§ (1) Subject as hereinafter provided, all young persons shall attend such continuation schools at such times, on such days, as the local education authority of the area in which they reside may require, for three hundred and twenty hours in each year, or, in the case of a period of less than a year, for such number of hours as the local education authority, having regard to all the circumstances, consider reasonable:
§ Provided that at any time after the expiration of five years from the appointed day the Board of Education may, after such inquiry as they think fit, and after consulting the local education authority, by Order increase in respect of any area or part of an area or any young persons or clauses of young persons the number of hours of attendance at continuation schools required under this Act, and this Section shall, as respects the area to which, or the young persons to whom, the Order applies, have effect as if the number of hours specified in the Order were substituted for three hundred and twenty; but no such Order shall be made until a draft thereof has lain for not less than thirty days on the Table of each House of Parliament.
§ (2) Any young person—
- (i) who is above the age of fourteen years on the appointed day, or
- (ii) who is above the age of sixteen years, and either—
- (a) has passed the matriculation examination of a university of the United Kingdom or an examination recognised by the Board of Education for the purposes of this Section as equivalent thereto; or
- (b) is shown to the satisfaction of the local education authority to have been up
2048 to the age of sixteen under full-time instruction in a school recognised by the Board of Education as efficient or under suitable and efficient full-time instruction in some other manner,
§ (3) The obligation to attend continuation schools under this Act shall not apply to any young person—
- (i) who is shown to the satisfaction of the local education authority to be under full-time instruction in a school recognised by the Board of Education as efficient or to be under suitable and efficient full-time instruction in some other manner, or
- (ii) who is shown to the satisfaction of the local education authority to be under suitable and efficient part-time instruction in some other manner for a number of hours in the year (being hours during which if not exempted he might be required to attend a continuation school] equal to the number of hours during which a young person is required under this Act to attend a continuation school.
§ (4) If a young person, who is or has been in any school or educational institution, or the parent of any such young person, represents to the Board that the young person is entitled to exemption under the provisions of this Section, or that the obligation imposed by this Section does not apply to him, by reason that he is or has been under suitable and efficient instruction, but that the local education authority have unreasonably refused to accept the instruction as satisfactory, the Board of Education shall consider the representation, and, if satisfied that the representation is well founded, shall make an Order declaring that the young person is exempt from the obligation to attend a continuation school under this Act for such period and subject to such conditions as may be named in the Order:
§ Provided that the Board of Education may refuse to consider any such representation unless the local education authority or the Board of Education are enabled to inspect the school or educational institution in which the instruction is or has been given.
§ (5) The local education authority may require in the case of any young person who is under an obligation to attend a continuation school that his employment shall be suspended on any day when his attendance is required, not only during the period for which he is required to attend the school, but also for such other specified part of the day, not exceeding two hours, as the authority consider necessary in order to secure that he may be in a fit mental and bodily condition to receive full benefit from attendance at the school: Provided that, if any question arises between the local education authority and the employer of a young person whether a requirement made under this Subsection is reasonable for the purposes aforesaid, that question shall be determined by the Board of Education, and if the Board of Education determine that the requirement is unreasonable they pay substitute such other requirement as they think reasonable.
2049§ (6) The local education authority shall not require any young person to attend a continuation school on a Sunday, or on any day or part of a day exclusively set apart for religious observance by the religious body to which he belongs, or during any holiday or half-holiday to which by any enactment regulating his employment or by agreement he is entitled, nor so far as practicable during any holiday or half-holiday which in his employment he is accustomed to enjoy, nor between the hours of seven in the evening and eight in the morning: Provided that the local education authority may, with the approval of the Board, vary those hours in the case of young persons employed at night or otherwise employed at abnormal times.
§
Amendment moved (10th June):At the end, to add the words,
(7) A local education authority shall not, without the consent of a young person, require him to attend any continuation school held at or in connection with the place of his employment. The consent given by a young person for the purpose of this provision may be withdrawn by one month's notice in writing sent to the local education authority.
Any school attended by a young person at or in connection with the place of his employment shall be open to inspection either by the local education authority or by the Board of Education at the option of the person or person? responsible for the management of the school."—[Mr. Herbert Fisher.]
§ Question again proposed, "That those words be there added."
§ Mr. WHITEHOUSEI rise in order to save the time of the Committee by stating that i do not propose to move the Amendment which I had down earlier on the Paper dealing with this question, and which is in order at this stage of the Bill, because the President of the Board, in the Clause that he is now moving, meets every reasonable objection to the unfettered establishment of works schools. The most important point to secure was that young workers in these factories should not be compelled to go to these works schools if they wished to attend other schools. The right hon. Gentleman's Amendment fairly attains that object. Of course, it is impossible by legislation, I suppose, to prevent pressure being put on these young persons by their employers, and I hope the trade unions will always be strong enough to prevent undue pressure being put upon these young persons to attend these schools if they desire to attend another school of their own choice. I therefore desire to thank the President for moving this Amendment. I am sure that no one wishes to discourage the very efficient schools established by one or two very 2050 progressive firms, and which may well serve as a model. Therefore, I think the experiment should be watched in this way.
§ Mr. RAWLINSONI did not know last night who it was who had instigated this Amendment, and I am bound to say that I listen now to the real instigator of it. There are two parts to this Sub-section. The second part is thoroughly good, that the schools established by firms at their works shall be inspected by the Board of Education or the local education authority, but I fail to see what my hon. Friend desires to see carried out by the rest of the Amendment. There are admittedly a large number of schools, well conducted, well equipped, and thoroughly satisfactory to the Board of Education, run by employers of labour as continuation schools. Of course, those schools cost the employers a certain amount of money, and to that extent they are a saving to the public purse. It is hoped, and the Board of Education has re-echoed the hope, that more employers will provide schools of that kind in different places, and it is well to encourage them to do so. Then we have this Sub-section introduced. The whole scheme of this Bill is compulsory attendance between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. It is practically admitted that, owing to the lack of enthusiasm of young persons of that age it is necessary to compel them to attend school. Yet in this Clause you say it shall not be in the power of the local education authority to require any young person without his consent to attend any continuation school at or in connection with the place of his employment. You therefore handicap a school which you wish, or ought to wish, to encourage by making it the one continuation school at which you cannot compel attendance.
