§ I am not quite sure whether anything is going to be restored instead of this Schedule, but in any event I think this: will be in order.
2007§ Sir G. CAVEThe Lords having carried an Amendment to leave out the Fifth Schedule, we have now restored it.
Sir E. GRIFFITHWhen the Bill went from this House to another place, the University of Wales was one of a group of eight universities which returned two members. We had a discussion here about two o'clock in the morning, in a very small House which took a hostile view to the claim that the University of Wales should have one member to itself. However, in the House of Lords the Government spokesman, Lord Peel, not only did not demur, but accepted this proposal that the University of Wales should have one member for itself. When the House of Lords and the Government of the day and the Principality of Wales are all agreed upon a matter of this kind, I think the Home Secretary might very well assent to this being done. Under the scheme of membership now Scotland stands in a very favourable position, England comes next, and Wales last—that is to say, we have to have a greater electorate for each member than either Scotland or England. Ireland is -exceptionally favoured in all these matters at all times.
Sir E. GRIFFITHI am sorry I mentioned Ireland. It always leads one into difficulties. This is a matter that the Home Secretary can very well treat with sympathy. We are entitled to one more member, and I think the House of Lords and the Government's spokesman in the House of Lords have fixed on a very useful and reasonable way of giving us that extra member. We do appeal to the Home Secretary, and to the House, to show some indulgence in this matter.
Sir E. GRIFFITHIt depends entirely when the first election takes place. The Ion. and gallant Member for Montgomery (Major D. Davies) is an authority on this matter, and he says that there are between 3,000 and 4,000, and they are increasing year by year; but I do not put the case upon the number of the present graduates.
§ Sir J. D. REESI think it becomes anyone who has been associated with public 2008 life in Wales in any capacity to support a Motion of this sort. The number of electors may be smaller than in England or Scotland, but there is no part of the United Kingdom, and probably no place in the world, where there is more burning ardour for education than in Wales. Hon. Members may remember some twelve years ago, when eloquent speeches were made by an hon. Member of this House as to the manner in which youths in Wales were anxious to scale the educational ladder which was to lead them from the lower rungs to the topmost rungs. It really is the case that throughout Wales—and I have been associated with the north, the south, and the centre—there is an ardour for education which I have not seen in any other part of the world, and which entitles them to some special indulgence on this occasion. Some of us who have enjoyed, if we did enjoy, the advantages, if they are advantages, of a public school education, if it is an education, may take a somewhat prejudiced view of this question. But I maintain that there is a totally different attitude towards education in Wales from that which prevails in England. It is, perhaps, not so different in Scotland, but, as compared with this country, it is an attitude of contrast. The numbers of electors will increase, and the individuality of the Welshman is such that he is entitled to special consideration. I take some merit to myself for putting forward this argument, because when I was associated with Wales it was always said in my old constituency that I was no better than an Englishman. Therefore, I feel that some little weight might on that account be attached to my advocacy. Regretting very much the circumstances which brought about my severance from the Principality, for which I have the feelings of the keenest and warmest affection, I have thought it not inappropriate to venture these few remarks in support of this appeal.
§ Sir P. MAGNUSI wish to say a few words in support, and I do so as the representative of another university. I know something about Wales, and I agree to a very large extent with what the hon. Member (Sir J. D. Rees) has said as to the keen enthusiasm in Wales for education. It became my duty not very long ago to visit Wales and to report upon the system of education in one of the towns in which a university college exists. and I was impressed by the general desire 2009 for further education by the Welsh people. Wales differs essentially from any one of the cities with which it has been grouped with a view to their returning two members to Parliament. The University of Wales consists of three separate colleges in three principal towns. It is at present a small university with no very large number of graduates, but I am sure that the number will considerably increase and will entitle them to a representative of the university. I feel certain that if the University of Wales sends a member to this House he will be very serviceable in discussion and by the knowledge which he would bring to bear upon special problems dealing with Welsh education. I would also point out that under the new Education Bill the number of pupils from secondary schools who will receive a university education is likely to be considerably increased. I think there are exceptional circumstances which justify Wales not as a provincial university, but as a National university in asking for separate representation, and I have great pleasure in supporting the Amendment.
Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMSThe late Home Secretary (Mr. H. Samuel) asked in rather ominous tones what the number of electors would be. I am not quite certain of the present number. It is true it is a small number, but there are other considerations which I think ought to weigh with the House when they come to consider the question of the representation of the -University of Wales. The charter of the university was only given in 1894 or 1895. Therefore, the first graduate only took his degree about 1897 or 1898, twenty or twenty-one years ago, and it is unfair to say that because this university has. only been in existence for twenty or twenty-one years that you are to rule it out for twenty, thirty, or more years from university representation. I do not suppose there will be any Redistribution Bill for many years to come before this House. Therefore, for a generation the University of Wales would be ruled out, because for reasons over which to a certain extent they had no control the Welsh people were not afforded the boon of a university until twenty or twenty-one years ago. Another consideration is this: the number of graduates is less to-day in proportion in the University of Wales than in other universities, because every graduate of the University of Wales is of military age. Therefore there has been a greater proportion of men who have 2010 fallen in the field from the University of Wales than from any other university. You have no old men who are graduates. of the University of Wales.
Why is it that Wales, with its passion for education, did not get a university before? Scotland got her universities in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, and Trinity College, Dublin, was founded two centuries ago. Why did not Wales get her university earlier? When the great Welsh leader, Owen Glendower, became Prince of Wales in 1405 he proposed the setting up of a Welsh university. It was not the fault of the Welsh people, but because the rebellion of this great Welsh patriot failed. Had the rebellion of Robert Bruce not succeeded, had the Battle of Bannockburn not ended in a victory for Scottish arms, Scotland would have been denied her great system of education as Wales was for centuries. In spite of the fact that there was no university in Wales in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, her literature shows that Wales was one of the most learned and cultured countries in Europe at that time. That was because there were more monasteries in Wales than in any other part of the country in proportion to its population. These monasteries were great scholastic institutions in which the monks copied. Welsh manuscripts, kept alive the flame of Welsh learning, and did the work of the universities. When the Reformation came the monasteries were destroyed. Not one tenth of the endowments of the monasteries went to the cause of education. They were devoted not only to secular but to personal uses, and Wales was therefore bereft of what was at that time tantamount to a university. Tithe from Wales is now taken for the support of English scholastic institutions to-day, not in one case but in a dozen cases. The great proud colleges of Oxford and Cambridge are not above taking tithe of the produce of the labour of the peasants of Wales.
If it had been proved that £20 a year tithe was taken from the bogs of Kildare for fie purposes of Trinity College, Cambridge, and that not a single penny had ever been provided by Trinity College, Cambridge, for the education of any Irish scholar, what invective we should have had from these benches. It would have been another grievance to Ireland. Not a single penny has ever come from Scotland toward English educational institutions. Wales alone has been despoiled by this 2011 rich, powerful country in order to help the sons of rich men in England at the expense of the sons of poor people in Wales. Therefore, in the centuries after Wales was bereft of the means of raising a system of education she was degraded from being, as she was at the beginning of the Tudor period, a learned and cultured country, into an uneducated country, and that continued for some centuries, but, through the efforts of the community, the people themselves have raised a structure of education which is one of the marvels of the last generation. No Parliament helped them; no rich men came to their aid, and the common people, out of their own poor resources, started this great system of education which culminated twenty years ago in the institution of this Welsh University. Therefore, we Welsh people look upon the Welsh University in a very different way even from the way in which English people regard Oxford and Cambridge. This is a monument of -the effort of generations of Welshmen. It is a democratic university. It is the most democratic university in its constitution and its tradition. It is true that it has not a large tradition yet, but it is making tradition day by day. Of five principals of the colleges three are the sons of Nonconformist ministers, racy of and sprung from the soil. A fourth, who is still the honoured head of the oldest university college, was the son of a village policeman, and one of the greatest teachers that the university has had, a man who is recognised as one of the greatest philosophers in Europe, started his life as a shoemaker. 'That is the sort of record which this university has, and will have as the years go on.
