Therefore, I hope hon. Members will not press it to a Division.
    Lord A. THYNNE: I am surprised at the right hon. Gentleman treating this question of a moiety as a sort of sacrosanct figure in this matter. He talks as if there is some virtue about paying half, and that if the Treasury paid for more than half then you are going to get extravagance on the part of the local authorities. I think the right hon. Gentleman cannot have studied the question. Let me give a single instance in which the local authority is permitted to spend a sum of money to which the Government contributes, and that is the case of the equalisation of rates in London. There we find that if the local authority concerned pays anything over 20 or 25 per cent. you have got the interests of economy safeguarded. With regard to the argument advanced by the hon. Member for Neweastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood), I would point out that there is no danger at all of local authorities being induced from financial reasons to treat children as mentally defective. Take the present day elementary schools, where the figure for London is a little over £5, and in the other case of the day special school £17 10s. and in residential schools £30 or more. We base our claim for two-thirds against a moiety because of the fact that the Government compel us—although in form the Bill is permissive—to go in for this very expensive class of education, exceptionally expensive, calculated on the basis of cost per child, and we regard it as outside our normal functions. We suggest, therefore, that it is the duty of the Government to meet us rather more generously in this matter than has been their practice in the past. I am afraid we shall have to press this matter to a Division.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I am afraid the new basis of Grants which the right hon. Gentleman has stated this afternoon will cause very great disappointment amongst all local education authorities, and, indeed, amongst local authorities generally throughout the country after the more hopeful statement which was made by his right hon. Friend
    the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday. We were then assured that so far from a moiety being considered adequate as a Government Grant towards education, that in future a very considerably larger proportion than that would be forthcoming in the case of all normal children in our elementary schools, and yet here the right hon. Gentleman lays down the new proposition that in the case of the most expensive kind of education for which the local education authority shall have to provide, the local education authority is to receive less generous treatment than was adumbrated yesterday. There are many other precedents besides that which my Noble Friend mentioned of the giving of larger Grants for educational purposes, and perhaps the best known is that of the Grant towards the training colleges, which amounts to no less than 75 per cent. Those who recall the terms of the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation will remember that in the case of the mentally defective the Commissioners considered that there was the greatest claim on the part of the local authorities for generous treatment from the Exchequer with regard to what was, in a paramount degree, a national service, namely, the maintenance of lunatics and other persons mentally defective. As regards the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood) as to placing the burden rather on real than on personal property, I would remind the hon. Gentleman that it is not the country districts which are heavily rated owing to the large area of agricultural land of small annual value that has to bear the brunt of this burden, that provide the bulk of the mentally defective persons, and if only there were a larger number of persons brought up upon the land there would be far fewer children who would require treatment in these special institutions.
    Question put, "That the word 'one-half stand part of the Bill."
    The House divided: Ayes, 231; Noes, 105.

    Burns, Ht. Hon. John

    Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

    Palmer, Godfrey Mark

    Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Hogge, James Myles

    Parker, James (Halifax)

    Byles, Sir William Pollard

    Holt, Richard Durning

    Parry, Thomas H.

    Carr-Gomm, H. W.

    Hope, John Deans (Haddington)

    Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

    Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

    Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

    Pearce, William (Limehouse)

    Cawley, Harold T. (Lancs., Heywood)

    Hudson, Walter

    Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)

    Chancellor, Henry George

    Hughes, Spencer Leigh

    Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

    Clancy, John Joseph

    Illingworth, Percy H.

    Pointer, Joseph

    Clough, William

    John, Edward Thomas

    Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

    Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

    Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

    Radford, George Heynes

    Condon, Thomas Joseph

    Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

    Reddy, Michael

    Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

    Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

    Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

    Cotton, William Francis

    Jones, Leit (Notts, Rushcliffe)

    Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

    Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

    Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

    Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

    Crooks, William

    Joyce, Michael

    Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

    Crumley, Patrick

    Kellaway, Frederick George

    Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

    Cullinan, John

    Kelly, Edward

    Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

    Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

    Kennedy, Vincent Paul

    Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

    Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

    Kilbride, Denis

    Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

    Dawes, James Arthur

    King, Joseph

    Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

    De Forest, Baron

    Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon, S. Molton)

    Robinson, Sidney

    Delany, William

    Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

    Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

    Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

    Lardner, James C. R.

    Roche, Augustine (Louth)

    Devlin, Joseph

    Law, Hugh A. (Donegal West)

    Roe, Sir Thomas

    Dickinson, Rt. Hon. Willoughby H.

    Lawson, Sir W. (Cumbr'ld, Cockerm'th)

    Samuel, Rt. Hon H. L. (Cleveland)

    Dillon, John

    Leach, Charles

    Scanlan, Thomas

    Donelan, Captain A.

    Levy, Sir Maurice

    Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

    Doris, William

    Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert

    Seely, Rt. Hon. Colonel J. E. B.

    Duffy, William J.

    Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Sheehy, David

    Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

    Lundon, Thomas

    Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

    Elverston, Sir Harold

    Lyell, Charles Henry

    Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

    Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

    Lynch, Arthur Alfred

    Smith, H. B. Less (Northampton)

    Essex, Sir Richard Walter

    Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

    Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

    Farrell, James Patrick

    Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

    Snowden, Philip

    Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles

    M'Kean, John

    Soames, Arthur Wellesley

    Ffrench, Peter

    McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

    Field, William

    M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.)

    Taylor, John W. (Durham)

    Fiennes, Hon. Eustace Edward

    M'Laren, Hon. F. W. S. (Lincs., Spalding)

    Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

    Fitzgibbon, John

    Marks, Sir George Croydon

    Taylor, Thomas (Bolton)

    Flavin, Michael Joseph

    Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

    Tennant, Harold John

    France, Gerald Ashburner

    Meehan, Patrick J. (Queen's Co., Leix)

    Thomas, James Henry

    Furness, Sir Stephen Wilson

    Middlebrook, William

    Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

    Gelder, Sir W. A.

    Millar, James Duncan

    Toulmin, Sir George

    George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd

    Molloy, Michael

    Trevelyan, Charles Philips

    Gill, A. H.

    Molteno, Percy Alport

    Verney, Sir Harry

    Gladstone, W. G. C.

    Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred

    Walton, Sir Joseph

    Glanville, Harold James

    Montagu, Hon. E. S.

    Wardle, George J.

    Goldstone, Frank

    Mooney, John J.

    Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

    Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

    Morgan, George Hay

    Webb, H.

    Griffith, Ellis Jones

    Morison, Hector

    Wedgwood, Josiah C.

    Guest, Hon. Major C. H. C. (Pemborke)

    Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

    White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

    Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

    Muldoon, John

    White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E. R.)

    Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

    Murphy, Martin J.

    White, Patrick (Meath, North)

    Hackett, John

    Nannetti, Joseph P.

    Wiles, Thomas

    Hall, Frederick (Yorks, Normanton)

    Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

    Wilkie, Alexander

    Hancock, John George

    Nolan, Joseph

    Williams, Aneurin (Durham, N. W.)

    Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

    Norman, Sir Henry

    Williams, John (Glamorgan)

    Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

    Nuttall, Harry

    Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

    Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

    O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

    Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

    Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

    O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

    Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.)

    Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

    O'Doherty, Philip

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)

    Hayden, John Patrick

    O'Donnell, Thomas

    Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

    Hemmerde, Edward George

    O'Dewd, John

    Winfrey, Sir Richard

    Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

    O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

    Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)

    Henry, Sir Charles

    O'Malley, William

    Yeo, Alfred William

    Herbert, General Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)

    O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

    Yoxall, Sir James Henry

    Hewart, Gordon

    O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

    Higham, John Sharp

    O'Shee, James John

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

    Hinds, John

    O'Sullivan, Timothy

    Mr. Gulland and Mr. Wedgwood Benn.

    NOES.

    Amery, L. C. M. S.

    Boles, Lieut.-Colonel Dennis Fortescue

    Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin)

    Ashley, Wilfrid W.

    Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

    Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W.

    Baird, John Lawrence

    Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid)

    Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

    Barnston, Harry

    Boyton, James

    Clive, Captain Percy Archer

    Barrie, H. T.

    Bridgenman, William Clive

    Clynes, John R.

    Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

    Campbell, Captain Duncan F. (Ayr, N.)

    Courthope, George Loyd

    Beck, Arthur Cecil

    Campion, W. R.

    Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe)

    Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

    Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

    Craik, Sir Henry

    Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)

    Cassel, Felix

    Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian

    Bennett-Goldney, Francis

    Cautley, Henry Strother

    Denison-Pender, J. C.

    Bigland, Alfred

    Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

    Denniss, E. R. B.

    Bird, Alfred

    Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University)

    Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

    220

    221

    Falle, Bertram Godfray

    Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

    Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

    Fletcher, John Samuel

    Lowe, Sir F. W (Birm., Edgbaston)

    Stewart, Gershom

    Goldman, C. S.

    MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh

    Sykes, Alan John (Ches., Knutsford)

    Grant, J. A.

    Mackinder, Halford J.

    Sykes, Sir Mark (Hull, Central)

    Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

    Magnus, Sir Philip

    Taibot, Lord Edmund

    Gretton, John

    Mildmay, Francis Bingham

    Terrell, G. (Wilts, N. W.)

    Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds)

    Morrison-Bell, Capt. E. F. (Ashburton)

    Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)

    Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

    Mount, William Arthur

    Thorne, William (West Ham)

    Hall, Frederick (Dulwich)

    Newton, Harry Kottingham

    Thynne, Lord Alexander

    Hamilton, C. G. C. (Ches., Altrincham)

    Nield, Herbert

    Touche, George Alexander

    Hardie, J. Keir

    Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

    Valentia, Viscount

    Harris, Henry Percy

    Parkes, Ebenezer

    Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

    Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

    Perkins, Walter F.

    Watson, Hon. W.

    Helmsley, Viscount

    Peto, Basil Edward

    Wheler, Granville, C. H.

    Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)

    Pryce-Jones, Colonel E.

    Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud

    Henderson, Sir A. (St. Geo., Han. Sq.)

    Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

    Wilson, Captain Leslie O. (Reading)

    Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.)

    Rees, Sir J. D.

    Wilson, Maj. Sir M. (Bethnal Green, S. W.)

    Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

    Remnant, James Farquharson

    Wood, John (Stalybridge)

    Hickman, Colonel Thomas E.

    Ronaldshay, Earl of

    Worthington Evans, L.

    Hope, Harry (Bute)

    Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)

    Yate, Colonel C. E.

    Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

    Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth)

    Younger, Sir George

    Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian)

    Sanders, Robert Arthur

    Hume-Williams, William Ellis

    Smith, Harold (Warrington)

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

    Ingleby, Holcombe

    Spear, Sir John Ward

    Mr. Goldsmith and Mr. Hoare.

    Mr. MOUNT: I beg to move in Sub-section (1) after the word "of" ["the cost of educating"], to insert the words "conveying such child to and from any school so provided and of."
    It is quite clear that, in rural districts especially, the cost of conveying children to and from these schools will be considerable. The children will not be able to go without some guide, and I wish it to be made quite clear that this cost will be included in the charge, one-half of which is to be borne by the Treasury.
    Mr. PEASE: I accept the Amendment.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I beg to move, after the word "lodging" ["boarding and lodging that child"], to insert the words '"and medically attending and treating."
    What we desire is that the whole cost of and incidental to the education of these children should be taken into account in estimating what the amount provided by the Exchequer shall be. The cost in respect of these children is likely to be exceptionally high as compared with that of normal children. It is only right and fair to expect from the Exchequer an adequate Grant to encourage and help the education authorities in making provision for these children.
    Lord A. THYNNE: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. PEASE: I accept the Amendment.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I beg to move to leave out the word "similar" ["or other similar payment"].
    222
    I do not know what the word "similar" is intended to include. It is certainly a very ambiguous expression, and it is only fair that any payment made for the purposes of the provision of a school shall be included in the half cost to be contributed by the Imperial Exchequer.
    Mr. HAMILTON BENN: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. PEASE: The word is really necessary, because there may be many charges other than rent, and the words "other similar payment" will include such things as payments for interest and matters of that kind. The Clause follows verbatim Section 71 (2) of the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913, and if the word were omitted here, it would be argued that the Clause was wider than the provision in the earlier Act. The intention is exactly the same; therefore, I think the word had better be returned.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: Such payments as the right hon. Gentleman suggests are already expressly covered by the preceding line, "by way of interest on, or repayment of capital raised." However, I will not press the Amendment, in view of the fact that an earlier Act of Parliament appears to have made a mistake.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: In order to obtain information, I beg to move to leave out paragraph (ii.).
    Under this paragraph, a local authority is exempted from the duty of providing a certified school if there are fewer than thirty such children belonging to the area. That provision has been inserted in order to relieve from this burden many of the