4.0 P.M.
What will be the result in practice? You will first have a direct discouragement of employers of labour to provide continuation schools of this kind, some of the best continuation schools which you are likely to get, and, secondly, when you have such a school established one or two may possibly decline to attend it, and the local education authority will have to supply a continuation school for them. I do not say that they would build a fresh school for two or three young persons, but full arrangements would have to be made, at great expense and inconvenience, for those who 2051 took advantage of this Clause. If there were anything wrong with the school and it did not pass the inspection by the Board of Education I would not defend it for a moment, but when you have a school which has passed the Board of Education and is admitted to be an efficient and a desirable school which you wish to encourage, why should this treatment be meted out to it? I could not understand last night when the right hon. Gentleman moved his Amendment, but I now know that it was the voice of the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark (Mr. Whitehouse). Be that as it may, I see no reason why the Government should make this change, and I hope they will reconsider the matter before they discourage those works' schools, and will also take into account the heavy expense which will be thrown on local education authorities.
Mr. THOMASI hope that the President of the Board of Education will not accede to the request of the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson). I do not think one ought to criticise the present works' schools, because there will be a very general admission that many of the schools already in operation are schools that were instituted by men genuinely anxious for the success of education—indeed many of us will frankly recognise that they have been a pattern to many other schools. While fully admitting that, the real objection the working classes have is to being unduly tied up to any employer. Primarily these schools are run for the benefit of either the children of the employès or the employès themselves. If the schools are conducted on the lines we all desire, then there will be very little objection, so far as the scholars are concerned, to the continuation schools. On the other hand, if there is something wrong, and if there are objections, surely we have no right, as the President of the Board of Education fully recognises in his Amendment, to unduly press these boys and girls to attend a school which I will not say is repugnant to them, but which they feel unduly ties them to the employer. While there may be general objections to workshop schools, yet, provided they are controlled by the education authority so far as the standard of education and the efficiency of the teachers are concerned, nothing very much can be said against them. I hope the right 2052 hon. Gentleman will not alter his Amendment and will recognise that it is a compromise which goes a very long way towards meeting the objections of the working classes to these particular schools.
§ Mr. BOOTHI should like to have an explanation of the second sentence in the Amendment, to which no reference has been made. It seems to me that when notice is given the employer should have notice. I take it that a pupil must give a month's notice to the local authority before leaving the school, but surely the employer, who is conducting it and finding the money is entitled to notice at the same time! Even if the local authority informed him, it might meet the case. I do not want to make it too cumbrous. An employer conducting a good school would be in an unfortunate position if any number of withdrawals came in and he received no notice of them until a few days "within the end of the term. After what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas) said, I take it that, if there are any withdrawals, they will be withdrawals in bulk. It will not be the case that one young person will withdraw, but if a trade union or a body of parents get dissatisfied with the school there will be a meeting of the workers or of the parents, and the young persons will probably go all together. If that takes place the employer should be entitled to notice.
§ The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Fisher)We will make that Amendment.
§ Mr. MARRIOTTIn reference to what has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas), may I make to him and to the Committee one suggestion? I perfectly understand, and to a large extent sympathise with, the views that have been expressed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas), but is not the position before us this, that for the next seven years there will be no compulsion upon anybody to attend any continuation school at all?
§ Mr. FISHERNo!
§ Mr. MARRIOTTI beg the Committee's pardon. I meant that after the age of 2053 sixteen there will be no compulsory attendance. Therefore would it not be a reasonable compromise that, during what I may describe as the experimental period of the working of this Bill, you should encourage a variety of experiments by giving every possible encouragement to these employers' schools? You will have every opportunity of considering this matter long before it can become of any serious consequence. In the meantime, all the schools will be inspected by the Board of Education, and you will have provided, if I may use the term, a number of laboratory experiments in continuation schools, which may be of great advantage when you come to settle the matter five or six years hence.
§ Mr. KINGI have put down some Amendments to this Amendment, but I do not think I will move them now. They embody one or two important questions, but unless the President has considered them and is willing to adopt or make some statement about them, I will not move them. The first, which raises the question whether works schools should not be under the control and direction of the local education authority in some way is very important, and that I shall move on the Report stage if I do not move it now.
§ Mr. FISHERI am indebted to my hon. Friend for not persisting in his Amendments. I can assure him I looked at them very carefully. I should feel some difficulty in accepting his first Amendment for the reasons, firstly, that I feel that an adequate guarantee for the efficiency of the education provided in a works' school can be obtained from inspection by the Board of Education alone; and, secondly, because I have reason to believe that there arc cases in which the founders of works' schools may be very willing, and indeed would be very willing to submit to the inspection of the Board, but might be very reluctant to submit to the inspection of the local education authority, because of various local differences of opinion. As to the point raised by the hon. Member for Oxford City (Mr. Marriott), I think I can meet him by saying that we have at present in various parts of England interesting and fruitful experiments in the way of works' schools, and in every case in regard to attendance at those schools no compulsion is placed upon the child to attend. Therefore, so far as that goes the situation is not altered by my Amendment.
§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Lewis)I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, after the word "to" ["one month's notice in writing sent to"], to insert the words "the employer and to."
§ I move this in accordance with the promise made by my right hon. Friend to the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth).
§ Amendment to proposed Amendment agreed to.
§ Proposed words, as amended, there inserted.
§ The CHAIRMANAs to the next Amendment on the Paper, standing in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Hackney (Sir A. Spicer), the right hon. Gentleman informed me that he did not propose to move it. The next one—[in the names of Mr. John and Major Davies] —is outside the scope of the Bill, and the following one, standing in the name of the hon. Member for North Somerset (Mr. King), has already been settled.
§ Mr. WHITEHOUSEI beg to move, after the words last added, to insert as a new Sub-section:
(7) Nothing in this Section shall prevent a young person attending the continuation school of his choice wherever there is more than one continuation school which it is possible for him to attend.This Amendment is not controversial. It is to give the young person affected by the Bill the choice of the continuation school that he shall attend when there is a choice open to him. As the Amendment comes from both sides of the Committee, it will be seen that it is moved on educational and no other grounds. Above all, in arranging these continuation classes we want to make them as experimental and diverse as possible, so as to provide for the tastes, inclinations, and aptitudes of the different students affected. This can only be done, and even then only in part be done, by giving the young person affected the choice of school or class or course of instruction in connection with a university or whatever may be arranged that he prefers. I expect that no opposition will be offered to the Amendment.
