Commons Sitting of 16 October 1918

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

  PENSIONS AND ALLOWANCES.
  Mr. PRICE: I beg to present a Petition from Midlothian on behalf of the Scottish Federation of Discharged and Demobilised Sailors and Soldiers, praying for increased allowances. I also have similar Petitions from other places.
  Mr. HOGGE: I desire to present Petitions from Leith and other places, praying that an increase of the allowance of wives and widows from 12s. 6d. to 25s. weekly, with increases for other dependants, should be granted.
  Mr. WATT: I beg to present a similar Petition from Aberdeen and Kirkaldy.
  Mr. PRICE: I have further Petitions from Falkirk.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I would call the attention of the hon. Members to the provisions of Standing Order 66, which says that the House will receive no Petition for any sum relating to public service. I am very doubtful whether any of these Petitions are, therefore, in order. It is a matter for the Petitions Committee to consider.
  Mr. HOGGE: I desire to present further Petitions.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must take his chance with the Petitions Committee.
  Mr. SHAW: I beg to present a Petition from the Govan branch of the Scottish Federation of Discharged and Demobilised Sailors and Soldiers praying for an increase of separation allowances.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I would call the hon. Member's attention to Standing Order 66. At the same time, I ask him to bring his Petition to the Table, subject to anything the Petitions Committee may have to say.
  Sir JOHN MacCALLUM: May I, Mr. Speaker, present a Petition on the same subject from Ayrshire? It is largely signed.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member may bring it up to-morrow. Perhaps he will in the meanwhile consider the effect of the Standing Orders.

  RAILWAY AND CANAL TRAFFIC ACTS, 1888 AND 1894.
  Order [16th September, 1914] that the Paper relative thereto be printed, read, and discharged.
PARLIAMENTARY AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTORS.
Address for "Return showing, for each Parliamentary Constituency in the United Kingdom, the numbers of Parliamentary and Local Government Electors on the first Register compiled under the Representation of the People Act, 1918."—[Mr. Brace.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.

    ARMY LEAVE.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is now in a position to say if all men in the Army have now had at least one leave from all Fronts?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Macpherson): I am afraid I cannot answer my hon. Friend's question without a special reference to the various Commanders-in-Chief, but I can assure the House that every opportunity is being taken of granting leave from all theatres as far as transport facilities and the military situation permit. Improved arrangements are now in force and the House will be interested to know that the average number of men coming over on leave from France during the month of September was 6,245 per day and that the weekly leave party from Italy numbers 1,100. A regular leave service has also been arranged from Salonika. In the case of Palestine and Mesopotamia the position is more difficult owing to the transport question, but everything possible is being done, and I understand that failing home leave local leave to India or Egypt is being freely granted.
    Mr. HOGGE: Can my right hon. Friend not ascertain the quite simple answer as to whether he can assure the House that every man has already had one leave?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I can only say I am quite prepared to make any inquiries concerning leave. I have taken a very great interest in this question, and I am glad to make inquiries.
    Mr. WATT: Did not the right hon. Gentleman make a promise before the Recess that every man on the Far Eastern fronts would have an opportunity of getting home?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: No, but I think I have fulfilled the promise I did make.

    SCOTTISH WAR MEMORIAL.

      CONSTITUTION OF COMMITTEE.
      Mr. HOGGEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he is in a position to state the names of the Committee on the Scottish War Memorial?
      The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. Munro): The Committee has been constituted, and as it contains a considerable number of names, I think the most convenient course will be that I should circulate a list of the members in the OFFICIAL REPORT. This I propose to do.
      Colonel ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: May I ask when this will be done?
      Mr. MUNRO: To-day.
      Mr. HOGGE: On what Vote of this House will it rest if this Committee fall?
      Mr. MUNRO: I cannot say.
      The list referred to is as follows:—

      Brigadier-General The Duke of Atholl, K.T., C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O. (Chairman).

      The Rt. Hon. Lord Carmichael, G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., K.C.M.G. (Vice-Chairman).

      The Admiral Commanding-in-Chief at Rosyth.

      The General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Scottish Command.

      The Lords Provosts for the time being of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth.

      The Rt. Hon. William Adamson, M.P.

      The Rt. Hon. Lord Balfour of Burleigh, K.T., G.C.M.G., G.C.V.O. James Brown, Esq. (Ayr).

      Sir John Burnet, R.S.A.

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      Lieutenant-Colonel D. W. Cameron of Lochiel, C.M.G.

      Lieutenant-General Sir J. Spencer Ewart, K.C.B.

      Sir John R. Findlay, K.B.E.

      The Rt. Hon. Lord Glenconner.

      The Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. A. Macdonald, G.C.B., etc.

      The Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell, Bart., of Monreith.

      Sir Hector Munro, Bart., of Foulis.

      The Rt. Hon. Lord Newlands.

      Sir William Robertson (Dunfermline).

      The Very Rev. Sir George Adam Smith, D.D.

      The Rt. Hon. Eugene Wason, M.P.

      The Very Rev. A. Wallace Williamson, D.D.

      Sir George Younger, Bart., M.P.

      Captain George Swinton, Gattonside House, Melrose, will act as Secretary to the Committee.

    NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

      WAR BONUS.
      Mr. HOGGEasked the Pensions Minister whether he is in a position to announce any war bonus on the rates of disability pensions?
      The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Mr. Hodge): I have this matter under my immediate consideration.
      Mr. HOGGE: Can my right hon. Friend say we shall have his answer immediately?
      Mr. HODGE: I hope the answer will be given promptly?

      SEPARATION ALLOWANCES.
      Mr. HOGGEasked the Prime Minister (1) whether he is now prepared to reduce the age at which the parents of apprentices can receive the flat rate of 5s. a week separation allowance; and (2) whether, in view of the representations he has received, he is prepared to increase the allowances to wives and children of serving men?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: I would refer the hon. Member to my statement yesterday in connection with the Business of the House. I hope that the decision of the Government on this subject may be circulated with the OFFICIAL REPORT to-night, but it will be circulated at latest to-morrow.

    ELECTION REGISTERS.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the President of the Local Government Board whether the registers are now completed?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Walsh): As far as my information goes, the registers in England and Wales have all been published, with the exception of those in three boroughs and four counties. In all these cases but one it is hoped to publish before the end of this week.

    EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES).

      OPERATION OF 1918 ACT.
      Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education whether his announced proposals for bringing into operation the various clauses of the Education Act, 1918, are being acted upon; how much of the Act is now in operation; and whether in any respects he will be able to accelerate or have to retard the operation of the Act?
      The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Fisher): I would refer the hon. Member to the Order of the Board, dated 8th August, 1918, of which I am sending him a copy. I am not yet in a position to make any statement upon the last part of the question, but the matter will receive my constant attention.

      SUPPLY OF TEACHERS.
      Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education the number of teachers from elementary and secondary schools, respectively, who have passed into the Army or Navy; what is the number required of additional teachers to secure the working of the Education Act, 1918, at the end of five and of ten years, respectively; whether adequate means are being taken to attract and train such teachers; whether any large number of female teachers have left teaching during the past four years for war services; if so, how many; and whether he expects the return to teaching of any large number of these on the termination of the War?
      Mr. FISHER: I informed the hon. Member on 16th May last that it was estimated that over 20,000 teachers had been released for military and naval
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      service from elementary schools and about 2,500 from grant-aided secondary schools. I am about to ask for an up-to-date return from the school authorities. The number of women teachers who have left the teaching service for war work during the last four years is not large, and is far less than the number of women who had left the teaching service before the War but have since returned to the schools. I hope that the improved prospects of the teaching profession, resulting from steps which I have already taken and from the measure which I hope Parliament will pass this Session, will secure not only the return of the great majority of teachers but a very large accession of additional teachers. The remainder of the question cannot be suitably dealt with within the limits of a question and answer. I can assure the hon. Member, however, that the supply of teachers is engaging my most careful attention.

      SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION.
      Mr. KINGasked the President of the Beard of Education whether he has seen the Report on London elementary schools, dated 26th May, 1914 (No. 33), showing that 124 schools in London, accommodating over 54,500 scholars, were condemned as unsuitable or insanitary by the Board; whether the London education authority or the Board of Education has taken any measures to improve these 124 schools; whether any have been closed; whether the Education Act of this Session will be invoked to deal with the problem; whether he will call for a scheme to supply the 54,500 places condemned; and whether any immediate action will be taken?
      Mr. FISHER: I presume that the question refers to the Board's letter of the 14th April, 1914, to which lists were attached of certain non-provided schools, the premises of which had not been condemned but showed defects of varying degrees of gravity. In reply to the hon. Member's question on the 19th April, 1917, it was explained that since the outbreak of war three of the schools had been closed; in twenty other cases definite plans for improvement had been submitted, and a large number of the remaining cases had been discussed between the Board and representatives of the managers and the local education authority. Owing to the restrictions on building nothing more can be done at

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      present, but the matter will not be overlooked and will again be taken up as soon as practicable.
      Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education the number of elementary and secondary schools, respectively, which were on 30th September occupied wholly or partly by the military, naval, or other Government authorities for purposes other than education; how many scholars were thus displaced; in how many schools were double shifts of teaching operative; and whether he will endeavour to fix a date by which the whole of the schools thus interfered with shall be restored for the purposes of education?
      Mr. FISHER: So far as schools recognised by the Board of Education are concerned, the numbers were: 209 public elementary schools, with about 138,380 pupils, and 37 secondary schools, with about 10,530 pupils. The number of schools conducted on the double-shift system was 99, all public elementary schools. I can assure my hon. Friend that I shall endeavour to secure the restoration of all these premises to educational uses at the earliest possible date.

    MILITARY SERVICE.

      CONVENTION WITH UNITED STATES.
      Mr. KINGasked the Minister of National Service (1) how many Americans have been enlisted in the British Army as a result of the Military Convention with the United States; how many Americans have been given exemption; and how many cases are still undecided; (2) whether he can state the figures up to date concerning the number of Italians who have been enlisted in the British Army as a result of the Military Convention with Italy; whether the 700 Italians so serving on 25th May have been increased or diminished in numbers; whether the 3,063 exemptions then granted by the Italian Consular authorities have been added to and, if so, by how many; and, of the 6,233 cases then under investigation, how many have been recruited and how many exempted from military service?
      The MINISTER of NATIONAL SERVICE (Sir Auckland Geddes): The Convention with the United States did not become operative until the 4th instant, and it is therefore not practicable to give
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      any figures. With regard to the Italians, I am not in a position to give accurate figures up to date. I may state, however, that an increase in the number enlisted into the British Army has taken place.

    CAPTAIN BOWEN-COULTHURST.
    Mr. KINGasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he will now redeem the promise given by the right hon. Member for East Fife that the evidence laid before the Commission which inquired into the murders committed by Captain Bowen-Coulthurst should be published?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Shortt): I regret that I cannot depart from the course of action which has been taken in the past, and I am therefore not prepared in the present circumstances to recommend the publication of the evidence in this case.

    GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND (AMENDMENT) BILL.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Prime Minister if he will say when the Irish Home Rule Bill is to be introduced?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law): I can make no statement on the subject.
    Mr. HOGGE: Does that mean that the Government have abandoned any intention of introducing any new Home Rule Bill?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: No; it means exactly what I say, that I can say nothing about it.
    Mr. DILLON: When will you say something about it?

    FOOD SUPPLIES.

      FAT CATTLE.
      Sir JOHN SPEAR (by Private Notice): I beg to ask the Minister for Food if he is aware that in Devon and Cornwall many thousands of fat cattle are ripe for slaughter, but cannot be disposed of by farmers, because of the small demand now being made for such cattle for grading;

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      and is he aware that many of these beasts are declining in condition, and yet consuming food intended for the purpose of preparing lower-grade animals for slaughter in ensuing months, and in order to relieve the congestion could he not arrange for the slaughter of a large number of these cattle and place the meat in cold storage, for winter use, when meat will be very scarce; and will he put in force a more expeditious method of liberating damaged corn in order to enable farmers to complete the fattening of more stock for winter killing?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Major Astor): I am aware that the supply of fat cattle is in excess of the requirements under the present scale of rationing, and that grass-fed cattle are bound to decline in condition unless arrangements can be made for yarding them. The Food Controller cannot increase the existing ration now without an equivalent reduction after Christmas, as there is no present proposal of any further imported supplies. It is, therefore, essential for our supply of meat early next year to encourage the farmer to keep his beasts until after Christmas; but it is fully recognised that the actual and prospective dearth of feeding-stuffs makes his task difficult.
      The question has been discussed with the Central Agricultural Advisory Council, who have made suggestions to the Food Controller for the purpose of relieving the situation, and these are being sympathetically considered. Meantime, all possible means of utilising fresh meat are being adopted; arrangements have been made for supplying the Home Forces, both Naval and Military, so far as possible, with home-killed meat, and an endeavour is being made to export some quantities to France. The frozen meat thus saved will be stored for subsequent use.
      There is no plant available for freezing any considerable quantity of fresh meat, but steps are being taken to provide cold storage which will enable such meat to be kept in a chilled condition for a certain time. In view of the fact that it is impossible to import sufficient frozen meat to provide the necessary meat ration for the first four months of the year out of frozen meat only, the Food Controller hopes that farmers will do their utmost to hold over their cattle as long as possible. The arrangements made for administer-
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      ing the Cereals (Restriction) Order are working satisfactorily. From 1st September to 9th October, 23,423 quarters of damaged grain were released for feeding purposes. Nearly 5,000 applications have been dealt with, and approximately nine-tenths of these were successful.
      An Order is being drafted to register grist millers to fix a maximum charge for the mechanical treatment of cereals and pulse, and to fix minimum prices at the cost of ingredient, plus the permitted charge for such treatment. The Order will prohibit the addition of husk and worthless material, and the gristing of composite meals consisting of cereals and pulse, and will provide for weekly or fortnightly reports from all grist millers of the composition of the meals, of the cost of the ingredients into the mill, and of the price charged ex mill.
      Captain Sir BEVILLE STANIER: May I ask if he is aware that not only in Devonshire and Cornwall, but in practically every county in England this same sending back of the animals from market is going on, and the quality and the quantity of the beef which will be required this winter will be lessened, inasmuch as the farmers have got neither the grass nor the feeding stuffs to keep them alive; and cannot he go further and deeper into the question of chilling this meat for further use?
      Sir J. SPEAR: May I ask if he realises that the holding back of this cattle at present will reduce the supply for winter use, because these animals are eating food that was intended to keep up lower grade animals and perfect them for winter use?
      Major ASTOR: The Food Controller is quite aware of the difficulties which farmers are experiencing. It has had the attention of the Department for some time, and he hopes to make an announcement shortly. At the moment, generally speaking, only first grade animals are being slaughtered.
      Colonel WEIGALL: Are we to understand that the whole question of the feeding-stuffs and home-produced cereal feeding-stuffs is to be reconsidered; and, if so, will the advice of the Central Advisory Council be taken, in view of the fact that the present programme was agreed on without consulting the Advisory Council?
      Major ASTOR: As I said just now, the suggestions of the Central Advisory Council are being sympathetically considered by the Food Controller. I am afraid there is no prospect of revising their whole feeding-stuffs programme, because that depends on the military programme. It is only because of the necessity of bringing over a large number of American troops that the feeding-stuffs programme has had to be cut down.
      Colonel WEIGALL: Then how is their advice being considered? If the programme has already been agreed on, what is the use of asking their advice?
      Major ASTOR: They have made various suggestions for dealing with the present excessive number of cattle coming on to the market, and those suggestions are being considered.
      Colonel WHELER: Will the hon. and gallant Member say on how many days a week it is proposed to feed the Home Forces on home-killed meat?
      Major ASTOR: I think at the present moment the Home Forces are being fed four days a week, but we hope to be able to increase that.
      Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman say whether his Department is aware that in every market throughout East Anglia there is this going back of beasts for which there is no sale, and will he also say whether his Department and the Board of Agriculture are exactly in unison and acting together in this matter, or will there be some fresh machinery arranged to enable them to act entirely together in the interests of the farmers?
      Major ASTOR: The Food Controller has been in constant touch with the three Boards of Agriculture, as well as the Central Advisory Council. The Ministry are aware of the fact that a large number of markets—[Sir F. FLANNERY: All of them!]—are not able to absorb the number of cattle coming, and at the moment only first-grade cattle are being slaughtered.
      Colonel YATE: Will the hon. and gallant Member say who is responsible for the Orders that resulted in this glut of beasts?
      Major ASTOR: The glut is not due to any Order. It is due to the military programme and the need for bringing over an increased number of American troops.
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      That has meant a cutting down in the quantity of imported feeding-stuffs, and the Food Controller is confident that as soon as this is appreciated by farmers they will do all in their power to assist.
      Mr. DENMAN: Will farmers be allowed to use their own damaged corn, instead of having to sell it and buy it back at an enhanced price?
      Major ASTOR: There is no restriction except as regards price upon the sale of damaged grain, except when sold by retail—that is to say, quantities of 10 cwts. or less. Farmers are allowed to use their own damaged corn.
      Sir J. SPEAR: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, and the insufficiency of the remedy to meet the disaster, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment to-night.