    223
    rural areas of the country. I want to know how many areas are exempted, and whether in those areas the taxpayer will find the whole of the money to provide residential schools for these children? Further, does the area mean the county? Also, what is the total area in England and Wales exempted under this proviso? I do not propose to press the Amendment to a Division, but I wish to have some indication as to whether it is a large or small area that is being exempted. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will also give me an assurance that the proviso will not be extended by the acceptance of a later Amendment proposing to substitute sixty for thirty; or, if it is so extended, I want to know clearly what area will be cut out of the Bill in consequence.
    Amendment not seconded.
    Mr. PEASE: I beg to move to leave out the words "such reports" ["unless the Board of Education are satisfied after considering such reports"], and to insert the words "the reports of such medical practitioners."
    Question, "That the words 'such reports' stand part of the Bill," put, and negatived.
    Question proposed, "That the words the reports of such medical practitioners be there inserted."
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I beg to move, at the end of the proposed Amendment, to add the words "in relation thereto."
    I wish to make it perfectly clear to what the reports are to refer. It is common knowledge that medical practitioners employed by the local education authorities to-day are making reports from time to time on the condition of children in the ordinary elementary day-schools, and it would be unfair to take one of those reports as the basis upon which the Board of Education should decide whether or not there were a sufficient number of these children in a particular area to compel the local education authority to set up a special school.
    Sir J. SPEAR: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. PEASE: I do not think that the addition of the words suggested by the hon. Member would add to the clearness of the paragraph. The words "in relation thereto" would really obscure the meaning, because they might refer to the
    224
    "duty" or the "school" or the "children." Moreover, the point is already covered by the words "as aforesaid." I think the meaning is quite clear; therefore I hope the words will not be inserted.
    Amendment to the proposed Amendment negatived.
    Original Question put, and agreed to.
    Lord A. THYNNE: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), paragraph (ii.), to leave out the word "thirty" ["thirty such children"], and to insert thereof the word "sixty."
    Mr. PETO: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. PEASE: As I explained in Grand Committee I do not think there is any reason why thirty should not be the number. Perhaps a larger number would make a better school. At the same time I do think that in the event of there being thirty neglected children in any district for whom no accommodation is being provided, it ought to be pointed out to the local authority by the Board of Education, that it is necessary to make some provision. The tendency will be to make arrangements satisfactory from the point of view of economy, and the effect of any pressure of the Board of Education will possibly be that arrangements will be by one local authority for other areas coming into the area where there are actually thirty children. Perhaps we might split the difference between the thirty and the sixty, and make it forty-five. I think we ought to have power to put pressure upon the authority, and to draw their attention to the neglect of a number rather under sixty.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what is the authority?
    Mr. PEASE: The authority is the education authority.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: What about the county council?
    Mr. PEASE: It will be the county council in the counties, and in county and other boroughs—the borough councils. The number of authorities in the country who will have power in connection with this Bill is, I think, 321.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: The right hon. Gentleman has not replied to my queries. He has not told us how many authorities will be exempted up to forty or up to forty-

    225
    five? Before it is decided whether the exemptions should be forty-five or thirty we ought to have some indication of how many county councils or the borough councils that exemption really applies to. Whether the number is thirty or forty-five does not, it seems to me, much matter, because few will get complete exemption. There is one other question I should like an answer to: that is whether the Government have to provide accommodation for the people in the exempted districts, or whether they are going to have accommodation altogether?
    Mr. PEASE: I am afraid I do not quite follow what the hon. Gentleman desires to know, but I will try to make the position quite clear, and will try to answer what I think is in his mind. There is an obligation placed upon all local education authorities to make provision for their mentally defective children. If they do not do it in one way they can do it in another. There are methods by which education authorities can make provision for the children in rural areas through the existing ordinary elementary schools. It is quite possible for the teacher in the elementary schools so to arrange as to be able to teach the mentally defective child in the way that a mentally defective child ought to be taught. The local education authority may be able to make provision for a class in some of these ordinary elementary schools for the mentally defective children. In those cases where provision is made there will be no necessity for the authority to erect for themselves residential establishments. But if we find in any district thirty neglected children for whom no provision is being made, we think we ought to have the power of pressing upon the authority the desirability of establishing a residential school. In most cases where the number is under forty-five arrangements will be made for the training of those children by the local education authorities with other education authorities. In those cases where there are a very large number of cases—it would have to be a residential establishment. It is possible, too, that one authority might arrange with another for the conveyance of the children day by day, so that a residential school in the district might not then be required. If there are thirty neglected children in any one district—or forty-five, as I have suggested—then we think we ought to have the power to put pressure upon the education authority to do what is necessary.
    Lord A. THYNNE: This Amendment, which we consider a very important Amendment, was moved formally in order to meet the convenience of His Majesty's Government, and the right hon. Gentleman has taken advantage of its formal moving to make an attack upon the local authorities. I do think the right hon. Gentleman has not treated us fairly in this matter. When negotiations took place about a fortnight ago with regard to this question, the right hon. Gentleman and the Board of Education recognised the strength of the case of those who wanted this number. I think the right hon. Gentleman will bear me out that the number forty-five was mentioned as the complement, and I understood that was going to be accepted. I should like to know from the right hon. Gentleman whether he goes back on that number forty-five, and whether he still maintains the number at thirty or whether he is prepared to meet us in any degree at all?
    Mr. PEASE: I said I would be quite prepared to accept forty-five.
    Amendment made: Leave out the word "thirty," and insert instead thereof the word "forty-five."
    Mr. BATHURST: I beg to move, in Sub-Section (1), paragraph (ii.), to leave out the words "belonging to" ["belonging to the area"] and insert instead thereof the words "then domiciled in."
    The words "belonging to" are of a very vague character, and it will be extremely difficult for the local education authority to decide what children come under that definition, and from where they will constitute the number forty-five for whom the special school shall be established. A certain number of these mentally deficient children, especially where the number is large, will be found under guardianship or custody, and away from home altogether, possibly outside the area of the particular local education authority. I imagine, from what the right hon. Gentleman has already said, that he means this condition to apply to children actually within that area, by which expression, I fancy, he means living in the area. If that is so, I will ask him to more clearly define to what children it applies, so as not possibly to force upon the local education authority the expense of setting up a school of this sort when, in fact, there are not as many as forty-five children mentally defective actually to be found living in that area.
    Sir PHILIP MAGNUS: I beg to second the Amendment. I think the words suggested will make the meaning of the Clause clearer than it is at present.
    The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir S. Buckmaster): I feel quite sure that if the proposed Amendment had the effect which is suggested it would readily enough be accepted; but, in point of fact, I think a little consideration will show that the only result of this Amendment will be greatly to confuse the question of residence under this Act, and to introduce terms which, I think, in a few sentences I can show will be wholly inapplicable to the procedure which this Act involves. In the first place, I think it is important to point out that the alteration is in a line of a paragraph which fits in with a definition in Clause 5, Sub-Section (1), which says:—
    "For the purposes of the principal Act and this Act, a child shall be deemed to belong to the area in which the residence or permanent home of the child is for the time being situate."
    This follows the language of Section 10 of the principal Act. If you now alter this language and substitute the word "domicile," you will be substituting a phrase which has a very well-known and definitely legal meaning, quite inapplicable to residence as between county and county, or parish and parish, within the area that this Bill affects. "Domicile" in the law clearly relates, and relates only, to the domicile of a man as between countries—for example, between England, Scotland, or Ireland, or any one of these places, and any place abroad. It has no meaning at all as between parish and parish. If you introduce the word "domicile" here, you will introduce a phrase which could not be interpreted according to the present legal meaning of the word and in the connection which it finds itself. That is the reason why I think it is impossible to accept the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Further Amendment made: At the end of Sub-section (2), add the words:
    "(3) In case of doubt as to whether a child is or is not mentally defective within the meaning of the principal Act, the matter shall be determined by the Board of Education."—[Mr. Pease.]