§ Mr. FISHERI am perfectly ready to accept the general principle contained in this Amendment, but I think the hon. Member's words will require a little 2055 alteration. Perhaps he will accept, in place of his own Amendment, the following words:
In considering what continuation school a young person shall be required to attend a local education authority shall have regard, so far as practicable, to any preference which the young person may express.
§ Mr. WHITEHOUSEI will accept those words with a little regret, because they are not nearly so emphatic as the words of my own Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Mr. FISHERI beg to move, after the words last added to insert the words,
In considering what continuation school a young person shall be required to attend a local education authority shall have regard, so far as practicable, to any preference which the young person may express.
§ Sir J. D. REESWhy does the right hon. Gentleman whittle this away by wording it in such a manner as really to effect very little by the concession he makes? If he adheres to the terms of his Amendment, will he insert the words, "or the parent or parents of the young person," because a young person is not always the best judge of what is the best school or continuation class to attend? I prefer the words suggested by the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark (Mr. White-house) because they would allow him that individual choice which I should like to see conceded to everybody everywhere. If that is not possible and the President will only make this concession in terms which will practically leave the young person in the hands of the authorities, which is what I wish to avoid, I would ask him to accept the words "parent, responsible parent or relation," or something to that effect.
§ Mr. RAWLINSONI do not know why the President presses for his words rather than the Amendment of the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark. The right hon. Gentleman's Amendment in the form in which he moves it does not go very far. Could he not on the Report stage give a little more elasticity to the Clause, and give the choice in the first instance to the child unless there is some good reason to the contrary? As it is, the local education authority has to make an order, and it is only to give effect as far as possible to the wish of the child. We know in practice how difficult it is to put before the 2056 local education authority the wishes of the child, whereas if it is drawn in another way all the child has to do is to say he wishes to attend a particular school and he has a right to do it unless the local education authority orders to the contrary.
§ Sir H. CRAIKA certain popularity or unpopularity, a certain whim or caprice, may change the view of a large number of people and may lead to a conspiracy of abstention from one school and crowding into another. That has constantly happened in my own experience, and it is necessary for the local authority to lay down rules and say, "While we will allow all people freedom of choice, yet we cannot allow one school to be crowded and another left empty."
§ Colonel Sir C. SEELYMay I ask the right hon. Gentleman what is the meaning of the words "as far as practicable"? I think it is the feeling of hon. Members that when you say an education authority shall have regard, and then you put in the words "as far as practicable," it is making it a very small concession. We ought to say that they shall as far as practicable, or they shall have regard. Either would be enough and would really meet the case.
§ Mr. FISHERThe words "as far as practicable," so far from diminishing the responsibility of the local education authority, rather emphasise it, and the local education authority is given a very express direction to consider the wishes of the young person. It is quite clear that every education authority will have a very difficult task in arranging for these classes, and it must in the first instance consider what classes are most adopted for the different aptitudes of the pupil. Subject to that they should have regard as far as practicable to the desire of the young person.
Mr. DENNISSMay I ask whether a youth of fourteen can change his school as often as he likes or is he tied to one when he makes his choice, and is his father or mother not to have any say in the matter?
§ Mr. FISHERThe local education authority is entitled to require him to attend a particular school.
§ Sir J. D. REESIf the wish of the child is to be consulted in carrying out that obligation, why should not the wish of 2057 the parents of the child also be considered? I do not understand it.
§ Mr. FISHERI will accept that.
§ Sir J. D. REESI beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, after the word "person" ["shall prevent a young person"], to insert the words "or his parents."
§ Mr. WHITEHOUSEI must interpose in order to have this matter made clear. Many of us do not want the choice of a young person who may be nearly eighteen years of age overridden by. anyone but himself.
§ Mr. RENDALLI certainly think a child of sixteen ought to have his own way, and not the parents.
§ The CHAIRMANI think it would be better to renew this on the Report stage.
§ Sir J. D. REESI will withdraw my Amendment on the understanding that the right hon. Gentleman puts in these words or words to that effect. He has given a pledge to put it in somehow. I do not know why the hon. Member (Mr. Whitehouse) objects to the insertion of the words now. I believe that would meet the wishes of the Committee, and I think it would be better to take this when we can get it than to wait for Report. I attach great importance to the insertion of the words.
§ Mr. WHITEHOUSEMay I show why it could not be accepted? The Bill applies to young women of the age of eighteen. Some of them would be married women, and you are not going to be content to give effect to the desire of a young woman of nearly eighteen who may be a married woman, but you are going to put in the alternative of her guardian or parents.
Mr. L. WILLIAMSAfter my hon. Friend's remarks, may I suggest that we put words providing that the husband should be consulted?
§ Sir J. D. REESI am reluctant to withdraw. I attach great importance to this, and I attach none to the objection raised by the hon. Member (Mr. Whitehouse), because we must allow the local authority to be in possession of at least elementary intelligence, which would be entirely wanting in them if they really fell into any such difficulty as he has indicated. It is so very important that I should like to press the Amendment, because if it is 2058 moved and the right hon. Gentleman agrees to it the Committee is extremely likely to agree to it. I should like to have the bird in the hand.
§ Mr. FRANCEI hope the Committee will take the advice which has been tendered to it by yourself, Sir, to wait till the Report stage, or we shall get into a very serious tangle, and shall be accused of passing hasty and ill-considered legislation if we seek to put in words which do not have their full significance, and are not fully "understood while we are passing them. I hope the Minister will agree to postpone this matter to the Report stage.
§ Sir J. D. REESIn order to suit the convenience of the Committee, and in view of the Minister's undertaking, I beg leave to withdraw.