      Criminal Lunatics.
      Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many of the twenty-eight criminal lunatics who were in 1917 conditionally discharged had been convicted for, or charged with, the capital offence; and how many of them had been in detention as criminal lunatics for less than eight months?
      The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Brace): I find that twenty-six criminal lunatics, not twenty-eight, were conditionally discharged during 1917. The figure given to the hon. Member in August last included two lunatics who were discharged from one asylum for transfer to another. Of these twenty-six lunatics, fifteen had been charged with murder and found insane. None had been in detention for less than eight months.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.

    NEW CLAUSE.—(Religious Instruction.)
    Whereas it has been the custom in the public schools of Scotland to give instruction in religion to children whose parents did not object to the instruction so given, but with liberty to parents, without forfeiting any of the other advantages of the schools, to elect that their children should not receive such instruction, be it enacted that education authorities shall be at liberty to continue the said custom, subject to the provisions of Section sixty-eight (conscience clause) of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1872.—[Mr. Munro.]
    Brought up, and read the first time.
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. Munro): I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a second time."
    The new Clause, which stands in my name, refers to an important topic, namely, the question of religious instruction in public schools in Scotland. That is a topic which has caused a good deal of discussion during the recent Recess, and some concern was expressed by the Churches regarding the provision of the Bill as it stands. I was very anxious, if possible, to meet any legitimate apprehensions on the part of the religious community in Scotland in this matter, and accordingly I gave notice that I proposed to move on the Report stage the new Clause which stands first on the paper. I was very glad to find that without any conference with those connected with the Churches in Scotland and the Educational Institute, who had been concerning themselves in the matter, they asked me to put down an Amendment practically in the same terms as that of which I have given notice, and indicated that if that Amendment or new Clause was accepted by the Government, their opposition to the Bill in this regard would be withdrawn. Perhaps it might be convenient that I should read to the House an extract from a letter which I have received from the Secretary of the Education Committee of the Church of Scotland in this matter. He writes me on the 10th October, and I should say that this letter has a bearing upon subsequent new Clauses on the Paper, one in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dumfries Burghs (Mr. Gulland), and one in the name of the hon. Member for Cen-
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    tral Glasgow (Mr. Macleod). Probably they will be satisfied with the concordat which has been arrived at. The Secretary of the Church of Scotland Education Committee writes me that
    "at a meeting of the representatives of the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church of Scotland and also of the Educational Institute held in Edinburgh on 8th inst., it was after full discussion unanimously agreed that you should be asked to insert a Clause in the Education (Scotland) Bill to the following effect:
    'That it be explicitly provided that subject to the Conscience Clause (Education Scotland Act, 1872, Section 68) education authorities shall have the liberty and power in the matter of religious instruction in all public schools which school boards have had in schools under their charge.'
    I was further instructed to say that if you can see your way to insert such a Clause in the Bill the religious question will in the opinion of the Joint Churches Education Committees and the Educational Institute be settled."
    As I have said, the Clause which I have the honour of moving is in substance an echo of the Clause which, in virtue of this direction, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Glasgow has put upon the Paper, and therefore I take it that so far as those for whom he speaks are concerned, and I also take it so far as those for whom my right hon. Friend opposite speaks are concerned, the Clause which I have put down meets the opposition which had threatened to develop to the Bill. May I just add that I do not want, if possible, to reopen controversies which have now, I hope, been settled, but, perhaps, I should say that the purpose of the Clause which I have moved is twofold. In the first place, there was a Preamble in the Act of 1872 which the Churches had always since that date regarded as a very insecure foundation upon which to rest the direction for religious instruction in the Scottish schools. They thought that the Preamble had less effect than an enacting Clause in the Act of 1872 would have had. Whether that be so or not, I am not concerned now to argue, but what I do suggest to the House is that my Clause, which proposes to make an enacting Clause the Preamble of the Act of 1872, entirely meets, I hope, any apprehensions which were founded upon that score.
    In the second place, the apprehension was expressed that the Conscience Clause of the Act of 1872 and the Preamble of the Act of 1872 would not be imported into this Bill. I do not regard that as a well-founded apprehension, but, in order that there shall be no doubt whatever about it, I propose by this Clause to re-

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    enact in terms the contents of the Preamble of the Act of 1872, so that the Preamble now becomes a definite Clause in this Bill.
    These being the two grounds upon which the Churches were concerned, I hope and believe that their opposition has been entirely met by the Clause which I propose. If the House is satisfied with that explanation, I propose to leave it in the meantime at that. I hope my right hon. Friend opposite, in these circumstances, will not think that it is necessary to move the Clause of which he has given notice. If, contrary to my hope and expectation, he should feel it his duty to do so, it would then be my duty to discuss the question of the mandatory provision which that Clause includes. But inasmuch as the Churches of Scotland are no longer asking for a mandatory provision, and as they were the only persons, so far as I know, who opposed the Bill as it stood in this regard, I am very hopeful that my right hon. Friend will think it proper to withdraw his Amendment. I am most anxious to avoid, if I can, a repetition of the discussions which have taken place during the Recess. I am most anxious to avoid a repetition of these in the interests of time, if nothing else, on the floor of the House, and, accordingly, I feel I shall consult the convenience of the House if, without going into the matter in greater detail at this moment, I ask the House to give this Clause a Second Reading.
    Mr. GULLAND: Like the right hon. Gentleman. I am sure everyone is anxious to avoid controversy on this Bill as far as possible, and to have the Bill passed at the earliest possible moment. As there is a Clause dealing with the subject in the name of the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. F. Whyte), who, I am sorry, owing to ill-health, is not able to be here to-day, and in the name of myself, of a somewhat different character, I may remind the right hon. Gentleman that that Clause was put down before we rose. There is also the other Clause in the name of the hon. Member for Central Glasgow (Mr. Macleod), which embodies the present views of the education committees of the two Presbyterian Churches. There is no disguising the fact that in Scotland there has been a great deal of uneasiness on this subject, and for that uneasiness the right hon. Gentleman himself is responsible, because
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    of the present Clause 18 in the Bill. I do not want to enter into controversy, but I would remind him that it is the frame work of the Bill itself which has brought up this controversy, and there was a very strong feeling throughout Scotland that religious instruction should be mandatory. I am not going into the question of how many Presbyterians voted for and how many voted against, but he knows, and the right hon. Gentleman sitting on his right (Mr. Macpherson) knows, that there is a very serious feeling in Scotland on behalf of religious instruction. I do not say that anything has been done to show that this is in danger, but I can mention one little point. Since the War, in the schools in Edinburgh, which have been commandeered by the War Office, the one topic for which the time has been cut down has been the time of religious instruction, from thirty minutes to twenty minutes, which shows that, under the stress of Government pressure, such time may be curtailed.
    I do not want, however, to bring up these points. I want to deal merely with the new Clause of the right hon. Gentleman. Of course this does not make it mandatory. It does nothing new, but merely puts in the body of an Act what has previously only been in the Preamble, and it is solely and entirely declaratory. I confess that, personally, I prefer the words of the hon. Member for Central Glasgow. The words of the right hon. Gentleman look, again, rather like a Preamble. I suppose there are many precedents for embodying a Preamble in the body of a Bill. So far as I am concerned, I have no intention of moving a Clause. I am quite sure it will not give satisfaction to everybody in Scotland, but I personally, and I am certain many of those for whom I speak, are anxious to avoid controversy, and therefore I am quite ready to accept the Clause moved by the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. MACLEOD: I am very glad indeed the Secretary for Scotland has seen fit to propose this new Clause, and I am authorised by the Joint Committee of the Established Church of Scotland and the United Presbyterian Church to say that they accept the Clause as proposed by the right hon. Gentleman. So far as I am personally concerned I shall not propose the Clause that stands in my name. I should like to inform the House that public opinion has been very strongly—almost

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    unanimously—in favour of religious teaching in all the schools. The Act of 1872 was not wholly satisfactory, although it worked up to a certain point. But religious instruction was only referred to in the Preamble, and had not the force of a Clause in the Bill. My desire—and, I know, the desire of a very, very large number—would be to make religious teaching in all schools mandatory, but many were opposed to that, and we were also aware that there was very strong opposition on the part of the teaching profession in Scotland owing to certain suspicions they had. In view of that, the Joint Committee came to the conclusion that it would not be expedient to press for it to be made mandatory, and agreed to accept the Clause as put down by the Secretary for Scotland. I merely want to add that the large Presbyterian majority in Scotland feel that they have very just grounds for the claim, in view of the concessions and privileges which are given to other denominations in Scotland, and therefore I do hope sincerely the House will see fit to accept the Clause proposed by the Secretary for Scotland.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause read a second time, and added to the Bill.

    NEW CLAUSE.—(Establishment of Scotch Education Department.)
    As soon as may be after the passing of this Act a Board shall be established to be called the Scottish Education Board (in this Act referred to as "the Board") having its principal office in Edinburgh, and from and after the establishment of the Board the Scotch Education Department (in this Act referred to as "the Department") as constituted by the Secretary for Scotland Act, 1885, shall cease to exist, and all the powers and duties vested in, or imposed on, the Department by any Act of Parliament in force at the commencement of this Act shall be vested in, transferred to, and imposed on the Board, and shall be exercised and performed by the Board in like manner and subject to the same conditions, liabilities, and incidence, respectively, as such powers and duties might, before the commencement of this Act, have been exercised and performed by the Department, or as near thereto as circumstances permit.—[Mr. Hogge.]
    Brought up, and read the first time.
    Mr. HOGGE: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a second time."
    The marginal headings of this and the subsequent Clauses which I have put down give a summary of my proposal, which is to establish not a Scotch Education Department, but a Scottish Educa-
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    tion Department. It deals with the constitution of the Board, the seal, style, Acts, Orders and Rules of the Board, the transfer of officers, and the construction of Acts and deeds, etc. I understand from the Secretary for Scotland that, so far as the form of this new Clause is concerned, it is watertight in its proposals. I moved this in Committee upstairs. Of course, then I had a financial Clause in it which at that time was in order. Obviously on the Report stage I cannot introduce a financial Clause, but the Secretary for Scotland is aware of the Clause in its original form, and he knows perfectly well how this Clause could be made operative at once should it receive the assent of this House. What we are doing in this Bill is practically the creation of an enlarged Education Department for Scotland. This is being done at a time when the Scottish Education Department is still located in London. In these days of self-determination the Scottish people, who are primarily interested in this Bill, and whose concern it chiefly is, are the people who ought to be consulted in regard to the provisions of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland must know, just as he has been acquainted with the religious opinion on the religious Clauses, that there is no single body of public opinion in Scotland but is in favour of this Clause, and that the only opposition to the proposals of the Clause comes from his own Department and his own officials here in London. When we are also near the settlement of new constitutional matters, when, among other things, it is proposed that Scotland shall have a Home Rule Bill, it seems to me folly, when we are passing an Education Bill, that we should not provide at once for the transference of the Scottish Education Department to Edinburgh.
    Every other Scottish Department at the moment is located in Edinburgh. There is no Scottish Department except the Education Department, which has its offices in London. The extraordinary inconveniences to local authorities in Scotland of always requiring to come to London in order to transact business which is domestic business is obvious, if not to English, Irish, and Welsh Members, at any rate to Scottish Members. As the latter know, the Lobbies of this House yesterday and to-day have been full of deputations from school boards all over Scotland. While we were in Committee upstairs