    CLAUSE 2.—(Consultation of Parents and Co-operation with Other Authorities and Persons.)
    (1) A local education authority, before deciding what provision shall be made for the education of a mentally defective child, shall endeavour to ascertain the wishes of the parents, and shall, so far as possible, give effect to their wishes.
    (2) A local education authority, in the exercise and performance of their powers and duties under the principal Act and this Act, shall have regard to the existing supply of certified schools and classes, and shall, so far as possible, co-operate with other authorities or persons providing certified schools and classes.
    Mr. BATHURST: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the words "endeavour to" ["shall endeavour to ascertain the wishes of the parents"].
    There can be no difficulty in ascertaining what the wishes of the parents are. It is only fair to a parent that, at any rate, the attempt should be made—that every effort, in fact, should be made—to ascertain what those wishes are, if this Clause is to be a reality and not a mere sham. If the parent is entitled to express an opinion, then the local education authority should be compelled, as a matter of course, to ascertain what that opinion is, and not merely to rest upon an alleged endeavour to do so.
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: I beg to second the Amendment. The President of the Board of Education did not accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme that the consent of the parents should be obtained, and I think, at any rate, that it should be made clear now that the local education authority should ascertain the wishes of the parents. Therefore, I hope, if the right hon. Gentleman will not accept this Amendment, my hon. Friend will press it to a Division.
    8.0 P.M.
    Mr. PEASE: I think I can show very good reason why the Amendment should not be pressed to a Division. If the parent is unwilling or is obstinate, the best thing you can do is to endeavour to extract the opinion of the parent. You cannot force an unwilling parent, and all the authorities can do is to do their best, and the words "endeavour to" are really inserted and required to indicate that where, for instance, the parent may not even be in existence the local authority shall then

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    endeavour to get the information. You cannot force information when it is not forthcoming and, therefore, the words "endeavour to" really carry out the intention.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: I think on this principle the drafting of most Acts of Parliament should be altered and the words "endeavour to" should be inserted before all the compulsory Clauses. If in some cases the parent is non-existent and cannot be found, it will devolve upon somebody to give the information. Surely that cannot be the reason for inserting these words. As long as the words "endeavour to" remain it is within the power of the local authority to practically disregard this Clause altogether. The endeavour may be a very slight endeavour indeed. It may resolve itself into a mere inquiry by the teacher whether they know the parent has any objection or not. "Endeavour to" is a typical piece of Board of Education drafting. It shows an utter disregard for the opinion of the parent, and it is introduced into this Bill as a sort of sop to "unreasonable people" who in this House try and see that the parents shall have fair play. They know perfectly well that parents need not be visited at all and that the only persons to be convenienced are the persons who run and manage machinery like this, and draft Clauses like this, which they believe can do all they want, at the same time causing as little inconvenience to inspectors of the Board of Education as possible. I hope my hon. Friend will press this to a Division. It seems to me that to leave in the words "endeavour to" almost stultifies the voluntary nature of the Bill.
    Sir P. MAGNUS: I think the reasons given by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education are good. I do not see how we can compel the local education authority to ascertain the wish of the parents unless the parents are willing to express their wishes, and I think the words "endeavour to" must or ought to be sufficient to require that the local authorities shall do their best, or shall use their best endeavours, if that is a Parliamentary phrase, to ascertain the wishes of the parents. But what I think is more important is that there may be cases in which it may be impossible to obtain the wishes of the parents, but they should endeavour to obtain the wishes of the surviving parents, and I think the words should be inserted "the wishes of the parents or of the surviving parents."
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    I do not think the words could be stronger than those in the Clause.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Amendment made: In Sub-section (1), after the word "parents" ["to ascertain the wishes of the parents"], to insert the words "of the child."—[Mr. Wedywood.]
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the words "as far as possible, give effect," and to insert instead thereof the words "not enforce a system of education contrary."
    The Clause would then read:—
    "A local education authority before deciding what provision shall be made for the education of a mentally defective child shall endeavour to ascertain the wishes of the parents of the child and shall not enforce a system of education contrary to their wishes."
    I can quite see that the wishes of the parents might on certain occasions be unreasonable; that you could not compel a local authority to accede to the wishes of a parent who wanted a child to be sent to an expensive school or to a school a long way off. But I do not think that the local authorities should have power to enforce a system of education contrary to the wishes of the parent. The child is feeble-minded, but I do not think you ought to enforce a system of education of which the parents do not approve. There are many things the parent may not approve of. A great many parents have objection to vaccination and to children being used experimentally. I can imagine a number of reasons why a parent should object to some particular system of education. You do not know what doctors may be up to. They may have some wonderful scheme for improving the development of those children, and the parents, may have a strong objection to that particular form of mental education. I do not think the authorities ought to be in a position to compel poor parents to have their children educated in a particular way, whether they object or not. People object to have their children educated in many ways, and even in the normal way, and when it comes to the treatment of mentally defective children we might reasonably allow parents the option of saying what form of education the children ought to have in particular schools. There is another thing. Parents may have very bad ideas of certain specific schools. Some schools may be good, others may be mere

    231
    child asylums, and I do not think you should compel a parent to have his child sent to a particular asylum with a bad reputation, which he may know. It seems to me the parents ought to be able to bar out certain schools which they may have reasonable ground to believe are badly conducted. The parents should be allowed to say, "You take my child compulsorily, and at any rate I bar that particular school." I do not think it is unreasonable that so much should be granted to the parent.
    Amendment not seconded.
    Amendment made: In Sub-section (2), after the word "providing" ["with other authorities or persons providing certified schools and classes"], insert the words "of having power to provide."
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (2) to add the words "within their area or contiguous thereto."
    The object of this Sub-section is to enable the local education authority to co-operate as far as possible with other authorities or persons providing certified schools and classes. It must be clear to those who have experience of local government that it is evidently desirable that they should join forces with those who have similar work in hand within their areas, like borough or district councils, or some adjoining administrative county area. It would never do to have a variety of special schools dotted about the country to which various authorities or areas were not contiguous or had not some interest in joining in their support. I think it goes without saying that it is a matter of common sense that there should be as much co-operation as possible, but that is not what the Bill says.
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. PEASE: It is very obvious that local authorities will always endeavour to deal with those in its own neighbourhood rather than those further remote, but at the same time I do not think it would be wise to place the limitation on the authorities, which the insertion of these words would mean. For instance, an adjacent authority might have an establishment or school which is quite full, and it would be necessary for the authorities if the Amendment were carried, to make an arrangement within their own areas, or within an area adjacent thereto. They would not
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    be able to do so, and would have to go a little further afield, and in that case it is obviously desirable that the authorities should have that opportunity. Then again it is quite possible an authority contiguous thereto might have a very expensive school and not a very efficient school, and therefore it ought to have latitude. I think the words the hon. Member desires to insert would have a restraining limiting effect which would be found undesirable by the local authorities themselves.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: I am afraid that Members are more anxious to get to their dinner than to put any provisions into the Bill to safeguard those unfortunate children, and it is therefore useless for me to move my Amendments when nobody will second them.