§ Amendment to the proposed Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Proposed words there inserted.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
§ Mr. PETOI think it would be well for the Committee to spend a short time in making a review of what we really are doing under this Clause, and how it stands now with the Amendments we have passed. My objection to the Clause is one of the principal reasons for my objection to the Bill as a whole. I object to it because it proposes to train 100 per cent. of the children of this country all practically on one uniform pattern. It pretends to give them a literary and scientific education. We have had speech after speech deriding anything in the nature of technical or practical education to fit them for the sphere of life in which they are going to earn their living, and we have always had it sneered at as vocational training. There is no indication in the Clause, or in the way it, is going to be carried out, of the real and proper purpose of education, which, as I understand it, is to fit the person who is educated for the business of life in the widest sense—not only the mere business of earning his living, but to fit him to cope with all the difficulties which he will find in life, either in this country or, if ho emigrates, in any other part of the Empire. Another great objection I have to the Clause is founded upon the uniform character of the education proposed to be given in these continuation schools.
§ The CHAIRMANWe are not entitled, on this question that the Clause as amended stand part of the Bill, to review Clauses 3 and onwards. Clause 3 in particular dealt with the schemes of education to be given in continuation schools. The only question arising on Clause 10 is who is to be compelled to attend.
§ Mr. PETOThere are certain specific matters in this Clause which I think you will agree I am in order in dealing with, and the first is the one under Sub-section (4), which runs right through the whole Clause, namely, that there is no recognition of the rights of parents and the dependence of the children on their parents. The last Debate we have had illustrates that. We find an hon. Member objecting altogether to the proposal that the parents should have any say in the matter, and wishing to leave it entirely to the young person himself. A parent might desire his child to get to the practical work of life long before the age of eighteen. He might desire to apprentice him to a definite trade in which he thought he would best earn his living, probably the trade by which he earns his own living. There is nothing in the Clause which admits the exemption of children who are apprenticed under the old system, which it is a great pity is not much more widely practised, and as long as it does not recognise apprenticeship to a definite trade the Clause cannot avoid the criticism that it will tend to manufacture pedants and prigs and will not manufacture craftsmen, the masters of their crafts, on whom British industry and the prosperity of the population have depended in the past. It carries education, of course, to a far greater age than anything contemplated before, and far from any relaxation of what I call education tyranny in respect of the parents, I find it still stronger in the Clause than it was in respect of the attendance in elementary schools. It is actually provided that, with some very small exceptions, all the young persons in the country are to attend these particular types of schools. I tried to get exemption in favour of children who are going to follow agriculture, and my Amendment was ruled out of order, because a, compromise in the number of hours had been come to in respect of the great Lancashire industry.
The continuation education for the present is limited to 280 hours a year. That permits for one day a week of seven 2060 hours for forty weeks in a year being sufficient to fulfil the obligation. We have never debated the question whether one day a week for forty weeks in the year is the most suitable way of continuing the education of a young person who wants to take up agriculture as his profession. I think there is an enormous amount to be said for concentrating continuation education upon the winter months only, and for a much shorter space than forty weeks in the year. I am very pleased that the President agrees, and I am only the more sorry that we had no opportunity whatever on the Clause of debating that question. It is the method by which the best class of agriculturists we have in this country, and probably in the whole world, namely, the Scottish people, have been brought up. They worked at a much younger age than anything contemplated in this Bill, and were in the habit of attending parochial schools in the winter and working on the farm in the summer. There I believe you had prepared an education of a practical character almost perfect for the needs of agriculture. We have not settled the question of education for the sea. That has to be settled before we finally leave the Bill, and I hope it will be settled so that it will not shut out any children because their parents cannot afford to give them full-time education for two years. I believe that full-time education for two years is too long in many cases to suit the needs of the sea service. When that question comes up again on the Report stage I hope we shall have Members in the House who are specially connected with the sea service, owners of ships and others, who will be able to tell the President that though sixteen is a very good age for certain classes of vessels, in many cases if boys are going to be made practical seamen they should certainly start at a rather younger age, say, fifteen, subject to some condition as to receiving instruction in navigation and other practical subjects when they are actually on board ship. I am afraid that this Clause, since the proposal was defeated to provide for the maintenance of those children in the case of poor parents—and I agree that it could not be accepted—will impose a crushing burden upon the poorest parents in many parts-of the country. It has been a hard business in many cases to clothe and feed the children while they have had to attend the elementary schools, and if continued 2061 education is to be carried on with a considerable loss of earnings to the poorer families, I think it will prove to be a burden which will not only be unpopular but unfair to ask these parents to undertake.
Generally, in regard to the Clause, I think we are going in advance of the preparations for actually putting it in operation. On the point I have just raised we shall know five or six years after the War whether hon. Members are right who think that there will be a great drop in wages and a return to something like the pre-war standard of wages, or whether hon. Members are right who think that the working classes of this country are now secure in a far higher standard of wage than anything that has ever been known in this country before, and that, therefore, they will be able to bear this burden. In the middle of the War we are arranging this legislation without knowing in the least what will be the conditions so far as the parents of the children are concerned. We are also making this arrangement for continued education without having the least idea what will be the needs of industry and commerce in the period after the War. I am not at all sure that the views held by a great many people are not right that European countries will be so reduced in circumstances by the effect of this War that none of them will be able to do without all the labour of young persons up to the age of eighteen for many years after the War is over. There is no question that it must have thrown back industrial conditions and social conditions in every way. I, therefore, think it would have been far wiser to have left this part of the President's scheme out until we know something of the conditions that we shall have to meet. Instead of that, we are legislating in the dark. I put down a Motion to omit this Clause for that important reason. It seems to me to be an extraordinarily unpracticable proposition, at a time when we cannot possibly know what the conditions will be, to legislate for an appointed day. We do not know when that day will be. We are doing more than that—we are legislating for the continued education of young persons between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, although the President has accepted the principle that until seven years from the appointed day he will not be able to put that part of the Bill into operation. We shall certainly have a 2062 different House of Commons then, and a House of Commons that will have been elected when the people will have had an opportunity of considering the provisions of this Bill. That, I think, is not only an advantage, but it is in accordance with the whole principle of our Constitution that the people affected by legislation should have some say in the matter. It is unnecessary to keep the Bill in its present form after the acceptance by the President of the principle that for seven years he cannot put into operation the continued education of young persons beyond the age of sixteen. Therefore on these grounds that it is beyond the path of wisdom to legislate so far ahead, not knowing the circumstances and the conditions, and because it is clearly unwise to legislate for something which it is admitted cannot be put into operation for seven years from the appointed day, possibly eight or nine years from the present time, I move that this Clause be omitted.