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    there were never fewer than a hundred members in attendance from various local and civic authorities in Scotland to watch over the details of the Bill. We who represent Scotland are charged by our constitutents to express the view here that the time is ripe for the transference of the Scottish Education Department to Edinburgh. On the bench opposite are two ex-secretaries for Scotland (Mr. McKinnon Wood and Mr. Tennant). Both these hon. Gentlemen know the strength of public opinion in regard to this demand.
    An HON. MEMBER: No!
    Mr. HOGGE: Yes, they do! There are only a few isolated Unionist Members in Scotland who do not know anything at all about public opinion in Scotland, and consequently take a contrary view. The bulk of public opinion in Scotland, as expressed by the school boards and municipalities, and as expressed by, at any rate, three-fourths of the electors, is in favour of having these offices transferred to our own country. I very much hope both of the hon. Gentlemen that I have named will add something to this Debate, bearing out what I have said as to the strength of Scottish public opinion in this matter.
    In detail this is a proposal to transfer the Department from London to Edinburgh. It gives powers administratively to make this Educaton Bill a much more valuable instrument than it would be if it were administered from London. There are four branches of education in Scotland all of which are vital to the future interests of our own country—namely, elementary and secondary, continuation classes, and technical education. In the Clause which I am moving power is taken to create someone, or somebody, who will give these branches of Scottish Education their precise and particular attention. It is quite obvious—to repeat a commonplace—that this nation has to prepare itself for what people popularly call the New War—the war to follow after peace is made with the Central Powers. We are all agreed that one of the best instruments for waging that war is the efficient and complete education of the children in our schools. Certain departments of our education have been largely neglected in the past. In Scotland we have done particularly well in elementary and secondary education; not so well in continuation classes, and certainly not nearly so well—with certain notable ex-
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    ceptions in the large towns—in technical education. Technical education is going to mean a very great deal more to the people of Scotland than ever it has meant before. In the West of Scotland we have all the technical engineering occupations associated with what is called the Clyde, Since the War broke out a similar kind of activity has grown up in the East. We have had created at Rosyth very large departments of Government activity; there is growing up around Rosyth and district a new population which has necessitated great new town-planning schemes, of which Dunfermline has been the centre. It is obvious, in both East and West of Scotland, that if the children growing up there are to be adapted to the future needs of Scotland much more attention must be given to technical education. This can be best achieved on the spot if you have special men, specially qualified to give their attention to this very important subject.
    The other argument in favour of the transference of this Department to Edinburgh and the creation of the Department I have suggested is the absolute impossibility of the Secretary for Scotland paying adequate attention to the work which is being laid on his shoulders. I do not know whether this House realises what are the functions of the Secretary for Scotland? I do not intend to weary the House by going through them, but I think my right hon. Friend would be the first to admit that the Secretary for Scotland, in his own person and office, has the control in Scotland of many Departments which in England are represented in this House by separate Ministers on the Front Bench. My right hon. Friend has the questions that come under the Local Government Board—agriculture, fisheries, and education. Altogether there are some twelve or thirteen separate Departments, for all of which he is responsible in this House. The Bill we are about to pass throws upon the right hon. Gentleman's shoulders a great many more burdens than were thrown upon him by the existing Statutes under which Scottish education is administered. The majority of those who represent Scotland have come to the conclusion that we must relieve the Secretary for Scotland of a great many of his duties if they are to be attended to properly and efficiently. I do not mean that my right hon. Friend does not do all that one man can be expected to do. I think

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    it only fair to say that so far as his colleagues and public opinion in Scotland are concerned we are amply satisfied with the assiduity with which he attends to his duties, and no Secretary for Scotland has made so great an impression upon the people of Scotland by the way in which he has attended to his duties. I think the right hon. Gentleman himself would be the first to agree that the proposition I am making is true, and if he were relieved of a great many of those duties he would not only have more time to attend to the others, but he would have more leisure for himself. If the majority of the Scottish Members want the proposal, I cannot see how the Geovernment can resist it, and they can only do so by the votes of Members of Parliament who do not represent Scotland. I am certain if a free vote is taken among the Members for Scotland this new Clause would be supported, and I am sure it would be supported by the Secretary for Scotland if he were not sitting on the Treasury Bench, because his recent policy has been all on the lines of Scottish Home Rule. I have listened to many of the right hon. Gentleman's speeches on public platforms in Scotland, and I have cheered him when he has said that the Scottish Education Department should be transferred from London to Edinburgh. Now that the right hon. Gentleman is in the proud position of being in authority I am looking forward to him carrying out the promises he made in those speeches upon many Scottish platforms in those days of less responsibility. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to create a monument to his political memory in Scotland, I suggest that he could not do better than take this first step in the creation of a separate administration of Scottish affairs in Scotland. After all Scottish people know something about education, for they have had a long and honourable tradition. Their public bodies are very advanced and energetic, and it is a thousand pities, when passing a Bill of this kind, that you ought not to take advantage of it in order to set up a Scottish Education Department in Edinburgh which would energise Scottish education.
    Sir EDWARD PARROTT: I am sure that I cannot be accused of any hostility to this Bill for I have always encouraged it, and my greatest desire is to see it as rapidly as possible on the Statute Book,
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    because I think it is the greatest boon you can give to Scotland at this time, and, indeed, it is the only possible way in which you can keep Scotland in the forefront of education. Happily we have got very easily through what promised to be the quicksands and the shoals of a religious controversy. We have, I think, two full days before us in which we can put every point of view and investigate this Bill in the light of the Amendments set out on the Paper. Without in the slightest degree jeopardising the Bill, I think we can go in for making a thoroughly good job of it. The proposition is that the Board of Education should transfer the Scottish Education Department to Scotland, and for the life of me I cannot find a single valid argument against that pro-position. I believe that my right hon. Friend in Grand Committee quite agreed that if we had a Home Rule Bill for Scotland the Education Department would have to go north of the Border. I assume the right hon. Gentleman did not wish to deal with that topic in this Bill because he did not wish to prejudice the Home Rule Bill of the future. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman is quite aware of the extraordinary development of the Home Rule sentiment which has taken place in Scotland since the War began, for it is simply amazing, and it is entirely due to the mismanagement of Scottish affairs in England. I will guarantee that I could get a four to one or a five to one majority for Home Rule in any division of the City of Edinburgh at the present time, and here is an excellent opportunity for my right hon. Friend to demonstrate the sincerity of his convictions with regard to Home Rule. If, however, the right hon. Gentleman may think he ought not to put his opinion into a Bill of this character, let me remind him that ever since the office which he so worthily holds was created in 1885 the trend of legislation has been to locate in Scotland all those Government Departments dealing specially with Scottish affairs, and by accepting this Clause he would be simply conforming to the trend and intention of the legislation which began by the establishment of the Local Government Board Act of 1884. We have a Board of Agriculture and a Commission of National Insurance, and I suppose that shortly we shall have a Ministry of Health. If my right hon. Friend is going to be consistent he must propose that a Ministry of

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    Health for Scotland shall be established in London but I am sure he would not dare to make any such proposition. The Scottish Education Department is a kind of relic of the days when all Scottish affairs were administered as part and parcel of English Departments
    "The thing we see is neither rich nor rare,
    We wonder how the devil it got there!"
    It is the fly in the amber; it is a kind of barnacle which has become attached to Whitehall and has been left high and dry by the tide of national development. If it is necessary that we should have local government, agriculture, national insurance and the Ministry of Health administered in Scotland, why should we not have our education administered there? There is all the greater reason. I say that official convenience is no argument at all. If it were a genuine argument, then all the agencies now established in Scotland should be brought to this side of the border. I am sure that there is no valid argument against the transfer. Probably, we shall not have an Education Bill in this House again—at least I hope not—for the next ten years. It is incumbent upon us therefore to transfer this Department at this, time for the sake of consistency, and, beyond all, for the sake of national efficiency. You are by this Bill very largely extending the operations of national education. My hon. Friend has enumerated the branches. The time for having a one-man management for anything has gone by. Autocracy of that kind is on its last legs everywhere. The time has come when a group of experts with a chairman can deal far better with these many branches of education than any individual man. All of them, especially technical education, need the assistance of men who have devoted a considerable portion of their lives to the study of them. I have the greatest hope that my right hon. Friend will accept this Clause. I am sure, if he refuses, that he will have the greatest possible difficulty in Scotland in explaining why he has not done so.
    Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR: I should like to have the opportunity of saying a word or two in support of this Clause. The hon. Gentleman who moved the Clause (Mr. Hogge) rested the arguments for it very largely upon opinion in Scotland. In so doing he took absolutely sure ground. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that I believe the vast majority of
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    the people of Scotland would strongly support the proposal that this Department should have its place in Edinburgh, and that the education of Scotland should be administered from the capital of Scotland itself. I shall await with very much interest what is said in answer to that view. During the sittings of the Committee upon this Bill we were inundated with representatives from Scotland who came here at great personal inconvenience. We have therefore had an object lesson of the expense and inconvenience which might be avoided if we had a Board dealing with these matters in Scotland. The suggestion has been made that it is not desirable in the interests of education that such a Clause should be accepted. I read with interest the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman when dealing with this matter in Committee. His main argument was that so long as we have a responsible Minister in London it is convenient and desirable to have the headquarters of the Scottish Education Department also in London. I should like the right hon. Gentleman, in his reply, to indicate what distinction he-draws between the work of the Scottish Education Department and the work of the many Boards to which my hon. Friend has already referred and which is being carried on in Scotland itself. We know perfectly well that under the present system the Secretary for Scotland is very much overburdened with work and that he has to have representatives of these Boards attend in London—no doubt their presence is necessary—to advise him. What distinction can he draw between the case of education and the case of agriculture, or public health, or local government, and so forth? It seems to me very difficult to say. Perhaps we shall have some light from him on this subject when he replies.
    Then there is another good reason for this Clause. Under the present system we have references continually made to the Department, and by this new Bill immense authority is naturally being conferred upon the Department. We have been for a considerable time really under the necessity of accepting what I venture to say is somewhat of a mediaeval fiction with regard to the Scottish Education Department. We have asked again and again what it is, and we have been told that it consists of "My Lords," who under a Minute of the Council are appointed from time to time to consider

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    these important matters with regard to Scottish education. We have asked how often these gentlemen meet and discuss together the questions which affect the interests of Scottish education, and we have been led to believe that practically they never meet. I believe that the right hon. Gentleman has been able to unearth some information with regard to one or two meetings which have taken place over a period of years, but, if there is a Department in charge of education in Scotland, we want to know who are the persons who are managing that Department, and what work they are accomplishing in the name of the Department? Reference has been made to the work being carried on by individuals. I want to pay the highest tribute to the Secretary of the Scottish Education Department for his ability and for his courtesy to all Scottish Members who approach him. I do not want for one moment to suggest that he is not in every way an admirable official for the work that he is doing, but surely the Scottish Members of Parliament are not going to rest content with the suggestion that the whole of education in Scotland is to be placed in the hands of one man, however able he may be!
    The suggestion which my hon. Friend makes is a very sound one. We should have the best experts meeting together in conference, dealing with these matters, giving expression to the views of the people in Scotland, and in close contact with them, instead of having to bring people to London to discuss matters with officials here. It seems to me that an unanswerable case has been made out. My right hon. Friend may say that this is a matter of immense importance, and will affect the future of the Bill which we are all anxious to see passed into law. I respectfully submit that this is the opportunity to raise this question. We are dealing with Scottish education. We are dealing with a very important matter affecting the welfare of our nation, and those who are prepared to pass by a question of this kind owing to certain difficulties to which it may give rise are not doing fair by their constituents and by those interested in education in Scotland. I earnestly suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that there is a great deal more in this Clause than may appear at first sight. The principle involved is a very big one. If he refuses to accept in
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    any shape or form the suggestion that Scotland deserves special consideration for its own special educational requirements and deserves to have these matters administered in its own capital, then he is laying himself open to a considerable challenge from the Scottish people themselves. While we may be defeated upon this matter, I sincerely trust that we shall not be defeated by Scottish votes, but that we shall be able to appeal to the people of Scotland, and tell them that this matter was not decided by the Scottish Members of the House of Commons, but that we were swamped by the English Members, and that it is a decision which we are not prepared to accept.
    4.0 P.M.
    Mr. MUNRO: I have listened with great care to the interesting speeches which have been made, and I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) for adding to his other Parliamentary gifts with which we are familiar the gift of Parliamentary draftsmanship. He said that I had expressed the view that this was a watertight Clause. That may be so. It has been ertremely well drawn, as a Clause of this kind ought to be. That, however, does not carry one very far with regard to the merits of the argument. I have examined the Clause with great care. It really divides itself into two quite separate proposals, the one having nothing whatever to do with the other. The first proposal which it makes is that there should be a board set up to replace the Secretary for Scotland, who meantime is solely responsible to this House for education in Scotland. The Board is to replace the Secretary for Scotland. The second proposal, which is quite distinct from the first, and really has no bearing upon it, is that the Board shall sit in Edinburgh—that its principal office shall be in Edinburgh. May I, for a moment, examine these two separate proposals and see how they work out? The first proposal is that a Board of four members shall be set up. I am not sure whether my hon. Friend means that the members shall be paid, but, looking back to the terms of the proposal which he set down in Committee, I think that is his intention. If that be so, then he would be increasing the cost of administration very considerably. In my opinion, it would also mean delay in administration, and it would certainly also involve a weakening

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    of ministerial responsibility. On that last ground, I should like to quote a very important recommendation made by the Royal Commission upon the Civil Service which recently sat. It was a very strong Committee, and in the course of their report they say this with regard to Scotland:—
    "We believe that the time has now come when this system of boards should be reconsidered for the following reasons:
    In the first place the evidence which we have received indicates that the board system is less-effective in securing responsibility for official action and advice than the system followed in the office of the Secretary for Scotland.
    We therefore recommend that your Majesty's Government should take such steps as may be necessary to substitute the organisation which prevails in the Scottish Office for the board system as the normal form of organisation in the Edinburgh Departments."
    I do not think the House will readily disregard this express recommendation which I think entirely bears out the view I ventured to express a moment ago, that if you had such a Board you would certainly weaken ministerial responsibility. I should like to ask my hon. Friend this further question: He proposes that at the head of this Board there should be a Minister. Suppose that Minister ceases to be a Member of Parliament. What then? Is he still to be responsible for the administration of education? If he is, where does Parliamentary control come in? Are these five members to continue administering Scottish education exactly as they please, without any representative in this House who shall be answerable for their action? I really think that any such proposal is unthinkable from the point of view of the House of Commons, which would be very slow to abandon that control which it now freely, firmly and properly exercises over education through a Minister who is a Member of the House. So much for the first point.
    On the second question—the proposal that the offices of the Board should be in Edinburgh—that, as the House knows, and as my Scottish colleagues know, is not a novel suggestion. It has often been debated and has been seriously considered by successive Secretaries for Scotland. It is important to remember that, while the suggestion is that the principal offices should be in Edinburgh, the Board of Education is not unrepresented there to-day. It has offices in Edinburgh with a gentleman in charge who is known to every Scottish Member, and who is held
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    in the highest respect—I refer to Dr. Macdonald—and that office is the connecting link between Scotland and London at the present moment. My view is that so long as you have a Minister for Education in London it is more convenient that you should have the principal office in London also. My hon. Friend has referred to other Boards in Scotland. It is a fact that such Boards do exist in Edinburgh. But does that exempt them from criticism or make them more acceptable in the country? I have my own view about that. I am not reflecting on any Board, but the suggestion that to have the main Board in Edinburgh makes it more acceptable to public opinion or ensures that it should be regarded with more favour is not borne out by experience.
    The whole question is: Are we prepared to accept this new Clause for transferring the Board to Edinburgh now? The Bill is drawn from the point of view of existing conditions, and not of conditions which may exist in the future. I take back nothing I have said on the subject of Home Rule. The question is: Are you to put the cart before the horse, as I respectfully suggest the new Clause would do? The question of what conditions we hope may exist in the future is not the issue now before the House. That issue is: Shall we, here and now, transfer this Department from London to Edinburgh at a time when you have not got a Scottish Home Rule Parliament? As far as devolution is concerned, I adhere to everything I have said. This seems to me to be a purely practical question. Is a case made out for doing this now, before you have a Home Rule Parliament set up in Edinburgh? My view is that so long as the Scottish Minister is here it is more convenient—and I think the experience of my predecessor will bear that out—it is more convenient from the point of view of successful administration that you should have the Education Office here, with an office in Edinburgh acting as the connecting link, than that you should now, prematurely as I think, transfer the whole organisation from London to Scotland. While I recognise the value of this Debate, I would ask my hon. Friend not to press this proposal to a Division now. He has made his speech and expressed his views with his usual candour and with entire friendliness to myself. While that is so, I venture to put it to the House most respectfully that however important this