My right hon. Friend need not be afraid that the numbers of electors will go down. We have already in the course of thirty years built a hundred intermediate schools from which mainly the university draws its students. There are at present from 17,000 to 18,000 students, all sons of poor men, in the intermediate schools, without counting the old grammar schools. All this has been done in one generation. Therefore, we may be perfectly certain that as the years go on—the number of scholars in the intermediate schools has been increased even during the War—the reservoir will be larger year by year and the number of electors will increase. I hope that it is not going to be said that -one of the Leaders of the Liberal party is more hostile to Wales than is the House 2012 of Lords. I cannot believe that that was the intention of my right hon. Friend. On the grounds of sentiment and of reparation for past wrong, and on the ground that this is a growing university in which the number of electors is going up and must go up year after year, the case is overwhelming. You cannot reopen this question five years hence. We shall have probably 5,000 electors ill ten years. There is no guarantee that. the question can be reopened then. You have to decide it now, and it may be for this generation. I do not think that Welsh Members will appeal in vain to the generosity of this great Assembly which has never shown any lack of it when a case has been made out for a little country in doing what it can to benefit it. Therefore I ask the Government to listen not merely to the claim of reason, but to the acknowledgment of that claim in the House of Lords by Lord Peel, and not to show that they speak with one voice in one House and another voice in another House.
§ Sir G. CAVEThis is in some respects a difficult question. The proposal to give a member to the university of Wales involves the addition of another member to the existing number of Members of Parliament. That is on the threshold a. very serious matter. The second observation which occurs to me to make is that the number of electors in the proposed constituency is small. The number is. think, Something like 2,500 to-day. No doubt it is a growing figure, but at the moment it is substantially lower than that of any other of the universities to which separate representation has been given. Those are substantial prints to be borne in mind, but there are considerations on the other side. In the first place, it has been made out, and I think accurately, that by the accidental operation of the basis of representation adopted under the Instructions of this House, Wales, with regard to its population, comes off a little less well than other parts of Great Britain. There was no intention to do that, but when you have a figure such as 70,000 taken there must be margins here and there. In Wales the margin is, on the average, larger than elsewhere. The result is that if you took the proportion of population per member you would give to Wales probably one more member than under the Schedule as it stands. Then there is this further consideration which, in fairness, we must bear in mind: The House has been exceedingly generous 2013 in regard to representation of universities. It is a somewhat remarkable fact that, in a House where a good many Members have expressed some objection to university representation in theory, there has been general agreement to add to such representation. We have added two members for English universities, and by another Bill two members are to be added for Irish universities. It is obvious that if the House has been generous to Ireland, which already by common consent is greatly over-represented, there is some reason why we should be not less generous to Wales, which, on the whole, is under-represented in the sense to which I have referred. In view of the arguments which have been used, and in view also of the fact that we all agree that in Wales education has been pursued with a zeal and thoroughness which has made that country noteworthy in that respect—I do not admit for a moment that the quality of education in Wales has any advantage over the quality of education in the English universities, but there is no doubt that intermediate education in Wales was taken up earlier than in other parts of the Kingdom—there is some reason why we should give special representation to the centre of Welsh education, the University of Wales.
I will not follow the hon. and learned Gentleman who spoke last into his references to the tithe question. It is a very dangerous subject to raise in this House, and if we refresh our memories a little we shall remember that a few years ago it was a somewhat controversial question. Therefore let us not talk about it. I have mentioned the considerations which appeal to me. There is another which has no principle behind it, but which is of practical value. On many occasions during the discussion of the Schedule to the Bill it was the duty of the Government to resist proposals for increasing the number of members of this House, and one of the reasons I put forward was that if we gave way in this respect we should have to give way in other cases. But now the position is somewhat altered. We are reaching the last stage of the Bill, and if we are so generous as to do what is asked there will be no one to take advantage of that generosity, and to seek to be treated in the same way. Of course, this matter can only be agreed to with general consent of the Members of the House, but I am bound to say that personally, I feel considerable sympathy with it, and would be very glad to see this Amendment accepted.