§ Mr. MARRIOTTI am sure the Committee will feel that my hon. Friend has put before us a number of exceedingly important considerations. At the same time, I am very strongly opposed to his conclusion. The whole of the Committee will feel that during these last days we have been discussing what is incomparably the most important Clause in the Bill, and I should regard it as a misfortune if the Clause were not added to the Bill. In view of the line which I took, and very strongly took, on the Second Reading, I should like to be allowed to say a few words on this Clause. The Committee has had before it three alternatives in regard to this Clause—first, the original proposal of the Bill; then the Lancashire Amendment, as it is called, which, in brief, was a proposal to substitute half-time education up to the age of sixteen for quarter-time up to the age of eighteen; and, thirdly, we have had the compromise put forward by the President, namely, retention of the principle of continued education up to the age of eighteen, combined with a partial postponement of the operation of the Clause, in deference partly to the representatives of Lancashire, but still more, I suspect, to the administrative exigencies which were found to exist in the Department itself. On the Second Reading I expressed my own frank preference, after careful consideration, for the method proposed in the Bill. I was 2063 led to that preference chiefly by the consideration of the distinction which, as I thought, ought to be drawn between mere instruction and education in the broadest sense; between instruction in the sense of pumping a certain amount of information into the mind or the head of the child, and education, drawing out and improving every faculty of mind, spirit and body which may exist in the child. Looking at it from that broad view of education, I was driven to the conclusion that it is of very great importance—and it is for that reason that I desire that the Committee should reject the proposition of my hon. Friend—to keep your educational hold upon the young persons between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Educationally the value of 300 hours for each of four years has always seemed to me to be incomparably greater than 600 hours concentrated into two years. Among other reasons, I strongly venture to impress this, that if yon had adopted the latter alternative you would have created that gap between the secondary and the higher education which I am. particularly anxious to fill up.
For reasons which I explained on an earlier occasion, reasons that were generally approved by the Committee, I am anxious to bring young persons, at any rate from the age of seventeen and up wards, under the influence of university teaching. The President of the Board of Education met the opinion of the Committee on that point very sympathetically, and we understand that on the Report stage he will propose to give effect to what seemed to be the general sense of the Committee on that matter. I am therefore very grateful to him and very glad that the principle of continued education up to the age of eighteen is affirmed, as it is in the Clause which we are, I hope, going to add to the Bill. I hope that it will be effectively, clearly, and definitely affirmed. Having said that, I think it only honest to add one word. I confess that if I had unhappily been compelled to choose between the Clause as originally drafted and the concession of local option as claimed by Lancashire, I should have voted for the hon. Member for Chorley. I frankly admit that there are very great administrative difficulties inherent in any scheme of local option, or local variation, but on the balance I think that the administrative difficulties would be outweighed by the educational 2064 advantages to be expected from a variety of experiments. We have in the Bill as amended a compromise upon the offer and acceptance of which, I think, the Committee, the country, and the President of the Board of Education are alike to be congratulated; but there is one misapprehension which I should like to be permitted to remove. As I understand it, though I do not think it is generally understood outside, there is not to be any general postponement for a period of seven years.
Perhaps the President would be well advised to make it perfectly clear to the country, because I think some hon. Members are under a misapprehension as to the exact nature of the compromise which he has made. The position is this, that during the next seven years you will have, I hope, a very large number of voluntary experiments in continued education up to the age of eighteen. There is nothing to prevent that. I hope that those experiments, unhampered by any mandatory Clause, as is the case between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, will take—and, I think, the President will agree with me in expressing this hope—a large number of forms. At the end of that experimental period we shall be in a position, fortified and enriched by those experiments, a position which we are not in at the present time, to devise a really satisfactory scheme, or, as I hope, several schemes, of continued education.
§ Sir J. D. REESOwing to the unexpected and inexplicable absence of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme I seem to have all the parents in Britain on my back this afternoon. However, I do not think, though a more general discussion is permissible on the Motion now before the Committee, that it would be justifiable to attempt to discuss over again anything that has been discussed. My right hon. Friend, whose conciliatory attitude I commend and admire, gave me a satisfactory assurance as regards the parents. I feel sure that he will carry it out fully and that he will endeavour whenever opportunity offers to remember that the parents are the best judges of what the children want. Yet my right hon. Friend, like every other official or departmental head, thinks that his Department knows better than the parents what is good for the children. But that is the attitude of the aristocrat, the autocrat and the bureaucrat, but not of the democrat. If 2065 we are really democratic and think that parents, and young persons equally when they are old enough to speak for themselves, should be allowed to decide it is essential that we should observe this principle. With regard to this particular Clause the Committee stands in very much the same position as it did when it was found, in reference to the Luxury Tax, that we were bringing in legislation without knowing where we were going or what we were doing, so that it was found necessary to defer the proposals which are to be embodied in another Bill.
The Committee does not know what it is doing. It is laying down laws for a new world. It does not know what is going to be the state of affairs on the appointed day. When that day dawns what sort of England will it dawn upon? It appears exceedingly likely that at that time there will be the utmost need for the labour of the artizan, the producer, the maker, and not the thinker and the writer, and that the kind of regulation and restriction contained in a Clause like this would act upon the people as a very serious hindrance to that reconstruction of which we all talk with so much approval. When the appointed day dawns nobody-knows what will be the financial condition, except that it will be infinitely worse than that which has existed during the administration of the Act which preceded the present Bill. Like my hon. Friend opposite I am convinced that a wholesale regulation of this sort is not the way to carry out a policy of continuation classes. I have a most profound admiration for continuation classes, as great an admiration as any hon. Member, but it is voluntary classes that I approve of, such as I attend myself when every day I read a little bit of classic Greek and Latin in the hope of improving my mind. I believe that voluntary action is the soul of continuation education and compulsory education in these conditions, for a certain number of years, sandwiched in between other occupations, and in the conditions which will exist, will be a most difficult and imperfect policy to pursue.