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    may be on its merits for the future, it would be inadvisable at the present moment that the transfer should be proceeded with. I therefore appeal to my hon. Friend not now to press his proposal.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: Although it happens that I am, by accident, an English and not a Scottish Member, I am certain the House and my Scottish Friends will not object to my intervening in this Debate, because I cannot dissociate myself from the educational system of Scotland. I will be very brief however in what I have to say, but I think I shall be able to go a little bit more fundamentally into the question than has so far been done. The education of a people affects the life of that people. If the Education Department in Scotland was merely a matter of administration, and if the London section of that Department was merely a matter of convenience, then what my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland has said would be absolutely final. The Education Department should be in London, and its connecting link should be in Edinburgh. But that raises the whole question as to what the nature of the Education Department should be. The history of Scottish education is totally different from that of English education. Anyone who reads the literature of the Scottish Education Department and that of the English Education Department knows that the whole conception of Scottish education has been different from the conception of English education, and that from an educational point of view England is practically an alien country from Scotland. I spent part of my holidays in looking through some of that literature and nothing amazed me more, taking the very earliest stages of Scottish education, at the time of the Reformation, and comparing the educational literature of England covering the same time, than the fundamental difference of conception. From that fundamental difference of conception you have a totally different system evolved.
    What you have to-day is the whole spirit of Scottish education being dominated at Whitehall. It is true you have a most efficient and admirable officer in the person of Dr. Macdonald in Edinburgh, but his is an advisory position. The Department and the spirit of Scottish education is across the road here. Its atmosphere is English. The influence which lies about it is English, and if any-
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    one cared to take up the time of the House, which I do not want to do, by going into details of the changes in Scottish education during the last fifteen or twenty years, it could be shown that English influences have been changing fundamentally the conception of Scottish education, and certainly not for the benefit of Scottish education. On the Civil Service Commission, when we were dealing with the question of Scottish education and the need for the Scottish universities to supply efficient candidates for the Indian Civil Service, nothing was more clear to us than the extraordinary changes for the worse which had taken place in certain sections of Scottish education. You cannot create a little island at Dover House which is not influenced by the policy pursued inside and outside Dover House. Nobody will dispute this, that if the Scottish education policy was determined in Edinburgh under Scottish influence and in a Scottish atmosphere, the Scottish educational system would be developed in accordance with its own line and traditions and that it would not be something of the nature of engrafting English traditions on the original Scottish stock. That is what is happening to-day, and until the Scottish Education Department is removed to Edinburgh, with an office with Dr. Macdonald to preside over it in London, with the system and policy determined in Edinburgh but with a connecting link in London, the Scottish educational system will not develop on its own lines. But if you make that transfer we shall be able to keep our heads high in the eyes of the world as we have hitherto done. I hope my hon. Friend will carry his proposal to a Division. If he does, I shall support him, because I am in favour of the life of Scotland being developed upon Scottish lines, and this cannot be done if Scottish education is to be governed by the Department in London and not in Edinburgh.
    Mr. WATT: I desire to express my regret at the attitude which the Secretary for Scotland has taken up on this question of transferring the Education Department from London to Edinburgh. It is only another instance of the different note that is struck by Members of this House when they reach the Front Bench as compared with the note they strike when they had not the honour of sitting on that bench. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) has pointed out, this was one of the strongest questions

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    calling for Home Rule for Scotland and it was one of the doctrines which was assiduously preached by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland until he reached the Front Bench. The right hon. Gentleman has advanced one or two points which will not stand investigation. He has talked of expense, and said that before my hon. Friend pro-poses his new Clause he should ask himself the question whether it would cost the country more money. But I would point out that those who at present engaged on Scottish education, one of whom has been mentioned in this Debate, are at present taking more pay, and this question of expense is altogether illusory. It is said that the responsibility of the Minister would be affected if this Department were transferred to Scotland. But the House must realise that there are fourteen Departments over which the right hon. Gentleman already presides, and the offices of thirteen of these Departments are in Scotland. It is only the fourteenth, namely, the Education Board, that has its head office in London. I ask the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, what about the Ministerial responsibility of those thirteen offices. Has he less responsibility for them than for education? He cannot for a moment say he has. Therefore the argument about responsibility is absurd. The right hon. Gentleman further tells us that it would be neither suitable nor convenient to bring about this change. He remembers his former speeches, and he cannot object to the principle of Home Rule which underlies this Clause, but he tells us, "Not now; later on; some other day." He fails to remember that the Government of which he is an ornament and a light came into power on the maxim of "Do it now"; and, to come to concrete fact, my right hon. Friend fails to carry out what in an earlier day, politically, he felt it to be his duty to carry out. But we all know the reason why this fourteenth Department is not transferred to Scotland. There is at the head of the Department one who has no desire to live in Scotland, and he has unfortunately got the ear of my right hon. Friend, and, that difficulty existing, we are told that the time is not suitable for this proposal, and in this way Scotland is deprived of a measure of Home Rule now demanded. I think that hon. Members from Ireland realise that this is a demand for Home Rule for Scotland, and I hope that they and the
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    great majority of Scottish Members will support this proposal. It will be interesting to see in the Division Lobby—because my hon. Friend is determined to go to a Division—what Scottish Members are thorough for the Government and what Scottish Members are thorough for Scotland.
    Mr. DILLON: I suppose I must apologise for intervening in this Scottish Debate, but I desire to say that the Mover of this Clause will undoubtedly have the support of Irish Members. At the same time, in making that statement, I wish to utter a word of warning to my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh on the whole question, because we in Ireland know something of what is meant by administration through Boards in that country. The system of administration by a Board has been more disastrous to education in Ireland than perhaps anywhere else. Our system of education in Ireland, in consequence of this administration by a Board, has been bad, and I endorse the words of the hon. Member for Leicester in regard to the administration of Scottish education in London. I submit that it is an outrage on any nationality to have these matters administered from a far-distant capital. That is all the more the case when we recognise that of the four nationalities of the United Kingdom, Scotland, above all the others, has had a system of education far ahead of that of England or Wales, and, I regret to say, of Ireland also. That Scottish education should be administered in an English atmosphere in London is nothing short of an outrage. I do not know myself much about Scottish education, but I have not the least doubt, after what the hon. Member for Leicester has said, that this influence is a very unfortunate one. Apart front these considerations, however, I promise the support of the Irish party to the hon. Member for East Edinburgh in the Division Lobby. But I would again warn him against the substitution of a Board for ministerial responsibility. During the thirty years I have been a Member of this House my idea has been to get rid of the Board of Education in Ireland. In Ireland we have about fourteen irresponsible Boards, that are the curse of that country, and, above all, are the curse and the destroyers of education. I am in favour of direct responsibility of representatives to the people in educational matters; therefore, while I strongly support the Home Rule aspect of

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    the question, I am strongly of opinion that the chief offices of the Scottish administration of education ought to be in Edinburgh; it should be administered in a Scottish atmosphere, and in accordance with the great traditions of Scottish education. If the hon. Member for East Edinburgh succeeded in carrying the Clause, the Bill might be modified hereafter so as to secure the principle of Ministerial responsibility on which the Scottish Secretary, a skilled and practical lawyer, has dwelt. The Secretary for Scotland pointed out that the hon. Member's proposal would destroy Ministerial responsibility, but I trust that the hon. Member for East Edinburgh will be able to find some method of preserving responsibility whilst securing a Scottish atmosphere for the administration of education in Scotland.
    Sir JOHN McCALLUM: The hon. Member who has just spoken has answered the whole question and situation. We had this matter discussed in Committee, and I believe that all of us heartily agree with the hon. Member for East Edinburgh as to the fundamental principle of Home Rule, and we in Scotland have not enjoyed that principle in its real form. The hon. Member for East Edinburgh, however, is now making a proposal for which we must all recognise that there is not now in Scotland the machinery necessary to put it into operation. I think it would be far better to wait until Home Rule is carried, and then we could have in Scotland a system of education which would be a model. I am, therefore, opposed to our Friends insisting just now upon the carrying of this Clause, and I would ask them, as the Secretary for Scotland has asked them, that it should be withdrawn. In a few years we shall have Home Rule carried for Scotland, and then we can have a system of education such as is desired administered from Edinburgh.
    Sir H. CRAIK: I have listened to the Debate, and I do not think that some of the speeches represent the general view of Scotland. The speech of the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. Dillon) in support of this Clause was the very strongest answer against the course which is now proposed to be taken, and with a very large part of the argument that he used I agree. The hon. Member pointed out the difficulties with regard to education in
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    Ireland under the administration of a Board, and I myself know that there is little to be said in favour of a Board of Education; it is evasive of responsibility, leads to intrigues, and impedes thoroughness and efficiency of administration. We have become accustomed to establishing new Department after new Department and calling them Boards. I remember on one occasion being in the House of Lords, when the late Duke of Devonshire was at the head of the Education Department. He was asked why it should be called a Board of Education, and he replied that be did not know, and that, looking at the draft of the Bill, he could not give the reason why it was called a Board. We have still preserved the name Department, but we have root found it absolutely crippled. We all know that in establishing new Departments with the name of Board—Board of Trade, Board of Local Government, Board of Education—it does not mean a Board. It means one President who is at the head and is responsible. If you really mean to try to administer education, or anything else, by a number of people sitting round a table arguing with one another and throwing responsibility across the table, you will never get anything done. When the Pensions Bill was first before the House I said the plan of having a Pensions Commission seemed to me the very worst which could possibly be adopted. It may have been because of my opposition, or for some other reason, but I was asked to take a place upon that Commission, and I sat on it for some two years. All our operations only proved the truth of what I said, that a Commission was absolutely hopeless, and at the end of some eighteen months, in spite of what we did to try to get something practical done, as we could have done in the old days in the Education Department, we found we were not one step further, and the consequence was that a Minister of Pensions had to be established, as most of us prophesied would be the case, in place of the absurd scheme of trying to administer pensions by a Board. Does the hon. Member (Mr. Macdonald) think that because we happen to live within the sound of Bow Bells we must necessarily have forgotten all our Scottish tradition, be dead to all feelings of Scottish patriotism, and be unable to remember the peculiarities of Scottish education? Does he really think that I have no knowledge of Scotland, that I have no experience of her schools and know nothing about her universities, and that

    133
    I have ceased to be a Scotsman? If there is any place in this city where strong Scottish patriotic feelings and intimate knowledge of Scottish ideas prevail it is among those who at Dover House are at present connected with the administration of Scottish education.
    HON. MEMBERS: Oh!
    Sir H. CRAIK: I know they do not rise to the height of patriotism of hon. Members behind me, but patriotism is perhaps not less appreciated in Scotland, and when we hear that the whole trust of Scotland would be implicitly and without question placed in a Board that happened to be situated in Edinburgh I would ask hon. Members if they have forgotten history. We once had a Board of Education in Edinburgh, and when its limited functions were inherited by the Scotch Education Department we had a good deal of quarrelling and a good deal of entanglement to clear up before we got the administration in order. I do not know of any Board in Scotland that succeeded in stirring up more controversy than that old Board which ended in 1878. During the six years that it existed its course of action was not altogether popular in Scotland. There are other parts of Scotland than Edinburgh. I have the greatest admiration for the capital of Scotland, but do you think Glasgow, with a very much larger population and with an enormously larger number of schools, would like to have its affairs entirely dealt with by a Board sitting in Edinburgh? There is nothing that Glasgow dislikes more than a Board in Edinburgh, and Glasgow will go a considerable way in predominating in a question of this sort. It is just as easy for Glasgow to communicate by post with Dover House as it would be with an office in Edinburgh. I am perfectly sure if you go further North into the Highlands they would sooner deal with a Board in close contact with the Government of this country in London than with a Board situated in Edinburgh, having after all to report all its decisions to the central Government here. Will hon. Members only consider how things are worked practically? This Education Departmnet differs from all the other Departments which have been mentioned in Scotland in that it is the great spending Department in Scotland. It is absolutely necessary in order to preserve the balance in regard to that spending and to have its voice properly heard to be in immediate touch with
    134
    any movement that is going on at the centre, to be within range and in immediate contact with the Treasury.
    Mr. DILLON: How does the Irish Department get on?
    Sir H. CRAIK: There is a Department in London.
    Mr. DILLON: It has nothing to do with education administration.
    Sir H. CRAIK: No, because you have an Education Department under the Board the irresponsibility of which to Parliament has been repeatedly asserted and admitted by the Chief Secretary for Ireland. That is just what we do not want to have, and you will never have any Board under responsibility to this House of Commons unless it is in immediate contact with Ministers sitting in this House.
    It is always rather a doubtful policy to refer to the permanent officers of a Department. They are not here to answer for themselves. Fulsome compliments do not do very much good when you are constantly nagging at the actual work done. But no secretary of a Department is able to exercise his own arbitrary rule for one moment, or, unless he were a fool, would try to exercise it. He knows that at each step he must carry with him the political leader who is his responsible chief. He knows, of course, that his chief cannot go into all the details, and a great deal of detail will be left to the discretion of the permanent officer. But to say that the permanent officer will move one step without being certain that he can give an explanation which is absolutely congenial and satisfactory to his political chief is to talk absolute nonsense. No permanent head of a Department could carry on his work for a month if he were even to seek in the remotest way to act upon a policy of his own in which he was not certain that he had the sympathy of his chief, and that he was carrying out what he knew to be the desire of his chief. Whatever hon. Members' opinions may be as to Scottish Home Rule, they will not improve the efficiency of the Department or secure the sympathy of the Department with Scottish ideas by any flimsy change of this sort, calling a Department a Board and making it consist of three or four instead of one man. No miraculous change will be brought about by the change of locale of the Department from