Mr. H. SAMUELThis is one of tile unusual cases in which the last comer is best served. Because we are at the tail end of the Bill a concession here is not likely to serve as a precedent for other cases, and the Home Secretary finds it possible to relax the stern attitude he has adopted in other cases. At the same time, I cannot refrain from expressing my personal regret that it should be found necessary to increase again the number of university seats. I quite understand, and sympathise with, the desire of Wales that her university should receive recognition by university representation. The struggle in Wales for the establishment of a high system of national education commands, and has long commanded. universal admiration throughout the whole of the United Kingdom. Nothing could be more praiseworthy than the way in which the people of Wales, endowed comparatively with less wealth than some other parts of the United Kingdom, have succeeded in building up a magnificent system of educational institutions, and it is not surprising that they should desire that their efforts should be crowned by securing in this House a representative for their univerity, which is the culminating point of their educational system. My only objection is to the fact that it is proposed to effect this legitimate object by increasing the number of university seats instead of by redistributing them. We have sacrificed entirely the principle of one vote one value, we have now 2,500 Welsh graduates who are to have equal power with 24,000 electors who constitute the average constituency. Each Welsh graduate will have ten times as much electoral power as each British citizen, and that is quite indefensible on the arithmetical basis on which we have hitherto proceeded.
On the other hand, it is only fair to recognise that if we take national units—if they are to be of equal value—then Wales is at present rather worse off than other portions of the Kingdom, and that should be set against the considerations on the other side. The increase in the number of university representatives is even worse than the Home Secretary has stated. Not only have we dealt out additional seats to England and Ireland—not only are we now proposing to add one for Wales, but Scotland also has had her share increased. At the present day and for many a long year there have been nine university representatives in 2015 this House. Many of us all our political lives have advocated their abolition, and our efforts are to be crowned by seeing that nine increased to sixteen. We consented with the greatest reluctance to the increase proposed by the Speaker's Conference. As part of a compromise, we agreed that three university seats should be added—two more for England and one more for Scotland. That was done, and then by the amazing outcome of the Conference on Irish Redistribution the House is asked to add two more university seats for Ireland. Whenever the Nationalists and the Unionists come together and agree it is usually in order to arrive at some result at the cost of the rest of the country, and that has been the case here, when we find our university representation in this House increased by two more with very small electorates. Queen's University, Belfast, I think has only 2,800 graduates, and the National University, Dublin, 3,600. The House enacted that, and passed the Bill without a Division, my voice, I believe, being the only one raised in protest. But having done that to Ireland, I do think it would be exceedingly difficult to say to Wales that her university should be put at a disadvantage compared with these Irish universities. For my part, therefore, I should not think of asking the House to divide against this proposal. At the same time I think some expression should be given to the feeling, which is widespread among Members, that this increase of university representation is, in our view, undemocratic and wrong in principle. I believe that the extent to which it has been carried by this Bill, by what the Home Secretary has called the generosity of the House, will lead to a reaction, and that university representation having been pushed to far in the possibly more democratic days we are approaching, it may at no very distant date be swept away altogether.
Mr. CHANCELLORI only want to say that the grant of this member to the Welsh University will give to 2,500 Welshmen the same weight in the councils of the nation as is given to 118,000 population outside Wales.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Further Amendment made: Leave out the words "University of Wales" ["Victoria University of Manchester, the University of Wales, the University of Liverpool."]
2016§ Mr. MUNROI beg to move to leave out the words "the University of Edinburgh."
4.0 P.M.
The purpose of this Amendment and the next, which is consequential, is to revise the order in which the names of these four universities at present appear in the Schedule. The purpose of the alteration is that they should appear according to the foundation of the university—that is to say, the oldest university. that of St. Andrews, should be first, then Glasgow, then Aberdeen, and then Edinburgh. It has been represented to me that that is the proper order, and the order in which in previous Acts of Parliament. these universities have been referred to. In these circumstances I desire to move this Amendment.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Further Amendment made: Leave out the words "and the University of Aberdeen," and insert instead thereof the words "the University of Aberdeen and the University of Edinburgh."—[Mr. Munro.]