If such continuation classes were conducted only during the winter we should, perhaps, see something like what we have all seen in Scotland where every gillie in every village has by continuation classes made himself an exceedingly well educated man, a most excellent and instructive companion, one from whom everybody can 2066 learn, and to whom it is a privilege to talk. Something like that might happen in this country if we had continuation classes in the winter, but this is a very-different matter. This makes continuation classes like the classes in the ordinary schools, which arc attended by the young children. If at eighteen years young persons are old enough to shoulder a rifle and go to fight for their country, it is an age when they might be engaged fully in industrial pursuits. At a time when so much is said about the investment in this education I am myself rather doubtful, first of all that the country will have the money to invest and, second, whether the trustees, those who are to provide the money for the investment, will not be indulging in too: nebulous a policy on which the return is too doubtful to justify them in investing their money in the way in which the right hon. Gentleman so confidently expects them to invest it. I can only deplore once again the tendency to standardise and reduce to one common measure everything in the country, and I believe that the policy that is being pursued under this Clause is calculated to grind down the children's minds to a pale unanimity.
§ Mr. BOOTHI drafted a number of Amendments to this Clause, a Clause to which I would like to offer the strongest opposition, but in view of the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill I did not put them down lest it should appear that my opposition was anything in the nature of obstruction. I think that my right hon. Friend will admit that on this Clause above all there was a great deal of opportunity for annoyance in reference to the Bill. I would like to ask him whether, when the Clause which we are now discussing is passed, he will reprint the Bill in its present form in view of the important changes which have been made. That has been done with previous Bills, and it would be well to have a printed copy of what we have done on this Bill up to the present. I oppose this Clause because it is establishing compulsion for attendance at continuation schools. The country has never asked for it. The country will not relish it. It will be a blow at working class homes, especially in the North of England. One would have hoped that it would have been modified considerably and some improvement made to meet the 2067 case. I do not regard the concession to Lancashire as very much. It is not that I do not sympathise with the Lancashire position. I do. Their position exists also very largely in the West Riding. But the original proposal would have broken down. They have not got the schools or the teachers. The Department simply gave way to the Lancashire Amendment feeling that they were not parting with very much. They were avoiding, as the hon. Member for Oxford has hinted, a Departmental collapse. It is quite clear that no Government will attempt to put this Clause into operation for very many years, and not before an amending Bill is passed. The interference by this Clause not only with the home but with industry is so vast that it is quite clear that, when the country gets awake to the actual provisions, demands will come from all sides for amendment, and before any Government has the courage to put it in force an amending Bill, and perhaps two, will have to pass through this House.
On that ground I think that the Government would have been well advised not to include these proposals for compulsory continuation schools in this Bill. I think that if we had raised the age to fourteen and abolished half-time, as we know it, that would have effected such an enormous change throughout the country that it would have taxed all the energies of the administration to put it into force. If the Bill had confined itself largely to that and to some of the more constructive provisions, I think that it might well have gone through, and that a separate measure for continuation schools brought in at a later date might have something in it. I should have thought that the. hon. Member for Mid-Lanark, who is connected with a Committee for civil liberties, would, during the discussion on this Clause, under which so much liberty is taken away, have helped those of us who wished to make its burdens lighter, but these supporters of liberty, so called, when questions affecting it come before the Committee, invariably urge increased State tyranny, as the hon. Member for Devizes so well said in moving the rejection of this Clause. With the constructive proposals of this Clause, I think that most of us are in hearty accord, and anything which the Board of Education have done to give facilities for continuation schools and for providing money, 2068 at any rate, would receive my most hearty support, but to bring in compulsion and the stern hand of the State is now, we are told by the apostle of liberty, necessary, and we are even to compel married persons to attend continuation schools. That point troubled me, and I intended to put a Clause on the Paper providing that no married person should be compelled to attend continuation schools.
§ Mr. WHITEHOUSEThe hon. Member must not give that as a quotation from my speech at all. I believe that the marriage contract would prevent any married person from being obliged to attend continuation schools.
§ 5.0 P.M.
§ Mr. BOOTHA young married woman would not go to the magistrate even, and she would not do so for legislation of this kind, which will add to the unrest in the country. An Amendment was moved by the hon. Member for Black-burn (Mr. Snowden), who, being a Lancashire Member, was bound to admit that working people are not prepared for this Bill and arc not prepared to make the enormous sacrifices in wages which its provisions will entail. He therefore proposed on Clause 10 to provide for the payment of maintenance allowances. For about the first time since I have been a Member of this House I, on that proposal, gave a vote for the State maintenance of children. I did so because, in my opinion, this Clause hits the working classes to an extreme degree, and it is impossible to justify these extreme proposals of this Hill without at the same time facing the problem in the way suggested by the Lancashire Members. But no maintenance is provided in this Clause. and I am perfectly certain the Bill in that respect will have to be amended. The married women of the country are coming on the register. They will not thank this Committee for passing Clause 10 to-day. Two or three millions of working women, when they realise that big, strapping young girls of seventeen or eighteen will still be compelled to go to school, even in the poorest homes, will strongly resent it, and will. I am sure, insist on an amendment of the law in that respect when they come into their own. Probably some of the women will a few years hence be found sitting in this House, and we shall get from them a very different account of the views of the working classes from that which is now laid before us. Hon. Members are already 2069 beginning to realise that this part of the Bill will be very unpopular. I am not suggesting we should not pass the Clause on that ground. I am only suggesting it will come as a staggering blow to the working classes, and it is our duty to help them to meet it.
Already political agents who are opposed to this Government are going about suggesting that in the next election the present Government shall be turned out of office because it is always interfering with liberty. Great use will be made of Clause 10 by these people. The agitation has commenced while the Clause is still under discussion, and there are a body of men, acting under the guidance of occupants of the Front Opposition Bench, who are urging that the next election shall be fought against the Government on the ground of their interference with liberty by passing this Clause. I object further to the Clause because of the provision made with reference to university inspection. I very much regret that. I listened to last night's Debate very carefully indeed, and the concession which was made to this idea of university inspection gives me an additional reason for opposing the Clause. Having discussed the matter with some representatives of Labour and also with a number of Liberal working men, I may tell the Committee that their fear is that a new standard of schools will be set up. You will have private schools advertising themselves as inspected by the universities and they will be drawing comparisons between their own scholars and the boys and girls in council schools which are inspected by the Department. I do not know what safeguard can be provided against that, but I hope that those in charge of this Bill will look into the matter very carefully before the Report stage. We know that at the present time it is only with the utmost difficulty that a teacher can get an appointment as an inspector or make progress with the Department unless he comes from a university, and the idea is gaining ground that there is to be a badged class or a cast of teachers who are connected with universities.