    135
    Dover House to some house in North Britain. The officials at Dover House are familiar with Scottish conditions, and I am certain the work will not he in the least helped by a change of territorial position.
    Mr. PRINGLE: The right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has brought to bear upon this question a long experience of Scottish educational administration, and that long experience entitles him to be heard upon this practical administrative question by this House with all respect. But at the same time in listening to his speech one felt that the arguments which he put before the House were more prompted by predeliction for his own old office than by real consideration of administrative efficiency or of the educational interests of Scotland. My right hon. Friend in the latter half of his speech deprecated attacks and criticisms upon permanent officials, and I entirely sympathise with that view. Discussion of the proposal now before the House raises none of those questions. The individual character and the tendencies either of the present occupant of the office and Secretary of the Department or of his distinguished predecessor do not affect that consideration at all. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of the impossibility of autocracy being exercised by any such official. That, of course, depends upon the respective force of the personality of the permanent secretary and of his political chief. In some cases where there is a weak political chief and a strong permanent secretary undoubtedly it is possible for the permanent secretary to create something in the nature of an autocracy; but whether that has happened at the present time or at any time in the past, it is perfectly irrelevant to the question we are discussing, and it might equally arise if you had a board in Edinburgh as well as if the existing arrangements were continued.
    The only defence, so far as I can gather, which the right hon. Gentleman has put up is based upon two grounds. First of all, the importance of keeping the education Department in close contact with the Secretary for Scotland in London. The second ground was the necessity of having this Department, which is the largest spending Department in connection with Scotland, located in London on account of financial responsibility. Undoubtedly, it
    136
    is for the convenience of the Minister, whoever he may be, to have the Department in London, as I believe it would be to his personal convenience if other Scottish departments had their headquarters in London. There is a greater ease of communication between the political chief and the heads of his Departments in those circumstances, but the convenience of the political chief is not the sole matter to be considered. It seems to me that a far more important consideration than that is that there should be close contact between the Departments and the people of Scotland. I believe that the location of the Department in Edinburgh would make for closer contact, better knowledge, and greater sympathy. It is an interesting fact which I think we should take note of, that since the establishment of the office of Secretary for Scotland not a single Department has been established whose headquarters is in London. In every other case the headquarters of the Department has been established in Edinburgh. I think this circumstance can only be explained because of the force of the considerations which I have just put to the House.
    My right hon. Friend said that this was a great spending Department. There is a very recent precedent in regard to a great spending Department, certainly a Department which handles and is responsible for very great sums of money. When the National Insurance Act was passed the Scottsh Commission was established with its headquarters in Edinburgh, and I think that most people who are familiar with the working of the Scottish Insurance Commission will bear me out when I say that the separate existence of that Commission in Scotland has been of the utmost advantage to the efficient administration of that great scheme in Scotland. You have had contact with local conditions and a knowledge of those conditions which would have been quite impossible in a centralised Department working only in London, no matter how close the contact thereby secured with the ministerial chief of the Department. I think, therefore, that these considerations justify on practical grounds the proposal which has been put before the House by my hon. Friend, and are in my opinion much stronger than any considerations which have been advanced by the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down.
    When I come to some of the other arguments of the right hon. Gentleman, it

    137
    struck me that the only explanation which could be put forward to justify his addressing them to the House is the flimsiness of the case he had to state. He referred to the unhappy existence of a former Board. He is familiar with all the circumstances connected with that Board, but he cannot represent those circumstances as analogous to the proposal now before the House. That was a Board existing in Edinburgh which had to some extent jurisdiction along with the Scottish Education Department. It consequently constituted a kind of system of dual control which was bound to lead to friction, and which inevitably had to end in the extinction of one Department or the other. It happened that the local board, for some reason or the other, went to the wall—probably because my right hon. Friend, the former Secretary to the Scottish Education Department, was such a strong personality as he is. It does not seem to me that that unhappy experience has any relevance to the proposal this House is now considering.
    We have also had the oft-repeated tale about the rivalry between Glasgow and Edinburgh. It has been said that Glasgow, with its huge population and immense commercial interests would never submit to having its educational affairs administered from the more modest city which has the honour to be the metropolis of Scotland. I am, in a sense, a Glasgow representative, though a Lanarkshire Member, and I think I can speak for some of the other representatives of Glasgow upon this point and say that whatever may be the emulation which exists between the two cities the rivalry between them would never stand in the way of the establishment of a national department for any part of our administration in the ancient capital of Scotland. Every one of the Members of Glasgow, or at any rate the majority of the Members for Glasgow, have at one time or another committed themselves in favour of Home Rule for Scotland, and there has never been a proposition put forward for Home Rule for Scotland that did not contemplate the establishment of a national Legislature and Administration in the ancient capital of the country. It seems to me, therefore, futile to suggest that any rivalry, real or imaginary, beween Glasgow and Edinburgh, would stand in the way of the efficient administration of a Board of Education established in Edinburgh.
    138
    My right hon. Friend was constantly referring to the advantage of having an impartial Department in London as if it were impossible to obtain an impartial Board in Edinburgh, and as if there were something in the atmosphere or condition of Edinburgh which was fatal to the existence of the virtue of impartiality. I am not suggesting for a moment that the Department of Education as it exists in London has not been impartial—that is not our quarrel with the existing system—but it is entirely irrelevant to say that its removal to Edinburgh would in any degree derogate from its impartiality. After all, our great judicial system in Scotland has its centre in Edinburgh, and no one could suggest that the atmosphere of Parliament House has at any time been fatal to the exercise of judicial impartiality. I think I have dealt with practically all the considerations which the right hon. Gentleman put before the House. Some of those considerations are quite irrelevant to the respective merits of the location of the Board in Edinburgh or in London. In so far as he has dealt with the question of administrative convenience from the point of view of the responsible Minister there is a case for remedy, but in the larger case, the interests of Scotland and the bringing to bear of local knowledge and local opinion upon the Department, the whole balance of the argument is in favour of the proposal contained in the new Clause of my hon. Friend. I therefore hope that the House will agree to accept that proposal not only as a measure of educational and administrative efficiency, but as a concession to the national sentiments of Scotland.
    Mr. TENNANT: Of the two points contained in this Amendment, the first one, dealing with the Board, I think has been effectively disposed of by the hon. Member for East Mayo and my right hon. Friend. I do not propose to deal with that. What we want is ministerial responsibility. My hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh, the Mover of this Amendment, will not deny that that is what he desires. I honestly think that his proposal would be detrimental to ministerial responsibility. I have only risen because my hon. Friends have made an appeal to me as one who was formerly one of their lordships—the only time I ever was a lord. Then it was my duty to stand up for the Department of Education as it exists in London. I have not altered

    139
    my views. Therefore I thought it was only proper that I should say what I am going to say, and what I have said before, that this really is not a question of principle at all. It is a question of pure convenience. I disagree with those who think that we do not get the Scottish atmosphere by administration at Dover House. I think you do. I think the proof of it, as the hon. Member for East Mayo has said, is that we in Scotland have been enormously ahead of other nationalities in the British Empire in the matter of education. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot say in one breath that you have in your mind an unfortunate influence from Dover House and at the same time say, as you do say, that the Scottish system of education has been admirable.
    Mr. DILLON: Surely it is not Dover House that has brought that about!
    5.0 P.M.
    Mr. TENNANT: I do not think that my hon. Friend will go quite so far as to say that the whole position of Scottish education was achieved before anything was done at Dover House, but there it is. You have had a marriage between a Department in Edinburgh and one in London, and the result has been astonishingly good. I hope that my hon. Friend will think that that is so.
    Mr. HOGGE: Will you contest Berwickshire?
    Mr. TENNANT: I have sat for Berwickshire now for a quarter of a century, and the number of times I have been approached as to the location of the Education Department as between London and Edinburgh I can count on the fingers of one hand. I do not believe that there is any such strong desire for a change in the location of the Department as my hon. Friend thinks.
    Mr. HOGGE: You do not care about the sentiment of the Scottish people.
    Mr. TENNANT: I do care as much about the sentiment of the Scottish people as any Member in this House. I am most anxious to maintain Scottish sentiment, but this is not merely a matter of sentiment; it is a matter of convenience, convenience to the Minister, to the Members of this House. I would like to know how my hon. Friends would feel if every time they wanted to make representations to the Education Department they had either
    140
    to write to Edinburgh or go to Edinburgh from London. Inasmuch as we have not yet got Home Rule, though I am in favour of Home Rule for Scotland, I cannot help thinking, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland also thinks, that to put such an Amendment as this into the Bill would be to put the cart before the horse.
    Mr. J. HENDERSON: I would like to give an opinion from the far North-neither from Edinburgh nor from Glasgow. I am not aware of any great rivalry between them, but I appeal to my hon. Friends behind me to look at this in a common-sense way. When you have got Home Rule, as I have always said you must have, all your Departments must be where you have got the Parliament. That goes without saying. But, unfortunately, in the two cases in which you have moved the Department you have put the cart before the horse and appointed an executive in Edinburgh while Parliament sits here, and in both cases there has been a failure. We have a Board of Agriculture from which we cannot get any information about anything. It is the same with the Local Government Board. It is all very well for my hon. Friend, who represents Edinburgh, to go to the offices in Edinburgh and get what he wants, or as much as he can, but it is a different thing for me in far off Aberdeenshire. It is just as easy for me to come to London. It is all done by correspondence. Here you have got the officers. I am entirely with sympathy with the demand for Home Rule, but until we have got Home Rule the Government is here and I want to be in touch with the officers and with the Department, and I am in touch with it here and can get my answer within twenty-four hours, but if the Department is in Edinburgh I have to go to the Secretary for Scotland, and he has got to communicate with Edinburgh, and they take their time over it in Edinburgh, and probably by the time a letter comes back we have forgotten all about it. That is not the way to do business. Where you have got the head of the Government there you ought to have the body, and there you ought to be able to settle things straight away. The Department should be within easy access from this House, and you should have your responsible Minister here while you have your Parliament here. To have the offices at Edinburgh or Glasgow is to do what is not practicable and not

    141
    common sense. I am perfectly certain that my right hon. Friend from the North of Scotland (Sir A. Williamson) will back me up. So long as you have not got Home Rule, so long as you have got the Imperial Parliament here, I shall oppose the transfer of any more of the Departments from London to Edinburgh.
    Sir A. WILLIAMSON: The North of Scotland has been appealed to by the last speaker, and I can only say in answer to his observations that so far as I am able to judge the opinion of my Constituents, they are strongly in favour of the Education Department being in Scotland, and I think that that opinion is held not only by those who are described as Home Rulers, but by many who would not be so described. They think it a great advantage to be able to have personal contact with the Department in Edinburgh. They go frequently to Edinburgh. They do not go nearly so frequently to London. The journey to Edinburgh is much shorter. Naturally Edinburgh attracts them for various reasons, and owing to business reasons, and they go there much more often than to London. I do think that many difficulties would be removed and misunderstandings would be allayed if they could come into personal contact with the Department. Furthermore, they think that there is something in the Scottish atmosphere, and they believe that if the Departments were in Edinburgh they would get matters connected with education viewed more entirely from the Scottish standpoint. Whether it is right or wrong, I think that that is the opinion which is held in my Constituency. Therefore I am going to support the Amendment. I do not hold personally with all its words. I do not like the idea of any lessening of Ministerial responsibility, which it is suggested would be brought about, but I am supporting the general principle that the Scottish Education Department should be in Scotland and not in London. But while I do not hold with all the words of the Amendment, I do say that in supporting it I am interpreting generally what I believe to be the wishes of my Constituents, and what I also believe to be in consonance with common sense.
    Mr. PRICE: In view of the speech made by the hon. Member for Glasgow and Aberdeen University (Sir H. Craik), who said that this Amendment was an attack upon officials, may I say that in support-
    142
    ing this Amendment I have not the slightest idea that I am attacking any official whatever. Speaking for myself, I have made it a rule always to go to Departments, more particularly the Education Department, and I have received there nothing but courtesy, and I have always got what I wanted, or if I did not get what I asked for it has been proved to me that what I asked for was unreasonable. Therefore as far as officials are concerned I have no complaint whatever to make. But this I can say, that there is growing discontent all over Scotland at the way in which things are kept in Departments here in London, and if this Department were removed to Edinburgh, I believe that it would be very acceptable to the Scottish people. My point is this: when you take the executive to the people you have to deal with there is an atmosphere created by the very fact of its being there, and there is the feeling that grievances will be more readily listened to. My hon. Friend (Mr. Henderson) said that it was as easy for him to go to London as to Edinburgh. Yes, because he does not pay anything! He has got a free pass. Then, being a railway director, he wants us to spend all the money we can on railway fares. So I rule out my hon. Friend entirely in this matter. Not only that, but the hon. Member for Glasgow and Aberdeen University said that it was quite as easy to go to London as to Edinburgh. That is not so. You can go there and back in the same day.
    Mr. HENDERSON: People would rather go to London than to Edinburgh.
    Mr. PRICE: I believe that if you do this it will Rave a very marked effect upon education in Scotland. In days gone by Scotland was a long way ahead of England, Ireland and Wales in the matter of education, and I say with great regret that it has not now the same lead as it used to have. In Wales, for instance, the way in which education is dovetailed from the lower into the higher is in advance of Scotland. My belief is that if this Department had been in Edinburgh it would have kept our education system vastly more in touch with the wishes of the Scottish people. Scotland has not got to-day the lead which it had, but if you remove this Department from London you will do something to encourage the prospect of education in Scotland.
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I think it right to say a few words on this subject, because I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland. I think that a great many of the arguments which have been put forward, attractive as they are from the point of view of national sentiment, are a little deficient in practical experience. I have experience of Departments in London and of a Department in Scotland. It has been pointed out by some of my hon. Friends that the new Departments have all been settled in Edinburgh; but what has happened? We started the Board of Agriculture entirely in Edinburgh, but, after some years' experience of that Board, I was driven to the conclusion that the arrangement was extremely unsatisfactory, and if it had not been for the War I certainly would have made a new arrangement. My successors found it absolutely necessary to make a new arrangement, and one of the members of the Board has been brought to London to be permanently resident here. I think that a matter which is overlooked is this. We are all agreed that if we had Home Rule we should have our Boards in Edinburgh. This Motion does not help one towards Home Rule. A sincere friend of Home Rule I think should vote against this Motion. At least, that is my opinion. As a sincere friend of Home Rule, I shall vote against it. Who are the people concerned? There is the Minister responsible to the House of Commons. My hon. Friend and I think it ought to be to a Scottish House of Commons. I should like to see Scottish education entirely under Scottish control, but the Amendment of my hon. Friend will not secure that result. As long as we have the present system the person responsible to Scottish Members is the Secretary for Scotland. Who are the next lot of people interested? The representatives of Scotland. Surely no one would deny that when any educational difficulty arises the natural course of an educational authority or anybody interested in the subject is to apply through his Member either to obtain information or to represent his views to the authority responsible! Now it is not only a question of the convenience of the Secretary of Scotland; it is a question of the convenience of the Scottish Members in at least an equal degree, and the real point is this: How can you make the machine work satisfactorily? I was unable to follow the
    144
    argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Elgin and Nairn (Sir A. Williamson) when he said he supported this Amendment, but entirely disagreed with the major proposition of the Amendment. Because what is the major proposition of this Amendment, after all? As my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland pointed out, it is a very serious proposition. It is that you take the control of Scottish education out of the Scottish Secretary responsible to Parliament and put it practically in the hands of a Board who may be responsible to nobody.
    Mr. HOGGE: The President is a Member of Parliament.
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: It does not say so. It says he may be a Member of Parliament, but he is not required to be.
    Mr. HOGGE: That is the usual phraseology.
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I entirely disagree with the tendency that has grown up to sever the Executive from Parliament. I am extremely astonished at my hon. Friend.
    Mr. HOGGE: It does not do it.
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: My hon. Friend does not understand his own Amendment.
    Mr. HOGGE: I do, but you cannot.
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: What is the point? Everybody is agreed that the right solution—or far more people are agreed than were five years ago—is Home Rule for Scotland, complete Scottish control of education. Do you get more satisfactory provision by setting up a Board on the model of the Local Government Board in Edinburgh divorced from the responsible Minister, and so relieved from the control of Members who represent Scotland? Because that is really the essence of the objection to this Amendment. I think my hon. Friends would have been better advised to concentrate their efforts to get Scottish Home Rule, and not to try to manage Departments in such a way that neither the Minister nor the Members have effective control.
    Question put, "That the Clause be read a second time."
    The House divided: Ayes, 92; Noes, 155.