    CLAUSE 3.—(Delegation of Authority to the Council of County.)
    The council of a non-county borough or urban district having powers and duties under the principal Act and this Act may, at any time after the passing of this Act, by agreement with the council of the county, and with the approval of the Board of Education, relinquish in favour of the council of the county any of those powers and duties, and in that case the powers and duties of the authority so relinquished shall cease, and the area of the authority shall, as respects those powers, be part of the area of the county council.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I beg to move, after the word "county" ["by agreement with the council of the county"], to insert the words, "in which the borough or urban district is situate."
    I have a series of Amendments following this which I understand the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to accept. Their object is to indicate that the county to which a non-county borough or urban district can ally itself for the purposes of Clause 3 would be that county in which the borough or urban district is situate. The other Amendments are consequent upon this Amendment.
    Mr. GOLDSMITH: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. PEASE: I shall be glad to accept this and the other Amendments, with the exception of the one which proposes to leave out the word "those," and to insert instead thereof the word "such."
    Mr. GRETTON: In connection with this matter I think small counties, of which there are several in Scotland and Wales and two in England—Rutland and Huntingdon—ought to be considered. In these small areas the consideration is one of importance.
    Mr. PEASE: The authorities in these cases can make arrangements one with another. It will not be necessary for the authorities in Scotland, because the Bill does not apply to Scotland, and in England it would not be necessary to put up a school unless there were forty-five children in the area for whom no provision was made.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendments made: Leave out the word "the" ["in favour of the council"], and insert the word "that."
    Leave out the words "of the county."
    Leave out the word "and" ["those powers and duties"], and insert the word "or."
    Leave out the word "and" ["powers and duties"], and insert the word "or."
    After the word "powers" ["as represents these powers "3 insert the words "or duties."—[Mr. C. Bathurst.]

    CLAUSE 4.—(Enforcement of Obligations of Parents of Mentally Defective and Epileptic Children.)
    If a local education authority are satisfied, after consultation with the parent of a mentally defective or epileptic child over seven years of age, that the parent is not making suitable provision for the child's education they may require the parent of the child to send the child to a certified class or school suitable for the child, and if he fails to do so may apply to a Court of Summary Jurisdiction for an order requiring the child to be sent to a certified class or school suitable for the child and willing to receive him, being either such as the parent may select, or if he does not select a suitable class or school, then such class or school as the Court thinks expedient, and such an order shall be a sufficient authority for the conveyance of the child to the class or school named in the order:
    Provided that no order shall be made requiring the child to be sent to a certified class or school which is not within reach of the child's residence or to a boarding school without the consent in writing of parent, unless it is proved to the satisfaction of the Court that such consent is unreasonably
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    withheld, or that the parent cannot be found, but consent shall not be deemed to be unreasonably withheld if withheld with the bonâ fide intention of benefiting the child.
    Provided further that if the Court shall refuse to make an order the parent shall be awarded all the costs and expenses, including loss of wages, which he may have suffered as the consequence of attending the Court.
    Amendment made: In the first paragraph, after the word "fails" ["and if he fails to do so"], to insert the words "without reasonable excuse."
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I beg to move, in the first paragraph after the word "for" ["authority for the conveyance"], to insert the words "the compulsory attendance at and."
    This contemplates the making of an order by a Court of Summary Jurisdiction to the effect that a child, the consent of whose parents has not been obtained, shall be conveyed to a school, but there is no provision whatever that, although the order necessarily and naturally provides for the compulsory education of the child at the school, the order shall be carried out. I think that is an omission which ought to be made good, and seeing present the learned Solicitor-General, who is an expert draftsman, I hope he will be able to accept this Amendment, as making clear what I believe to be the meaning of this Clause.
    Sir S. BUCKMASTER: I think if the hon. Member will consider with me the words of this Section, he will find that his Amendment is not really wanted. Application is made to the Court for an order requiring the child to be sent to a certain kind of class or school. That is the order which is made, and the Clause provides that such order directing that he is to be sent to a suitable school or class shall be a sufficient authority for the conveyance of the child to the class or school made in the order. The order must, on the face of it, direct attendance at the school, and the introduction of the words suggested by the hon. Member, so far from helping the matter, would only confuse it.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: In face of the opinion of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, it is difficult for me to argue that such words as I have suggested are necessary. The Solicitor-General has told