§ The CHAIRMANI must call the attention of the hon. Member and of the Committee to the Rule set out in page 323 of "Sir Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice" which deals with the question," That the Clause, or the Clause as amended, stand part of the Bill." It is 2070 there laid down that it is not competent on that question to make a general review of the Amendments or discussions or Amendments made when the Clause was going through the Committee. The hon. Member seems to be taking the Amendments one by one and going through the arguments advanced upon them. That is not in order.
§ Mr. BOOTHI have only three points down to which I intended to refer, and I have already dealt with two. I am pointing out to the Committee that this Clause has really been made worse by the. Amendments made. I am skipping the bulk of the Amendments. I might have spoken on every one of them when they were before the Committee, but I refrained from doing so because it might have been suggested that I was delaying the passage of the Bill. I have no intention of going through all the Amendments. I hope it will not be thought that I have a catalogue of them in my hand. I wish to point out that the Clause has been worsened by the provision as to university inspection, a provision which I look upon, as the sequel to the Morant circular of a few years ago. I have only one other point. The Committee refused lo put a safeguard into the Clause in the matter of working hours. It was suggested by the Minister in charge that this was a matter which should be dealt with by the Home Office, and he resisted any consideration of the point in connection with this particular Clause. I regret the attitude taken up by the Government on that point. To my mind it is quite clear you cannot limit the hours to be devoted to work or education except on an Education Bill. If the proposal were made as an amendment to the Factory and Workshops Acts, I venture to assert it would be ruled out of order by the Chair. I do not see how it is possible to amend that Act in order to provide for the number of hours a child should attend school. I therefore assert that the right hon. Gentleman in charge of this Bill is clearly wrong in his idea that the matter could be dealt with as an amendment to the Factory and Workshops Acts. The omission to put in a safeguard in this matter leaves this Clause in a very lamentable position, and I earnestly hope that before the Report stage the Government will carefully think this question over. The idea that a young person can be kept at work almost all his or her working hours for a very long time is intolerable, and I am afraid the Committee has 2071 missed an opportunity of providing safeguards against that. They will have to remedy the omission on the Report stage; otherwise it will necessitate the introduction of an amending Bill a year after this one comes into operation. I do not propose to repeat the arguments put forward by the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Peto), not because I do not agree with them, but because I think he has put his case sufficiently and they do not need to be repeated. I shall vote against the Clause, because I would prefer a voluntary system of continuation schools generally supported, and because I am not in favour of compulsion.
§ Mr. FISHERBefore we part from this important Clause I should like to express my acknowledgment of the co-operation and courtesy which the Committee has extended to me. It has been a Clause of very considerable difficulty and intricacy, and I owe a great deal to the good will of the members of the Committee. In the speeches we have just listened to from opponents of the Clause there has been one underlying error, and that is that the effect of this system of continuation classes will be to establish what an hon. Member has called "pale uniformity." That is the last result which I expect to ensue from the operation of this Clause. The Clause has been drafted on most elastic principles with the express object of providing for the greatest freedom of treatment when the Clause comes into operation. My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Peto) has expressed preference for the establishment of classes in agricultural districts mainly to be held in the winter. There is nothing to prevent such classes being held under the operation of this Clause, which simply prescribes that a certain number of hours in the year shall be set apart for education. It will be for the local education authorities, in consultation with the various interests concerned, to make such arrangements as will be likely to produce the most satisfactory results. My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Marriott) threw out a challenge which I feel it my duty to take up. He suggested that there was some doubt in the minds of members of the Committee, and also in the country at large, as to what the precise intentions of the Government were with respect to the carrying into execution of the terms of this Clause. Let me say at once that our intention is to proceed as rapidly as 2072 possible, after the schemes submitted by the local education authorities have been passed by the Board of Education, with continuation education for young persons between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. They will be brought into the scheme in two successive batches, and the scheme so far as it concerns young persons between those age limits, will be complete in two years' time after the appointed day. The hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) asked whether it might not be possible to supply the members of the Committee with a reprint of the Bill up to the point which will have been reached with the acceptance of Clause 10. That is a matter, I understand, for the authorities of the House to determine. So far as I am concerned I shall raise no objection to the adoption of that course, if it be deemed desirable.
§ Captain ALBERT SMITHI do not think it would be fair to repeat the arguments which were used in the course of the Debates on this Clause, but I should like to express my deep regret that this Bill should have been produced in a time of war when so many men who are heads of families are away from their homes. Whatever members of the Committee may think, this Clause will inflict very grave hardship on a great number of men. I would not mind that so much if the men were here to take their part in the passing of the Bill. I do not want to be too pessimistic about the future. Personally, I hold rather an optimistic view of the future after this War, and I believe that things will be better than a great many people expect they will be. Still, people have a lingering doubt in their minds is to what will be the exact position of trade and the relation of wages to the cost of living, etc, which is only natural to them now after they have suffered, even at-home, very great privation. A great many of the Committee were rather disappointed at what they considered the too great concession made by the Minister of Education in discussing the early part of this Clause. I think a careful study of what it really meant will show that there could be no other course for the right hon. Gentleman to pursue, because it was quite evident that the arrangements could not possibly be made in the time. With regard to the time up to sixteen years of age in continuation schools, all I want to ask the President is—as I think he has satisfied to a great extent the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Peto) on the question 2073 of agriculture—that in other areas in England, in the industrial centres, he will—if he is there, and as I hope he will be, to carry out his work for years to come whatever Government may be in power—take that favourably into consideration when schemes are submitted for fixing the attendance of these people at school in order that as little hardship should be done as it is possible to do in the circumstances.
I recognise that giving the authorities the option of choosing 280 hours in preference to 320 hours, if carried out in unison with the employers, will be worked at a very small disadvantage to the people concerned. In saying that I do not want the Committee to lose sight of the fact—and I am quite sure it will be so—that a great number of very hard cases will be met with during the first year or two. I want to appeal to the President to see if he can devise some scheme whereby these cases, without any pretence to make it a kind of pauperising thing, can receive some material assistance. If that is done I think the working of sixteen to eighteen will be smooth I think a great deal depends on how the continuation schools do work from fourteen to sixteen as to the success or non-success of this Bill. I understand, Mr. Whitley, that you are not in the mood for permitting a discussion on that particular Amendment relating to university inspection of private schools, but I think one would be in order in expressing their view of the effect that it would have on this Clause. It is rather important and a matter to which I take a very great deal of exception.