    Division No. 81.]

    AYES.

    [5.20 p.m.

    Alden, Percy

    Gilbert, James Daniel

    Pearce, Sir Robert (Leek)

    Anderson, William C.

    Gulland, Rt. Hon. John William

    Peel, Major Hon. G. (Spalding)

    Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)

    Harbison, T. J. S.

    Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

    Barlow, Sir John E. (Somerset)

    Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

    Pringle, William M. R.

    Bethell, Sir John Henry

    Hazleton, Richard

    Raffan, Peter Wilson

    Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

    Hearn, Michael L. (Dublin, S.)

    Rees, G. C. (Carnarvon, Arfen)

    Boland, John Plus

    Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Durham)

    Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

    Booth, Frederick Handel

    Hinds, John

    Rowntree, Arnold

    Bowden, Major George R. H.

    Hudson, Walter

    Scanlan, Thomas

    Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

    John, Edward Thomas

    Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

    Brady, Patrick Joseph

    Jones. Rt. Hon. Leif (Rushcliffe)

    Shaw, Hon. Alexander

    Buxton, Noel

    Jowett, Frederick William

    Sheehy, David

    Byrne, Alfred

    Kenyon, Barnet

    Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)

    Chancellor, Henry George

    King, Joseph

    Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

    Clough, William

    Lamb, Sir Ernest Henry

    Stanton, Charles Butt

    Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

    Lambert, Richard (Cricklade)

    Taylor, John W. (Durham)

    Condon, Thomas Joseph

    Lundon, Thomas

    Thorne, William (West Ham)

    Cotton, H. E. A.

    Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

    Tootill, Robert

    Cowan, Sir William Henry

    Marshall, Sir Arthur Harold

    Trevelyan, Charles Philips

    Crumley, Patrick

    Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

    Walton, Sir Joseph

    Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirk'dy)

    Millar, James Duncan

    Watt, Henry A.

    Davies, David (Montgomery Co.)

    Molteno, Percy Alport

    White, James Dundas (Tradeston)

    Devlin, Joseph

    Mooney, John J.

    Whitehouse, John Howard

    Dillon, John

    Morrell, Philip

    Whitty, Patrick Joseph

    Doris, William

    Muldoon, John

    Wilkie, Alexander

    Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

    Nolan, Joseph

    Williams, Thomas J. (Swansea)

    Esmonde, Capt. J. (Tipperary, N.)

    Nugent, J. D. (College Green)

    Williamson, Rt. Hon. Sir Archibald

    Ffrench, Peter

    Nuttall, Harry

    Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

    Field, William

    O'Malley, William

    Finney, Samuel

    Outhwaite, R. L.

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

    Flavin, Michael Joseph

    Parrott, Sir Edward

    Mr. Hogge and Mr. Adamson

    Fleming, Sir John (Aberdeen, S.)

    Partington, Hon. Oswald

    NOES.

    Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

    Dougherty, Rt. Hon. Sir James B.

    Macmaster, Donald

    Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)

    Fisher, Rt. Hon. H. A. L. (Hallam)

    McMlcking, Major Gilbert

    Anderson, O.K.

    Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes (Fulham)

    Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

    Anstruther-Gray, Lt.-Col. Wm.

    FitzRoy, Hon. Edward A.

    Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James Ian

    Archdale, Lt. Edward M.

    Fletcher, John S.

    Maden, Sir John Henry

    Baldwin, Stanley

    Geddes, Sir A. C. (Hants, North)

    Marks, Sir George Croydon

    Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick

    Gibbs, Col. George Abraham

    Marriot, John A. R.

    Barnett, Capt. Richard W.

    Gilmour, Lt.-Col. John

    Mason, Robert (Wansbeck)

    Barran, Sir John N. (Hawick, B.)

    Glanville, Harold James

    Morgan, George Hay

    Barran, Sir Rowland H. (Leeds, N.)

    Greig, Colonel James William

    Morton, Sir Alpheus Cleophas

    Beale, Sir William Phipson

    Hamilton, C. G. C. (Altrincham)

    Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert

    Beck, Arthur Cecil

    Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence (Ashford)

    Neville, Reginald J. N.

    Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.

    Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

    Newman, Sir Robert (Exeter)

    Benn, Sir Arthur S. (Plymouth)

    Hayward, Evan

    Nicholson, Sir Chas. N. (Doncaster)

    Bigland, Alfred

    Helme, Sir Norval Watson

    Norton-Griffiths, Sir John

    Bird, Alfred

    Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.)

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

    Bliss, Joseph

    Hewart, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

    Palmer, Godfrey Mark

    Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

    Hibbert, Sir Henry

    Parker, James (Halifax)

    Boyton, Sir James

    Hickman, Brig.-Gen. Thomas E.

    Pearce, Sir William (Limehouse)

    Brace, Rt. Hon. William

    Higham, John Sharp

    Pease, Rt. Hon. H. P. (Darlington)

    Brassey, Maj. H. L. C.

    Hodge, Rt. Hon. John

    Pennefather, De Fonblanque

    Brunner, John F. L.

    Hope, Harry (Bute)

    Perkins, Walter Frank

    Bryce, John Annan

    Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

    Peto, Basil Edward

    Burn, Col. C. R. (Torquay)

    Hope John Deans (Haddington)

    Pratt, John W.

    Butcher, Sir J. G.

    Horne, Edgar

    Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)

    Carew, Charles R. S. (Tiverton)

    Hume-Williams, Sir Wm. Ellis

    Pulley, C. T.

    Carnegie, Lt.-Col. Douglas G.

    Illingworth, Rt. Hon. Albert H.

    Randles, Sir John

    Cator, John

    Ingleby, Holcombe

    Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

    Cautley, Henry Strother

    Jackson, Lt.-Col. Hon. F. S. (York)

    Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

    Cave, Rt. Hon. Sir George

    Jessel, Colonel Sir Herbert M.

    Roberts, Rt. Hon. Geo. H. (Norwich)

    Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Aston Manor)

    Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, E.)

    Roberts, Sir Herbert (Denbighs.)

    Cheyne, Sir William W.

    Jones, Wm. S. Glyn-(Stepney)

    Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

    Clyde, James Avon

    Joynson-Hicks, William

    Rowlands, James

    Coates, Major Sir Edward F.

    Kellaway, Frederick George

    Rutherford, Col. Sir J. (Darwen)

    Coats, Sir Stuart (Wimbledon)

    Kerry, Col. Earl of

    Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry (N'wood)

    Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

    Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

    Samuels, Arthur W. (Dub. U.)

    Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

    Larmor, Sir Joseph

    Sharman-Crawford, Col. R. G.

    Cory, Sir Clifford John (St. Ives)

    Levy, Sir Maurice

    Shortt, Edward

    Cory, James H. (Cardiff)

    Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)

    Smith, Harold (Warrington)

    Courthope, Maj. George Loyd

    Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

    Somervell, William Henry

    Craig, Colonel Sir J. (Down, E.)

    Lonsdale, James R.

    Spear, Sir John Ward

    Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)

    Lowe, Sir F. W.

    Stewart, Gershom

    Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

    Loyd, Archie Kirkman

    Stirling, Lt.-Col. Archibald

    Croft, Brig-Gen. Henry Page

    M'Callum, Sir John M.

    Stoker, R. B.

    Currie, G. W.

    MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh

    Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, W.)

    Dalrymple, Hon. H. H.

    Macdonald, Rt. Hon. J. M. (Falkirk)

    Tennant, Rt. Hon. Harold John

    Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

    Macleod, John M.

    Turton, Edmund Russborough

    Whiteley, Sir H. J. (Droitwich)

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

    Walker, Col. W. H.

    Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

    Yate, Col. Charles Edward

    Walsh, Stephen (Lancashire, Ince)

    Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

    Younger, Sir George

    Wardle, George J.

    Wilson, Capt. A. Stanley (York)

    Watson, Hon. W. (Lanark, S.)

    Wolmer, Viscount

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

    Wheler, Major Granville C. H.

    Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Yorks, Ripon)

    Captain F. Guest and Col. Sanders.

    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Sir Donald Maclean): That disposes of the following Amendment. That standing in the name of the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark (Mr. Whitehouse) is not in order, because it imposes an extra charge.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: May I respectfully call your attention, Sir, to the fact that a similar Clause was moved in the Report stage of the English Education Act, and the Speaker held, when the point of Order was raised, that it did not impose a charge on the public necessarily, because it would be quite easy to avoid any increased public charge being caused by equalising the salaries of men and women teachers? I ask you, therefore, Sir, after that explanation, to allow me to move my Amendment.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I have no recollection of what took place on the occasion to which the hon. Member refers, but I have no doubt at all that this Clause as it stands is out of order, and therefore I cannot alter my decision. The same ruling applies to the Clause—[Expenditure]—in the name of the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Adamson), and also to the Clause—[Religious Instruction]—standing in the name of the hon. Member for the Central Division of Glasgow (Mr. Macleod).

    CLAUSE 1.—(Education Authorities.)
    A local authority for the purposes of education (in this Act called the "education authority") shall be elected in and for each of the following areas (in this Act called "education areas"), that is to say, in and for—

    (a) each of the burghs mentioned in the First Schedule to this Act (in this Act called the "schedule burghs"); and

    (b) every county, including every burgh situated therein not being one of the scheduled burghs.

    Mr. WATT: I beg to move, to leave out Sub-sections (a) and (b), and to insert instead thereof the words "Every county and every county of a city."
    The effect of this would be that the cities having educational Boards themselves would be limited to four in Scotland—namely, to the four which are counties of cities. The further effect
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    which I desire to arrive at by my Amendment is to exclude Leith from the privileges which are given by this provision. How the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill included Leith amongst the towns with separate authorities nobody understands or knows. Leith has no-claim whatever to be put on a higher pedestal than other towns in Scotland which I could name, such as Greenock and Paisley, which have greater populations and whose school boards have already provided an education even more efficient than that which Leith can claim. This Amendment was proposed in Committee upstairs, and the reply of the right hon. Gentleman was that the exclusion of Leith from this provision would lead to difficulties of administration, because Leith is so interlocked with Edinburgh, and because it is so situated that it is cut off from the county of Midlothian into which it would otherwise fall. That argument will not hold water, because there are districts in Lanarkshire which are already in the same way cut off by Glasgow from the shires into which they would fall, and those districts are not treated as Leith is treated under this Bill. I desire to have some reasonable explanation as to why Leith should be favoured in this way. Has it been the case that the hon. Member for Leith has got the favourable consideration of the Secretary for Scotland, or that that hon. Member has moved the Lord Advocate and that the Lord Advocate has moved the right hon. Gentleman? Will the right hon. Gentleman explain how it is that Leith has received this favoured treatment?
    Mr. PRINGLE: I beg to second the Amendment, which I think makes for the symmetry of the whole scheme of the Bill. The underlying principle of the Bill is that we should have larger areas for educational purposes, and that for the greater part of the country the county should be taken as the educational unit. Certain exceptions are made in the first Schedule of the Bill, and in every case but one those exceptions are made in respect of cities of large populations, so large indeed that they have been in each case dignified as a county of a city. That is a fair test.

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    But Leith, with a smaller population than a number of other Scottish towns, has received differential treatment from those other towns It seems to me that that exceptional treatment is an excrescence and an anomaly on the Bill, and I hope that in the interests of uniformity, so dear to the heart of the right hon. Gentleman, that he will accept this proposal.
    Mr. MUNRO: I regret very much that I cannot possibly accept the Amendment which has been moved in such persuasive terms. Leith occupies quite a unique position, which bears no resemblance whatever to the cases of Greenock or Paisley, to which allusion has been made. There were two possibilities which I had to consider. May I say parenthetically that none of those influences, malign or otherwise, to which reference has been made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for the College Division (Mr. Watt) were brought to bear on me at any time or in any way. When I had to consider this problem I had to consider the propriety cither of uniting Leith with the county of Midlothian or with the city of Edinburgh. Those were the two alternatives. With regard to the proposal to unite Leith to the county of Midlothian, it would seem to be conclusive against that proposal that Leith is cut off geographically almost entirely from the county of Midlothian by Edinburgh.
    Mr. CURRIE: Entirely.
    Mr. MUNRO: Cut off entirely from the rest of Midlothian. I know of no analogous case in Lanarkshire or elsewhere. That seemed to me to rule out the possibility of making Leith part of Midlothian. The other alternative was that Leith should be united to the city of Edinburgh. But union with the city of Edinburgh was, I thought, inappropriate in an Education Bill for educational purposes solely, so long as these two cities were separated for other purposes. It seemed to me, if that were to be done for educational purposes it should be done voluntarily, and I saw no possibility of that being brought about. It appeared to me to be improper therefore to combine Leith as an unwilling partner with the city of Edinburgh. Those two alternatives being out of the way the only remaining question was whether Leith should be included in the schedule. That I thought was quite a reasonable proposition and really almost
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    an inevitable result under the circumstances. An attempt was made in Committee upstairs to exclude Leith, but speaking from recollection I do not think the matter was pressed very hard. I would ask my hon. and learned Friend to refrain from pressing it on this occasion and to be satisfied with the explanation which I have given.
    Mr. WATT: In those circumstances I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

    CLAUSE 2.—(Electoral Division.)
    For the purpose of such elections, the Secretary for Scotland shall, as soon as may be after the passing of this Act, by order divide each education area into electoral divisions, and in determining the boundaries thereof, he shall have-regard, so far as may be, to the boundaries of wards in scheduled burghs, and districts, burghs and parishes in counties.
    Mr. HOGGE: I have given notice of an Amendment, to add at the end the words "but shall submit such divisions before they are finally approved to Parliament," but, as I understand the Secretary for Scotland is moving an Amendment of his own which covers the point, I do not propose to move.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, at the end, to insert the words:
    (2) Before making an Order under this Section the Secretary for Scotland shall cause the proposed Order to be published in such manner as to make the same known to all persons interested, and shall, after considering any objections and representations respecting the proposed Order, and causing a local inquiry to be held if he sees fit to do so, thereafter make the Order and cause the same to be forthwith published in the "Edinburgh Gazette" and in a newspaper circulating in the education area.
    I move this Amendment in order to meet the objection which was taken in Committee upstairs on this point. It was there suggested that it would be reasonable that the Order joining districts should be published, in order that objections, if any, might be urged. On consideration it seemed to me that my hon. and learned Friend's proposal was a reasonable one, and accordingly I have met it by putting down this Amendment. I am obliged to the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) for recognising that in substance my Amendment covers the point which he has in mind.
    Mr. GULLAND: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment,