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    us that providing for the conveyance of the child to the school is all that is necessary.
    Sir S. BUCKMASTER: No, Sir. I pointed out that the order on the face of it directs that the child shall go to school. That is the order, and it is that order directing it to go to school which is the authority enabling the child to he conveyed there.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I do not want to contest that point, and I do not wish to press the matter except to suggest that the order is intended to do a great deal more than direct the conveyance of the child to school. I do not press my proposal, and I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. GRETTON: I beg to move, in the second paragraph, to leave out the words "unless it is proved to the satisfaction of the Court that such consent is unreasonably withheld, or that the parent cannot be found, but consent shall not be deemed to be unreasonably withheld if withheld with the bonâ fide intention of benefiting the child." I admit that this Bill has been improved in Committee. The arbitrary authorities of the education authority—
    Lord A. THYNNE: On a point of Order. I wish to ask whether this is not a question which has been very fully discussed at a previous stage, and has already been settled by the House?
    Mr. GRETTON: I wish to point out that what has been settled by the House is the question that the child should be sent to a school. This is quite a limiting point, which I contend has not been decided. The House has decided that the child should be sent to a day school, but it has not decided until we have passed this proviso that the child should be sent to a residential school.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I was under the impression that this matter was dealt with in a previous Debate.
    Sir S. BUCKMASTER: There is no doubt the matter was dealt with, and the question of sending the child to a residential school was the express subject of Debate.
    Mr. GRETTON: Of course, if I am out of order, I will not press my Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I beg to move, in the second paragraph, after the word "intention" [bonâ-fide intention"], to insert the words "and a reasonable prospect."
    What is contemplated is that any parent shall be able to decline his consent to the attendance of his child at a certain class or school if he is able to say it is his bonâ-fide intention to benefit the child. I would suggest that a very large proportion of the parents of these children are not really the best judges as to whether benefit will accrue to the child or not in the event of the child being kept away from the particular class or school that is deemed in other cases to be of advantage to the child. It is the benefit of the child we have to consider, and not merely the particular fancies of certain parents who may not be sufficiently enlightened—
    Lord A. THYNNE: I desire to call attention to the fact that the question of the competency of the parents has already been decided.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I really do not know what these irrelevant interruptions of the Noble Lord mean, but, if they mean that what was decided in Committee is going to be withdrawn from the purview of this House as a whole, I, for one strongly protest against it.
    Lord A. THYNNE: I think the Solicitor-General will bear me out that this was discussed at an earlier stage this afternoon.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: Nothing that has occurred in the course of this Debate has dealt with the specific point which is referred to in Clause 4, namely, as to whether a parent, when an order is made requiring the child to be sent to a certified class—that is an order of a Court of Summary Jurisdiction—can or cannot decline, his consent on the ground that he intends to benefit his child in some other way. That matter has not been dealt with in any way whatever.
    Lord A. THYNNE: I submit that the point has been dealt with. We had a considerable discussion this afternoon as to whether parents of mentally defective children were themselves, as a rule, sufficiently normal to be competent to take a decision on this point.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: It seems to me a minor point slightly strengthening this part of the Clause, and I do not think I could rule it out of order.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I hope that in this matter, as in the case of normal children, the discretion will remain with the local education authority and the Board of Education, who can best decide whether the parent in such a case is likely to benefit the child, whose interests, after all, we have most to consider in an Education Bill.
    Mr. BOYTON: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. GRETTON: I think the Government hardly realise what they are doing. Do I understand that they are going to accept the Amendment? If they are, we shall certainly have to examine it carefully, and I, for one, shall oppose it at every; point. It is going to bring in the arbitrary authority of the education authority or; some Court of Law.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: The Government are not going to accept it.
    Mr. TREVELYAN: This follows Section 6, Sub-section (3) (a) of the Mental Deficiency Act, and I think it would be j very unwise that we should depart from the phraseology adopted in that Clause.
    Lord A. THYNNE: The hon Member cannot brush aside this question quite so lightly as he appears to think he can. He is asking a Court of Law in this Section; to judge of the bonâ fides of a parent with: regard to the benefit of his mentally deficient child. All my hon. Friend asks the; Government to do so is to add to the bonâ fide intentions of the parent that there shall be a reasonable prospect of the child being benefited. It is a point of very great substance indeed, and I really do not see how the Government can brush it aside in this light airy fashion.
    Sir S. BUCKMASTER: The Noble Lord who attended most carefully the earlier part of the Debate this afternoon will realise that the House felt some uneasiness about the Sections of the Statute which took the child away from its parents and placed it in one of these boarding schools. It is intended to temper, as far as possible, the stringent provisions of the Statute, and to provide, if the parent does honestly desire to keep the child and has no ulterior motive, that then the mere fact that he will not consent to sending the child to a boarding school is not to be considered sufficient reason for the Court taking the very severe and drastic measure of ordering the child to be sent [An
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    How. MEMBER: "What will be the result to the child?"] I do not overlook that, but one has to remember that in this case there are two sides. There is the child, and there is the parent. If the parent has really an honest and sincere intention of benefiting the child there is something to be said for the view that in itself shows there is some reasonable prospect that the child will be benefited. If the parent is neglecting the child, or overlooking it, or keeping it at home for improper purposes, then the order will be made; but in the other case it is not thought right that the order should be made. That is the reason the Statute is drawn in this form.
    Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and negatived.
    Mr. PEASE: I beg to move, in the third paragraph, to leave out the words "the parent shall be awarded all the costs and expenses, including loss of wages, which he may have suffered as the consequence of attending the Court," and to insert instead thereof the words—
    "and the Court awards costs to the parent, the costs so awarded shall, unless some reason to the contrary appears, include such sum as compensation for the expense, trouble, and loss of time incurred in or incidental to his attendance at the Court as to the Court may seem just and reasonable."
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: The Amendment put down by the right hon. Gentleman is in substitution for an Amendment carried in Committee against his view, which runs in these words:—
    "Provided, further, if the Court shall refuse to make an order the parent shall be awarded all costs and expenses, including the loss of wages, which he may have suffered in consequence of attending the Court."
    The right hon. Gentleman proposes, in the first place, to insert a power to the Court to refuse to award costs to the parent, and then, in addition, he proposes to make it not obligatory to give the whole of the expenses to the parent, but only unless some reason to the contrary appears. I venture to think that is not a satisfactory substitute for the Amendment that was carried upstairs, and I should like to know from the right hon. Gentleman some reasons why he has changed, not the phraseology, because I do not care about that, but the substance of the intention of the Amendment that was carried upstairs.
    Sir S. BUCKMASTER: The Amendment now proposed is one the Government desire to insert in place of the Clause to which objection was taken. There are Amendments of the Noble Lord to it raising what I understand are the important distinctions between the Clause now proposed and the Clause which the Noble Lord said was carried upstairs. It would be better, I think, that I should deal with the questions raised on the Amendments of the Noble Lord, which I think he will find raises the real material distinctions.
    Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill," put, and negatived.
    Question proposed, "That the words 'and the court awards costs to the parent, the costs so awarded shall, unless some reason to the contrary appears, include such sum as compensation for the expense, trouble, and loss of time incurred in or incidental to his attendance at the court as to the court may seem just and reasonable,' be inserted in the Bill."
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: I beg to move, in the proposed Amendment, to leave out the words "and the Court awards," and to insert instead thereof the words, "the Court, unless for good cause it shall otherwise order, shall award."
    This is an entirely new departure, but I think I shall have the assent of the hon. Member on the Labour benches who supported me in the view that what was desired upstairs was to give a real security that the parent should not be fined even when he was right in resisting the order of the Court. The point arises only in this case. When the local authority applies for an order and the Court refuses the order on the ground that it has been improperly applied for, none the less, under our present law, and under the law as proposed, without this Amendment, the parent is fined, and very often heavily fined, by having to attend the Court in order to obtain what the Court itself says is justice. It was to deal with that difficulty that these words were inserted. Now it is proposed to give to the Court complete unfettered discretion whether they shall or not give costs. I am sure the Solicitor-General will not dispute this, that since this is a new power the ordinary inertia of the Court will be rather against than in favour of exercising it, and, unless
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    some indication is given by the legislator that a parent ought to be indemnified altogether from the expense of being made to attend the Court to assert his rights, there will be a grave danger, if it comes before an ordinary Petty Sessional Court, that the Court, or the clerk, will think it a rather newfangled proposal, and the whole prejudice of the Court will be against granting these costs. It seems to me very important indeed that we should, on the face of the Clause, insert a clear indication of what was in the mind of Parliament, so that, unless there was some good reason to the contrary, the parent should have his costs—and real costs. I quite agree that, as we drafted it upstairs in the Committee, it went perhaps too far by giving the Court no discretion, and, therefore, I suggest we should use these words, with which the Solicitor-General will be quite familiar, seeing that they are taken from a rule of the Court dealing with cases where a plaintiff is deprived of his costs after having obtained the verdict of the jury. I am merely asking that in these cases you shall not tie the hand of the Court. That would be going, perhaps, too far, but we should distinctly indicate that the Court should give costs, and real costs. For the moment the question is whether they are to give costs when the local authority has applied for an order and been refused. I think, in that case, according to all the elementary principles of justice, where a local authority, with the whole of the rates behind it, brings a working-class parent before a Petty Sessional Court, it should, if it is proved to be wrong in bringing him there, pay the normal costs of his attending, unless the Court, for good cause, shall otherwise order. I hope the Government, now their attention has been called to the matter, will see their way to accept which I submit to be a reasonable measure of justice.
    Lord A. THYNNE: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Sir S. BUCKMASTER: I do not misunderstand, and I am sure I sympathise with the motive which has led the Noble Lord to move this Amendment, but I think a little consideration will show him that in attempting to remedy a grievance m certain places that exists he has incurred the risk of creating another grievance far more serious. Let me just ask his attention for a few moments to the provisions of the Statute in relation to which this