§ The CHAIRMANIt may be referred to in a sentence, but not in the form of a resumption of the Debate on a matter which was concluded on the Amendment.
§ Captain SMITHI only want to do that. My view of that concession—and I want the right hon. Gentleman to be very careful what he is doing—is that you arc going to have one set of children set against another. Not only that, but it is going to intensify the feeling with regard to school inspection itself. There are any number of headmasters and second masters in this country of exceptional ability and splendid stamina who have done excellent work in their own particular sphere, but who, because they are not representative or who have not been educated at one or other of the universi- 2074 ties, find it extremely difficult to be appointed to an inspectorate of our private schools. That ought not to be so. Again, what it is going to do is to create conflict at some time or another betwixt the Board of Education and the universities themselves, and, strange to say, not a single hon. Member who spoke in favour of this Amendment yesterday, would say that he was speaking for the universities. That raises the whole point. If I had been educated at Oxford or Cambridge, Manchester or Sheffield, or any other of the universities, had been turned out well fitted to face the problems of life, and had succeeded to an extent satisfactory to myself, I should think that university was the best university in the world, and I should do everything I could for the people of that university. What I want is that the Board of Education shall have the right of entry into every one of these private schools, and if that is so I think a great deal of that feeling will pass away. I ought to say that the sentence or two that appealed. to me more than anything else which has been said on the Bill were those uttered by the right hon. Gentleman when he expressed his fervent desire to keep the framework of this Bill. With. that I heartily agree, but I do believe more than anything else that had the country been assured that its young persons would continue their education under this Bill without fear of undue hardship the people would have taken it, and it would have done immeasurable good. Certainly, great deal better results would have come from it than will be the case when you have people living in uncertainty as to how they will meet their weekly bills for food, clothing, and so on. I am not in a mood to do anything to wreck this Bill. I am not in a mood to-challenge a Division on this Clause, but I do not know whether hon. and right hon. members of this Committee realise the position of a Member like myself who, ask said yesterday, has worked hard for education for a long period —
§ The CHAIRMANI must point out that if one Member repeats the speeches he made yesterday on his Amendments there may be, what shall I say, a hundred desiring to do the same thing. I cannot allow that.
§ Captain SMITHI should like to avoid that, and I was going to finish in a sentence. Those are my views. I believe 2075 there is great good in this Clause, but I do urge the right hon. Gentleman to take seriously into consideration what the position will be of parents when their young children are going to school.
Mr. DENNISSAs the representative of one of the largest industrial constituencies in the country I cannot refrain from entering my protest and regret at the fact of the Government having made continuation education compulsory in the very teeth of the known opposition of the working classes, and of most of the employers of some of our greatest industries—industries which are vital to the best interests of the United Kingdom. This Clause inflicts great hardship, pecuniary hardship, on the working classes, coming on the top, as it does, of the great hardship that has been put upon them by the abolition of half-time between the ages of twelve and fourteen. How the parents will be able to support their children in the same comfort as they have hitherto done I do not know, but I think before the Government introduced a system of compulsory education it should have taken care that it did not inflict hardship upon the poorer people whose children are compelled to attend these schools. The result must be that compulsory education must oblige the parents to support their children out of the earnings which were barely sufficient before the War, and which after the War may be insufficient, to support themselves, and to cast that burden upon the parents, particularly under Clause 8, and an additional burden under Clause 12. I have some letters on this subject. One of them has just arrived from a woman with nine young children, the eldest of which is a little over fourteen, and, as she says:
My husband and I are struggling our very hearts and souls out trying to keep a smiling face. Then up pops a man like Mr. Fisher, who has got his bread and butter for life, wanting poor people to bring a family into the world, to keep them up to school age, and then hand them over to the education authorities till they are old enough to be married and start children themselves. They are not to murmur if at the end of their lives they are asked to go to the workhouse.I will not read any more. Hon. Members will understand the position from that. That is the sort of case for which this Bill makes no provision. The right hon. Gentleman has refused to give State assistance—I think rightly, because I am all against State charity. I do not think that 2076 would solve the question in the long run at all. The immediate effect, of course, will be that the parents will endeavour to get higher wages, and that will throw the burden on the trade unions of a long struggle with employers to get a sufficient wage to pay the parents in order that they may be able to support their children up to eighteen, when a large number of them have never had to support their children beyond the age of twelve. For six years the extra burden is thrown upon them. Then, when the trade unions are successful, if the industry is injured—whether it be agriculture or cotton, and the particular industry in which I am most interested is cotton—the whole Kingdom must be injured, because the cotton trade is an export trade, and I think nearly one-third of the total exports of this country which enable us to import our food and our necessary raw material is derived from the cotton trade. I do not propose to detain the Committee on this subject, which has been freely thrashed out, but I felt I must rise to make a protest and to say that I think this subject ought to have been submitted to the people of this country at a General Election before it was carried through this House. People's minds are so full of the only thing that matters just now, in facing this War and what is to come afterwards, that they have neither time nor inclination to study this Bill, and neither have any of us really time to give our minds properly to it—
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Sir Donald Maclean)The hon. and learned Gentleman's observations are not germane to the Clause.
Mr. DENNISSI am sorry if what I have just said was not germane to the Clause. I have a good deal more that I could say, but apparently the House is so thoroughly committed to this Clause that the only thing is for me to conclude my observations by entering against it a strong protest.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe Question is, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThat is not an Amendment. Except the Question, "Yes or No," there is nothing before the Committee.
§ Mr. PETOBefore the Motion is put I have a word to say with regard to the agricultural question in connection with the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education said he thought I should be largely satisfied on the points connected with agriculture, but I am not satisfied, because what is needed is not actually provided for in the Clause, and there is nothing to prevent the cost of continuation schools coming upon the rates in sparsely populated districts, where the burden is heavier upon the parents and upon the ratepayers than is the case in largely populated centres. While I agree that there is nothing to prevent the local authorities from establishing winter continuation schools, unless financial provision is afforded it is quite impossible to bring that into effect, and I regard the case of agriculture in respect of continuation schools as not having been met under Clause 10.
§ Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.