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    after the word "this" ["under this Section"], to insert the words "and the following."
    I think the right hon. Gentleman has acted very wisely in proposing this Amendment, because it does give local opinion the opportunity of saying whether proposed electoral divisions are suitable or not. My Amendment to his proposed Amendment is with the object of carrying the Clause a little further. He says,
    "Let us advertise our scheme, and let us hear any objections before we make it final."
    What I say is, "Also advertise the number of members in each electoral division, and advertise them in the same way, and have the inquiry on them in the same way." If you do that, I am sure you will take public opinion with you far more adequately than if you only advertise the limited point of the electoral division. I can see no reason against it, and as the right hon. Gentleman has been good enough to give way to what was the opinion of the Committee on one point, I beg he will see his way to agree to my Amendment also.
    Mr. HOGGE: I have an Amendment on the Paper which was put down with the same intention of getting an explanation from the Secretary for Scotland as to what is meant by the following Clause. If we took the discussion of that point on this Amendment we could save the discussion of my Amendment later on. The point I want to get at is that in the following Section you deal with the number of members to be elected to each education authority in an apportionment among the electoral divisions. At the moment that is left entirely in the hands of the Secretary for Scotland, who has himself objected very strongly on more occasions than one to this kind of autocratic and bureaucratic power. This Clause gives the Secretary for Scotland much more power than I think the people of Scotland want to see him endowed with, and probably a great deal more power than he would like to assume himself; and I should like to know what kind of relations are the new numbers of the local education authorities to bear to the number of existing members of the school boards, and by what rule is the Secretary for Scotland going to determine whether Edinburgh shall have so many members as against Glasgow or any other part of Scotland, or the ratio between county and burgh? I hope my right hon. Friend will let us
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    understand that while this is in the Bill he is not assuming a power which is quite unknown in Scotland with regard to this matter, and that he proposes to allow the electorates in Scotland, in the scheduled areas, to have ample opportunity of dealing with the amount of the representation both in its method and in its personnel.
    Mr. MUNRO: As I understand the Amendment before the House, the intention and the effect of it are that the Order which the Secretary for Scotland proposes to make in the matter of the number of members should be advertised in the same way as the Order which he proposes to make in determining the divisions of the electoral areas. I have thought that in the latter case it is reasonable that this opportunity should be afforded, and I am bound to say that I appreciate the logic upon which my right hon. Friend's Amendment is based, the argument being that if it is reasonable in the one case, it is also reasonable in the other. I really think there is no answer on that, and I do not propose to make any answer except to say that I shall accept his Amendment. I think, probably, that that answers the point which the hon. Member for East Edinburgh has raised. I am not in a position here and now to announce the numbers or the relationship between the numbers which may be proposed after the divisions have been mapped out.
    Mr. HOGGE: Will they be arbitrary?
    Mr. MUNRO: They will not be arbitrary for this reason: When any proposal is made by me it will be published so as to make it known to all persons interested, and any objections or recommendations which they think fit to make will be considered, so that there will be the most ample opportunity for all interests to state their case, and to make any representations against the numbers proposed. I therefore think my hon. Friend could not describe that as arbitrary, I think that by making this concession to my right hon. Friend opposite I shall at the same time meet the main objections which the hon. Member for East Edinburgh has made. In these circumstances I should wish to move my Amendment along with that proposed by my right hon. Friend opposite.
    Amendment to the proposed Amendment agreed to.
    Proposed words, as amended, there inserted in the Bill.

    CLAUSE 4.—(School Management Committees.)
    (1) It shall be the duty of every education authority to prepare and submit to the Department for their approval a scheme or schemes for the constitution of committees (in this Act called "school management committees") for the management of schools or groups of schools under their control throughout their education area.
    Every such scheme shall contain provision for the due representation of the education authority on each school management committee, and also, for the appointment thereto of at least one teacher engaged in a school under the management of such committee, and also, in the case of a county, shall have regard to the desirability of constituting separate school management committees for individual burghs and parishes, and shall provide for the appointment thereto on the nomination of local bodies (including town and parish councils and at the first constitution outgoing school boards) or failing such nomination directly, of persons resident in the locality and otherwise qualified to represent local interests ill school management.
    (2) A school management committee shall, subject to any regulations and restrictions made by the education authority, have all the powers and duties of that authority in regard to the general management and supervision of the school or group of schools, including attendance thereat:
    Provided that the education authority shall in every case themselves retain, exercise, and perform all their powers and duties in regard to—

    (a) the raising of money by rate or loan and the general control of expenditure;

    (b) the acquisition or holding of land;

    (c) the appointment, transfer, remuneration and dismissal of teachers;

    (d) the appointment of bursars, and the exercise of the powers conferred by the Section of this Act relating to power to facilitate attendance at secondary schools and other institutions; and

    (e) the recognition, establishment, or discontinuance of intermediate or secondary schools or of centres of advanced technical instruction.

    (3) A scheme for the constitution of a school management committee for the management of a group of schools may provide for the delegation by that committee of any of their powers and duties in respect of any particular school (other than any power or duty relating to school attendance) to a school committee constituted as the scheme may prescribe.
    Colonel Sir J. HOPE: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "constitution" ["schemes for the constitution"], to insert the words "and election."
    The effect of that is that the School Management Committees should be elected. I think I can give my reasons most clearly by reading from a resolution passed by a conference of the school boards in the county of Lanark held on 25th September:
    "That the proposal to create school management committees in place of existing school boards by the co-option of persons direct, or on
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    the nomination of local bodies, whose status and qualifications are undefined, and who have neither mandate from, nor responsibility to, the ratepayers, is undemocratic and retrograde."
    Those are my views. It seems to me that under the Bill you are creating a large hybrid body which is partly co-opted and partly nominated, with considerable powers and duties and little responsibility or moral authority, and I think the tendency will be for them to degenerate into mere clerks and irresponsible servants of the education authority. They have got to deal with attendance, continuation classes, holidays, and the endless small matters which anyone who has been on the school boards well knows, and which it will be quite impossible for the large educational authorities to deal with. The Secretary for Scotland has declined to give the numbers of an education authority, but I imagine that they will not be very largely different from those of the county councils. In that case in my own county we should have about forty on the new authority, and they would have to do the work which hitherto has been done in a very large area by some twenty-four different school boards, with probably a total of a couple of hundred members. I suggest that if this work is done it should be done by those who are directly responsible to, and elected by, the ratepayers. I see no difficulty in carrying this out. I know the obvious objections to two elected bodies, and that there would be friction; but, on the other hand, at the present moment county councils and district councils to a large extent deal with the same subjects, and there is not extraordinary friction. County councils, parish councils, and school boards deal with mental defectives under the Mental Deficiency Act, and they get on together. Then it is said there will be an extra election, but I do not see that that is necessary. You could have the election to the school management committees at the same time as the election to the education authority, and I am quite certain that if the school management scheme is persisted in you will not get good men. You might say that good men would not in any case go on the school management committees, but they certainly would more likely go on if they were elected bodies, because it would give them some responsibility and power, and would encourage good men to go on.
    Under the present scheme the school management committees would become

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    merely nominal and would have no power, and they would take little interest in the proceedings, and the whole educational work, which it is impossible to carry out under the direct supervision of the central education authority, would be carried out by petty officials, if at all. There is another alternative which has been suggested in this resolution of the conference of school boards in the county of Lanark, and that is that a much larger central education authority should be constituted in each educational area, and that they should delegate the work to committees of their body. That, I think, is quite a reasonable proposition, but you could not delegate the work to committees, say, in Midlothian, if you only had forty members on the whole body In my own county, if you had a much larger body for the local education, say, 100 or 120 members, then you would be able to delegate committees of four or five members each to each of the areas of the school boards That is another proposal, and I should not object to either, but I wish to raise my protest against this nominated and co-opted body without responsibility to the electors.
    6.0 P.M.
    Mr. SHAW: I have pleasure in seconding the Amendment, because I think it is exceedingly good. A similar suggestion was pressed by many of us in Grand Committee, but did not unfortunately on those occasions meet with the sympathy of the Government, and I hope that now it will have a happier fate. It is not only a good Amendment from any point of view, but even from the point of view of the trained administrators of Dover House it is an absolutely harmless proposal. No later than this very forenoon one of these representatives who are sent up by Scottish school boards to London came to me and said, "What is my position under this new school management committee? I am a man of strong views. I am able to voice my strong views because I depend on the support at the poll of the workers in my own little constituency. But if I am nominated by somebody, I know very well with whom I shall have to work, and I shall be up against them, and I shall be in a minority. They might say at first that I am a man with a lifelong experience of education, but after a while I should begin to get up against the laird and the factor, and perhaps even up against an Established Church minister." The fats of that man would be that all his
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    ability and all his long knowledge of education would be lost, because these people would say, "This is a difficult fellow to work with; and we are not going to nominate or co-opt him any longer." I do not see why, if democracy is a good thing for a whole country—and the Secretary for Scotland and the Lord Advocate have conceded that by giving us an ad hoc authority—it should be a bad thing when you come to a small local area, and I have pleasure in supporting the Amendment as a protest against the extinction of local democracy, which is one of the greatest flaws of the Bill. I trust my hon. and gallant Friend will go to a Division, and, if so, he will find a good many who will support his view.
    The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Clyde): As the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Shaw) has just said, the proposition which this Amendment is intended to put forward was discussed upstairs, and was the subject of a good deal of discussion there. As he also said, that discussion did not result, I am afraid, in convincing us who were in charge of the Bill that the Amendment was one which we could accept, and I must say at once that I do not think our minds have changed in that respect at all. The House will observe that what is proposed is to make the school management committee appointed by election, but how by election, or by what electorate, the Amendment makes no provision for at all. The Amendment could not possibly be accepted as it stands, because it is an Amendment which would simply leave the Bill and the scheme which the Bill propounds in the air. To return, however, to what are really the merits of the propositions, the hon. Member has himself said that to make the school management committees elective—and let me suppose by that that he means elective in more or less the same way as the education authority is elective, although I do not know what its area would be or who the electors would be—but supposing you had that, he admits that it is open to the obvious objection of two elective authorities. The obvious objection to the proposal, as the hon. and gallant Member for Midlothian frankly said, is that you cannot have two elective bodies set up to perform, the one the superior, and the other the subordinate, functions.
    Sir J. HOPE: You have parish councils, school boards, and county councils.
    Mr. CLYDE: I cannot regard any of those instances as having the smallest relevance to this question. The peculiarity of this is that the education authority of a county is responsible for the education policy to be pursued in the county and the educational finance. Relations of that kind do not exist at all in the cases the hon. Member put forward, and therefore I cannot admit the analogy would hold at all. But I would like to put two other considerations before the House which seem to me perfectly conclusive. For one thing, your school management committee may be, according to the circumstances of the particular locality, a managing body of only one school or of a group of schools. There may be, for example, schools of a different grade and schools which can be grouped conveniently under one committee, and accordingly the problem of election becomes insoluble—unless, indeed, you are going to make each school committee elected by the same electorate as elects the education authority itself. That would be a terrible affair.
    Sir J. HOPE: I have a consequential Amendment down to that effect.
    Mr. CLYDE: That, I am afraid, from our point of view, only increases the complete impracticability of what is suggested. I would like to bring forward another point which is very important when you take into view the whole scheme of the Bill. Remember, the school management committee is one of the most important links in the solution of the problem of the transferred school. Now you cannot make a school management committee which deals with a transferred school the subject of an election. The transferred school demands, and must get, the protection, or some such protection, as the Bill gives, in that there must be at least some assurance that it has one or more representatives of the particular religion to which the transferred school belongs. And, accordingly, you simply cannot leave that to the chance of a popular election. The truth is that if you made the school management committee elective, it would be fatal to what is one of the beneficent things we hope this Bill will solve, or, at any rate, carry us an enormous step forward—the solution of the difficulty of the voluntary schools. For these reasons, first of all because we cannot see our way at all to accept the plan of making the school management committee elective as
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    well as the education authority; secondly, because, not only is there no machinery in this Amendment for an election, but there is no possibility of fixing an electoral area—the thing is impossible; and, lastly, because the school management committee would have to deal with this problem, in which we believe we have come near to a complete solution, namely, the transferred school, it is impossible to make it an elective body like the education authority, and, considering that this matter was fully discussed upstairs, I would suggest to the hon. and gallant Member, particularly in view of the fact that his Amendment would leave the Bill in the air, that, having quite legitimately and properly raised the point again, he might see his way not to press the matter further.
    Mr. PRINGLE: I think that, apart from the last consideration which the Lord Advocate addressed to the House, the whole of his argument failed to meet the case which was put forward by the hon. and gallant Member. His argument for elective school management committees was absolutely sound on democratic grounds, and it is of the utmost importance that the democratic element in school administration should be preserved in Scotland. The suggestion that it was impossible to have a kind of hierarchy of inferior and superior authorities responsible to the electorate dealing with the same administrative subjects is entirely contrary to the whole of our experience and practice in this country. Indeed, the whole of our government depends upon such a hierarchy for higher and subordinate elective authorities as it is, and there should be no difficulty at all in obtaining a workable system in which you had, first of all, in local education the elective authority for a large area, with subordinate elective authorities for the purpose of administration of groups of schools. But I admit the difficulty with regard to transferred schools, and while I regret that, in view of the difficulty, it may be impossible to press the Amendment, I could have hoped that some means might have been obtained of meeting it. I think we have run a great risk in respect of our educational system of having the subordinate local administration made entirely nugatory, that you will have the school management committees being nominated bodies, deprived of all real authority, as I believe is the experience of England. You