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    question may arise. If, after consultation with the parent of a child over seven years of age, the local education authority is not satisfied with the manner in which the parent is dealing with the child, the first thing is that a requisition is made on him that the child be sent to a school. It is only after that requisition has been made and after non-compliance with it that proceedings are taken at all. When proceedings are taken no order is made upon them to send the child to a certified class or boarding school without the written consent of the parent, unless it is proved that the consent is unreasonably withheld. No order is made unless an unreasonable act has taken place on the part of the parent, and that unreasonable act must be one that necessarily deserves some punishment. Then the order is made. I do not think the Noble Lord will dispute that it would follow on that order the right would probably be exercised of making some order for the payment of costs. That the Amendment would not affect. It only deals with cases where the order is refused, and in a case where the order is refused the Noble Lord desires that the refusal should automatically carry with it the right to costs on the part of the respondent, unless good cause is shown to the contrary.
    What I ask the Noble Lord to consider is this: In many of these cases the magistrates will be dealing with ignorant parents. In some cases it has been suggested, no doubt with good reason, that the parents themselves may be partially mentally defective. In such a case the Court would be very reluctant to make an order; it would see there had been stupidity and that it was unreasonable for the parent to withhold consent, but at the same time, while feeling that the stupid person had acted unreasonably they would be most anxious not to punish him and would make no order, but would adjourn the summons for a short time and point out to the respondent that, if during the interval the direction was complied with, no order would be made, and everything would be at an end. If the result of that is going to be that there is to be a right on the part of the respondent to costs unless good cause is shown to the contrary, a condition which it is difficult very often to satisfy, the temptation will most undoubtedly be to make the order so as to save the possible obligation to pay costs. I submit there is no doubt about that, and the result will be that the Noble Lord, in
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    his anxiety which I fully share, to avoid one form of injustice will have, if his Amendment is accepted, run a risk of a graver injustice, because the bias of the magistrate will be in favour of conviction in order to save the costs, instead of being, as I think we are agreed it should be, to avoid by all possible means a conviction, and to try persuasion and the influence of the Bench upon the respondent so as to avoid the necessity of making the order. That is the reason why the Government are unable to accept a provision which throws upon the Bench the duty of making an order for the payment of costs unless there is good cause to the contrary, a question which, as the Noble Lord knows well, has vexed and disturbed Court after Court of Law, because it is by no means an easy matter to determine.
    Mr. GRETTON: The reasons which the hon. and learned Gentleman has just given do not convince the ordinary man of common sense who occasionally goes into the very humble Courts of Law, which, no doubt he does not now frequent. He appears to propose that the unfortunate parent who is summoned is not to have the case decided, but is to be mulcted in costs and is to have his case referred back with further costs incurred at a later hearing. I cannot imagine any more effective way by giving the sole power to the officials. There is no doubt that in many cases there is a good defence to actions brought against humble people, but they are not able to put forward the defence, because if they win or lose they are overwhelmed with costs. The object of the Amendment is to give a real remedy where there is a good defence. If a man knows he is in a position where he will get costs, he will go for justice. At present, even though he has a just cause he has all the terror of losing a great deal of time and his wages. This Amendment is really necessary if the Clause is to be effective, and if my Noble Friend goes to a Division I shall certainly support him.
    Mr. POINTER: I am not convinced by the Solicitor-General's argument, and I do not think he made out any case at all. As I understand the position, the Amendment made in Committee meant that if, after the proper proceedings had been pursued, a certain parent were brought before the Court, and after he had been tried and found innocent he should have the right to recover costs in lieu of wages, etc. Now the Government come along

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    with an Amendment which allows great discretion as to whether or not the Court should give costs. That is a weak point. The Noble Lord seeks to amend that proposal and to restore a part of the position as arrived at by the Amendment made upstairs. He is leaving a discretion to the Court. The Solicitor-General's argument seemed to be that if a case was difficult to settle at one sitting, it might be necessary, in order to bring the powers of persuasion to bear upon the recalcitrant parent, to postpone the trial for a short time—
    Sir S. BUCKMASTER: I said it might be a case quite easy to settle at one sitting, but a case in which, in the interests of the parent, the Court might be anxious that they should not make an order.
    Mr. POINTER: The argument is the same in either case, so far as my argument is concerned. Surely the discretion allowed to the Court under the words suggested by the Noble Lord will meet that case. There would be no compulsion on the Court to take a wrong decision in order to save expense if this discretion is given, because the fact that they held it over for a week, fortnight or month, during which time they would try to bring the parent round to their point of view, would be sufficient justification for them to withhold the question of costs altogether until the matter was finally settled. The one argument advanced by the Solicitor-General, that it would be forcing the Court to impose a fine, whether they wanted to or not, falls to the ground, because it would be covered by the discretion given under the Noble Lord's words. Personally, I feel strongly that it is only the ignorance and stupidity of parents with which we shall be troubled, and if it is stupidity they ought not to be fined, because in nine cases out of ten they will be very poor, and if the circumstances are such that the Court cannot find sufficient ground for making an order, I think they ought to have the right to costs.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: I cannot help hoping that the Government will see their way to accept this Amendment. If we take the Solicitor-General's own case, the hon. Member who has just spoken gave an admirable answer to it, namely, that it would be covered by the word "good cause." What would happen in the case put by the Solicitor-General would be that the case
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    would be adjourned and there would be no question of making or refusing an order. The case would then come before the Court again. If the parent had not complied, the order would be made and no case would arise, but if he had complied, do not the Government realise that it is not unreasonable, if the Court should think it right, that he should have his costs and expenses? Do put yourselves in the position of this unhappy man. He is a poor man, a stupid man, with practically no adviser, who is opposed by a local authority with a skilled advocate and the whole weight of the expert opinions behind him. He fights under tremendous disadvantage in any circumstances. There is not the slightest danger that the local education authority will often have to pay costs. However you word your Statute it will only be in cases of clear mistake or clear injustice. I respectfully appeal to the Government not to use their power. Undoubtedly they have that power in this House. They would not have it in Grand Committee, where they would not have a chance if those who are going to decide it had heard the discussion. Of course, they can send their Whips and send for Members who are smoking or dining, but they will be using the whole power of the Government simply to oppress some unfortunate individual. Possibly the Solicitor-General has persuaded himself that there may be a chance that a magistrate, in view of the possibility of having to give costs against the local education authority, will make an order rather than adjourn the ease and make no order. That is an entirely illusory fear, but, if the fear exists, it is met by the words giving the Court an opportunity, on good cause shown, to avoid making an order for costs. As to the difficulty of construing those words, to which the Solicitor-General referred, he will see it is not a difficulty which will arise in this case. The difficulty has arisen from the fact that a jury giving one farthing damages only is not in itself a good cause. I venture to appeal to the Government to give way upon this point. It cannot possibly affect the substance of their Bill. If they do not give way, I shall have to go to a Division to ascertain the view of the House upon it.
    Sir S. BUCKMASTER: I can assure the Noble Lord that nobody is more anxious than we are to see that no hardship or injustice is done. I still take the view I took, that this Amendment might inflict a

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    hardship which the Noble Lord would be the first to avoid. None the less, it is quite obvious that the Noble Lord quite sincerely thinks otherwise, and it is obvious that his view is shared by hon. Members who sit below the Gangway, who look at the matter in a totally different light from that in which I regard it. We certainly have no desire at all except to secure a man against hardship and unfair treatment, and if the Noble Lord thinks his words are better than those we propose, I am prepared to accept them. That would simply provide that the Court shall award costs in cases where no order is made, unless there is good cause to the contrary.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Exactly.
    Sir S. BUCKMASTER: The other Amendment raises a different consideration.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: There are two other Amendments—one is merely verbal, to insert the word "and," and the other raises a substantial point about wages, and I will move it.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Further Amendment made in the proposed Amendment: After the word "parent" ["costs to the parent"], insert the word "and."—[Lord Robert Cecil.]
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: I beg to move, after the word' "time" ["expense, trouble, and loss of time"], to insert the words "and wages."
    I think there is no difference of opinion between the Government and myself on this. The only question is whether these words are necessary to make it clear. The words that the Government propose are "expense, trouble, and loss of time." It does not seem to me quite clear that any of these words would cover what is, after all, the main point—namely, wages. If the Government are perfectly sure that wages are covered by their words, I should not like to pit my opinion against the Government draftsman's, but I doubt it very much, It seems doubtful whether loss of wages could be said to be an expense. It certainly could not be trouble, or loss of time. If it is covered by any of these words, it must be expense. Can you say a man is put to expense because he loses wages? Expense means paying something out. It is not a failure to receive something which he otherwise would receive. That is the difficulty I am
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    in. I think it would be better to insert the words "and wages," which would make it quite clear.
    Mr. GRETTON: I beg to second the Amendment. Time and wages are two different questions. A man is often employed on piece work, if he is employed by the hour and loses wages it comes under time. If he is employed on piece work and loses a portion of his wages, a great difficulty will arise because he is not employed by time. I think my Noble Friend is right, and the word "wages" ought to be inserted.
    Sir S. BUCKMASTER: Our view is not that these wages are included under "expenses," but under "loss of time," and I think it is reasonably clear. A Statute was passed in 1908 called the Costs in Criminal Cases Act, and by Section 1, Sub-section (2) of that Statute power was given to make rules with regard to costs. It says:—
    "The Court may order the costs of the defence to be paid, and those costs shall include costs reasonably sufficient to compensate any persons properly attending to give evidence or called to give evidence for expense, trouble, or loss of time properly incurred."
    9.0 P.M.
    These rules provided that the allowance for witnesses who do not lose wages should be a certain sum, and the allowance for a witness who loses wages by attending should be on this basis, that agricultural labourers and unskilled labourers should get 3s. 6d. a day, artisans and mechanics 5s. a day, and clerks and shop assistants 5s. a day, except on the production of a certificate from the employer, showing that the wages were in excess of the rate, and in cases where they were in excess of the rate they got the greater sum. The view we take is that loss of time includes wages, and it may possibly be that it includes something more. While I think it includes wages, and it is our intention that it should, we do not want to put in wages which are part of the loss of time. That is a wider matter.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: I am quite satisfied with that statement. If it should turn out to be wrong, it could easily be put right later on.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Question, "That the words, 'The Court, unless for good cause it shall otherwise

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    order, shall award costs to the parent, and the costs so awarded shall, unless some reason to the contrary appears, include such sum as compensation for the expense, trouble, and loss of time incurred in or incidental to his attendance at the Court as to the Court may seem just and reasonable,' be there inserted." put, and agreed to.
    Further Amendment made: At the end of the Clause insert the words,

    "(2) The provisions of this Section shall be in substitution for, and not in addition to, the power of a Court of Summary Jurisdiction, on an attendance order not being complied with, to order the child to be sent to an industrial school under Section 12 of the Elementary Education Act, 1876, as applied by the principal Act.

    (3) Nothing in this Section shall be construed as affecting the power of a parent to withdraw a child from school on proof to the satisfaction of the local education authority that he will make suitable provision for the child's education in some other way."—[Mr. Joseph Pease.]

    CLAUSE 5.—(Determination of Residence.)
    (1) For the purposes of the principal Act and this Act a child shall be deemed to belong to the area in which the residence or permanent home of the child is for the time being situate:
    Provided that in the case of a child in a school or boarded out in pursuance of the principal Act or this Act the local education authority who are making provision for his education shall continue liable to make such provision pending the determination of any question which may be referred to the Board of Education under this Section.
    (2) If any question arises as to the area to which a child is to be deemed to belong, that question shall be determined by the Board of Education, and the Board on determining the question may direct such financial adjustments between the local education authorities concerned as they may consider just.
    Mr. HAMILTON BENN: I beg to move in Sub-section (1) after the word "of" ["permanent home of the child"], to insert the words "the parent of."
    The Clause as it stands is unsatisfactory. "Residence or permanent home of the
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    child for the time being" is very vague. The child rightly belongs to the area in which the parent resides, it is not fair to London and other large centres that they should provide for the children who are residing within the area for the time being. The home of the child is really where the parent resides. It is continually found to be the case that defective children are sent away from home, and in many cases to the Metropolis, and for that reason I should like to have inserted that the child's residence should be considered to be the residence of his parents. Another reason is that the continuity of responsibility of the parents should be maintained. Under the Clause as it stands that may be to a certain extent removed. It is much easier for the authority to trace the child through the parent, and it is much better for the authority to have the parent always to apply to rather than some temporary guardian with whom the child may be residing. All through the Act, and all through the discussion to-day, I noticed that the parent is referred to in every case as the person who has to be applied to in connection with the child for consent and everything else. Therefore, why in this Clause should we turn round and make the area to which the child belongs where it happens to be residing for the time being?
    Mr. C. BATHURST: I beg to second the Amendment.
    The word "parent" does, in fact, by reference to a previous Statute which is incorporated in this Bill, include "guardian," and so would cover the case of any child who might for the time being, although not living in its own home, be under the custody of someone who is taking care of it in loco parentis
    Mr. PEASE: I am not prepared to accept this Amendment, because I think, in actual practice, it is much more convenient that a child should be educated where the child lives rather than in varying places which might be the case where you have parents engaged in occupations which prevent them from having any permanent place of abode. I am not merely dealing with the unfortunate class which it is very difficult to deal with from the education point of view, such as wandering gipsies, or those who go about with shows in the country, or bargemen who travel about on the inland waterways of this country, but rather with the children of men engaged

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    in connection with large contract works which necessitate men leaving often what might be regarded as their permanent homes, and taking up temporary homes in the districts in which their occupation for the time being calls them. When engaged in connection with large contract works men sometimes have no permanent homes, and they make arrangements for their children to be kept with some relative, and it would be far better to adhere to the words already inserted in the principal Act and not to attempt to alter them now. In the interest of the child, I believe it would be advisable to adhere to the words of the Bill, and for these reasons I am not prepared to accept the Amendment which the hon. Member has moved on grounds which I at the same time appreciate.
    Question, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill," put, and negatived.
    Bill to be read the third time To-morrow. (Wednesday).

  PATENTS AND DESIGNS BILL.
  Read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

  CRIMINAL JUSTICE ADMINISTRATION [EXPENSES].
  Resolution reported,
  "That it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of contributions to societies for the care of youthful offenders on probation and for similar objects, and of other expenses incurred in pursuance of any Act of the present Session to diminish the number of cases committed to prison, to amend the Law with respect to the treatment and punishment of young offenders, and otherwise to improve the administration of criminal justice."
  Motion made, and Question, "That the House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution," put, and agreed to.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
  ADJOURNMENT.—Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. William Jones.]
  Adjourned accordingly at Ten minutes after Nine o'clock.