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    will find local school management committees in England who have not even the power to put in a pane of glass at a school without reference to the county education committee. If that is the kind of system you are going to have in Scotland as the result of the nomination method, you will not get any men who value their time, or any men of ability, to go on to these school management committees, so that this subordinate local control will be really a complete sham and a farce. In these circumstances, I think the Government between the Committee and Report stages should have devised some means of meeting the object we have in view.
    Mr. GULLAND: Although I share the difficulties of the Lord Advocate at this moment in regard to this Amendment, there is one remark he made which I confess rather alarms me. He said it is impossible for these school management committees to have anything to do with the geographical areas.
    Mr. CLYDE: What I meant was that it was impossible for a school management committee appointed, say, to look after a group of schools of a certain class, to have a definite area attached to it.
    Mr. GULLAND: That makes no difference to the point I am coming to, namely, that, unless you have something like an elected school management committee with a definite area under its charge, I fail to see how you can possibly hand over to that committee the duty of assuring attendance at school. In Sub-section (2) of this Clause the school management committee has the duty of supervising attendance, which means that it appoints the attendance officer and sees that the children attend school. That is done now, because each parish school board or borough school board looks after itself. I raised this point in Committee. But what the Lord Advocate says rather frightens me, and I would like to hear from the Secretary for Scotland how this question of school attendance can be dealt with unless there are geographical areas, under the charge of management committees. It is difficult enough now to lay salt on the tail of the defaulting parent or absentee child when you have responsibility as now absolutely definite. But if you say that one school management committee is to look after secondary schools, another elementary schools, another
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    Catholic schools, another Episcopalian schools, how are you going to ensure that any particular child has salt laid on his tail and made to go to one school or another? I should really like the Secretary for Scotland to answer, because, after all, the attendance of children at school is a point in education.
    Mr. CURRIE: I should like to ask the Secretary for Scotland a question. A suggestion has been made that these smaller bodies may find that they are without power to do so much as to mend a broken pane of glass without the permission of the parent body. Is there any foundation for that suggestion?
    Mr. HOGGE: May I point out that the only people left off the committee are the parents of the children attending the schools? It seems to me to be a ridiculous dilemma into which we have got in regard to the parents of Scottish children. We have the representatives of the education authority, those also nominated by the teachers, also representatives of the new transferred schools—every interest practically is represented on the committee that is going to manage the schools except the parents of the children who attend the schools. I am raising the question later.
    Mr. CLYDE: In view of the Amendment which has been put down, a proposal will subsequently be made in regard to the point raised by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh.
    Sir W. PEARCE: I have been sitting on a school management committee this afternoon, not in Scotland, but in London, and I should like to assure the House that the system works exceedingly well. The small committee on which I sat this afternoon recommended three important matters for consideration, and I may add that I have known no instance in which these things have been refused. I think, therefore, the committee, although they may not be strictly clothed with powers, has a great-power in the management of the schools.
    Sir J. HOPE: Though I am not convinced by the arguments which have been used—and I think that time will show that I am right—I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
    Mr. GULLAND: I should like an answer from the Secretary for Scotland on the important point I put to him.
    Mr. CURRIE: There is also my point.
    Mr. HOGGE: That of the broken pane of glass?
    Mr. MUNRO: In regard to the question of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gulland), I am quite sure that my right hon. Friend will see that under normal circumstances the school management committee will be on a geographical basis. In these circumstances I do not think that any difficulty in regard to the question of parents will possibly arise. I regret very much I did not hear the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Leith Burghs.
    Mr. CURRIE: May I repeat it? I drew the attention of the Secretary for Scotland to the fact that a suggestion had been made that these smaller committees, when appointed, may find themselves without the power of mending a broken pane of glass without asking the kind permission of the parent body. If there is no foundation for that suggestion it is a pity that people should be misled; if there is any foundation for the suggestion I should like to know what it is.
    Mr. MUNRO: There is no foundation whatever for the suggestion.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, in Subsection (1), to leave out the words
    "Every such scheme shall contain provision for the due representation of the education authority on each school management committee, and also, for the appointment thereto of at least one teacher engaged in a school under the management of such committee, and also, in the case of a county."
    and to insert instead thereof the words,
    "Every such scheme shall contain provision—

    (a) for the due representation on each school management committee of the education authority and of the parents of the children attending the school under the management of such committee;

    (b) for the appointment thereto, on the nomination of the teachers engaged in the schools under the management of such committee, or, failing such nomination, directly of at least one such teacher; and also

    (c) in the case of a school management committee having under its management one or more transferred schools, for the appointment thereto of at least one member in whose selection regard shall be had to the religious belief of the parents of the children attending such school or schools.

    Further, in the case of a county, every such scheme."
    This Amendment really gives effect to the promise which I made in Grand Committee to consider the question of the
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    representation of the teachers on the school management committee, and also representation upon those committees of persons representing the views of parents of children attending the transferred schools. In connection with these two undertakings I have embraced the opportunity of generally redrafting the Clause, in order that it may be of clearer construction than it was when it emerged from Grand Committee with certain Amendments to it. In substance, therefore, the Amendment which I am moving provides for representation on each school committee—first, of the education authority itself; second, of the teachers engaged in the schools under the committee; and, third, the parents representing the views of the parents of the children who are attending these transferred schools. Finally, in the case of the county, there are to be persons appointed by local bodies, in which expression town and parish councils and outgoing school boards at the first election of these committees are included, whilst other representation from other bodies may be considered. May I add that I have altered slightly the Amendment, paragraph (a), as it is upon the Paper, the alteration being designed to give effect to the Amendment standing upon the Paper just below mine in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh.
    Mr. HOGGE: I desire to thank my right hon. Friend for including mine in his Amendment. I will not, therefore, move my Amendment. I am glad that we are going to have on these school management committees the parents of the pupils who are attending the school. While we have not got all we wanted by the other Amendments, at any rate it is some assurance that if the parents are upon these committees they will be able to look after and better safeguard the interests of the children.
    Mr. GULLAND: I do not want to be hypercritical, but the phrasing is, representation on the school management committee of the education authority. That may read in two ways, and the words may convey a meaning other than that intended by the right hon. Gentleman, and it may be for the Law Courts to decide. What I understand my right hon. Friend to mean is that there shall be direct representation of the education authority on the school management committee. But

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    it does not say that. Representation of the education authority does not necessarily mean that members of the education authority shall be on the school management committee. I should, I confess, like to see words put in that will make it absolutely clear that there are to be directly elected members of the education authority upon the school management committees. I do not think it is clear.
    Mr. MUNRO: I really do not think that there is the slightest ground for the apprehension my right hon. Friend has expressed, and my view is confirmed, I think, by those Members behind me who are lawyers. All I can say is this: I will look into the matter, and if there is any real doubt about it—I think there is none—I will see that it is put right in another place.
    Mr. SCANLAN: On behalf of those who have spoken for the transferred schools, I should like to take the opportunity of thanking the right hon. Gentleman for the Amendment he has suggested. He has provided for the representation of the teachers, a matter which my colleague, in the Committee, pressed upon him, and which I think found general favour. So far as the transferred schools are concerned it is right to say that while we have not obtained all that we had expected for the representatives of those schools that are being transferred, yet the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland has gone, I believe, as far as it was possible for him to go to meet us. On behalf of my colleague, and those interested, I thank him for the concession he has made.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. CLYDE: I beg to move, in Subsection (2), after the word ["subject" "subject to any regulations and restrictions"], to insert in the Bill the words "except as hereinafter provided."
    This is only an introductory Amendment to the one which immediately follows. The several Amendments are proposed to be put into the Bill in fulfilment of a promise made while the Bill was in Committee. The point put was this: It was said: "Well; but there are in certain cases particular burghs which have taken a good deal of trouble and spend a good deal of money in establishing, equipping, and so on, first-class secondary schools of their own: does it not seem very hard that their school management committee should not in future be free
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    in its management and control of these institutions?" We thought there was a good deal of force in that view, particularly in the case of such burghs as that represented by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock. Accordingly we undertook to put into the Bill an Amendment, and this Amendment fulfils that pledge. There was a point raised—I am told by myself—as to the case—not a common case—where the secondary school was in a landward area, and it will be seen that the Amendment covers it. It will be observed that we have covered that ease also, because the form the proviso takes is that where there is a school management committee having under its management a secondary school, in that case it shall have all the powers and duties without being subject to the regulations and restrictions which were thought to be unjust in such a case.
    Mr. SHAW: It is quite unnecessary to say that the pledge which the Lord Advocate gave in Committee on this point has been honoured, not only in the letter, but in the spirit, and the fact that the Government have put down this Amendment will give very great satisfaction and relief, especially in areas in Scotland where there is a very strong interest in secondary schools. With regard to the other point which has been raised. I think we may have some confidence that it is not only within the scope of the Bill that such an amalgamation may be effected, but it is the policy of the Government. I beg to thank the Lord Advocate for his proposal.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendments made: In Subsection (2), after the word "thereat," insert in the Bill the words,
    "Provided that a school management committee having under its management a secondary school shall have all the said powers and duties not subject to any such regulations or restrictions."
    After the word "provided," to insert in the Bill the word "further."—[Mr. Clyde.]
    Mr. CLYDE: I beg to move to leave out Sub-section (3), which now becomes unnecessary.
    Mr. TENNANT: There was a matter which the right hon. Gentleman undertook to take into consideration on Clause 4, namely, to give wider powers to local management committees in the larger counties, and I want to know whether that is a thing which they can or cannot do. The right hon. Gentleman promised to let me know.
    Mr. MUNRO: I am extremely sorry that I did not recollect having given any such undertaking. I do not remember the point being raised in Committee upstairs.
    Mr. TENNANT: Perhaps I might remind my right hon. Friend that in Committee I raised a point in regard to the great difficulty which large counties like Inverness-shire would have in managing their schools purely by the local education authority, and I asked whether some of the powers might not be delegated to the school management committees for those larger counties, and the Lord Advocate said he would take the point into consideration. I then said I would like something more definite, and the right hon. Gentleman will remember that a little altercation ensued between us.
    Mr. MUNRO: I am much obliged to my right hon. Friend for reminding me of this point. I know that he raised a question with regard to the dismissal of teachers, the suggestion being that there might be difficulty in assembling the educational authority sufficiently frequently to deal with the appointment, transfer, and dismissal of teachers, and it was suggested that this power might be confined to the school management committee. There is very great difficulty in handing over to the school management committees the appointment or dismissal of teachers, and I feel sure that that proposal would be very strongly opposed in influential quarters. I should not be prepared to suggest that that power should be given to school management committees in large counties or any other counties. The point my right hon. Friend has in mind is probably met by an Amendment standing in my name on the Paper, which will have the effect of requiring the education committees to meet at least once a month except in July and August. If that Amendment is accepted, and I propose to move it, then I think the apprehensions of my right hon. Friend with regard to the capacity of the education committees to discharge all the duties referring to teachers and other matters would be very largely met. I hope my right hon. Friend will be satisfied with that explanation.
    Sir J. HOPE: I wish to know whether St would be competent under this proposal for a school management committee to appoint of their own number
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    a small committee to look after and manage a particular school, in the same way as a committee could be appointed with a special object by school boards. Supposing, for example, a management committee had three schools, I want to know can they divide up their own bodies into separate committees, each to look after a separate school?
    Mr. MUNRO: I think that is really a question of law, but prima facie I see no objection to such sub-committees being appointed.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 5.—(Power to Facilitate Attendance at Secondary Schools and Other Institutions.)
    (1) It shall be the duty of an education authority, with a view to securing so far as practicable that no child or young person resident in their education area who is qualified for attendance at an intermediate or secondary school, and in their opinion shows promise of profiting thereby, shall be debarred therefrom by reason of the expense involved, to grant assistance in the case of any such child or young person by payment of travelling expenses, or of fees, or of the cost of residence in a hostel, or of a bursary or maintenance allowance in lieu of such cost, or other wise, as the authority think fit. And it shall also be lawful for an education authority similarly to assist any duly qualified person resident in their education area to enter or attend a university, or a training college, or a central institution (including classes affiliated thereto), or in special cases any other educational institution approved for the purpose by the Department.
    (2) It shall further be lawful for an education authority to grant assistance by payment of travelling expenses necessarily incurred in the case of any person resident in their education area in attending continuation classes under a scheme for instruction in such classes as in this Act provided.
    (3) Any assistance granted under this Section shall be such as the education authority consider proper and necessary, having regard to the circumstances of each case, including the circumstances of the parents.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, in Subsection (1), to leave out the words "the duty of" and to insert instead thereof the words "lawful for."
    The history of this Amendment is very peculiar. The Bill as originally drafted contained the words "It shall be lawful for," but upstairs perhaps with a little precipitation and without sufficient consideration, I was induced to accept an Amendment substituting for those words the words "lawful for." By this Amendment I propose to restore the Bill to its original state, I believe the Amendment was proposed by the right hon. Member for Fife (Mr. Adamson) and it was

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    supported in various quarters of the Committee. The difficulty is that you are dealing here with a Clause which gives a discretion to the education authority to provide bursaries, allowances and other financial assistance for deserving pupils, and it permits the exercise of the widest discretion on their part. While I have the strongest sympathy with the motives which animated the Mover of this Amendment, nevertheless after the fullest consideration I have been able to give to the matter it seems to me that the introduction of these words "the duty of" make the Clause self-contradictory. Therefore I propose to restore the words as they were in the original Bill.
    Mr. ADAMSON: I am very much surprised to find the Secretary for Scotland moving this Amendment. I understood that the Amendment which I moved on the Committee stage was practically accepted by the overwhelming majority of the members of the Committee, and it seems to me to be a breach of faith on the part of the Secretary for Scotland to seek now to alter that part of the Bill which was agreed to by such an overwhelming majority upstairs and which was accepted by him.
    Mr. MUNRO: I am not quite sure what the right hon. Gentleman means by an overwhelming majority. There was no Division, so far as I recollect, and I accepted the Amendment, but on reflection it turns out that it was not advisable.
    Mr. ADAMSON: It was so obviously the will of the majority of the members of the Committee that the Secretary for Scotland accepted the Amendment. In his introductory remarks to-day the right hon. Gentleman did not give any reason for his change of mind, and I would like to know why this change has taken place. The Bill as it stands at the present moment without this Amendment puts the duty on education authorities of finding certain bursaries and fees for maintenance under certain conditions. If this Amendment is agreed to what is now the duty of educational authorities will not be carried out. I am sure this change of front will be a great disappointment to organised labour in Scotland, for they were more than pleased with the Amendment which stood in my name, and they will feel that their interests have been betrayed by the change that is proposed under this Amendment. So far as my personal atti-
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    tude is concerned I have no intention of agreeing to such a change, and I shall divide the House unless the Secretary for Scotland sees fit to withdraw his Amendment which I hope, on consideration, he will do.
    Sir E. PARROTT: As the Member who moved the Amendment which was accepted by the right hon. Gentleman in Grand Committee, I should like to express my intense disappointment at his action to-day. It was evident that he repented very rapidly, for as I made my way home to Scotland I saw a report in the "Glasgow Herald" which announced that he proposed to make the change and which also gave some hint as to the argument to be used. It said that the Amendment which had been accepted made the Clause lopsided. It is a tailor-made argument, and I do not think that he would use it. I am sure that he has some very much better reason than that for witdrawing the Amendment. May I repeat what I said in Grand Committee and what he was good enough to accept as reasonable. The greatest work that we have to do when the War is over is to seek out and develop all the capacity that we can in this country. It would be next door to a crime if any capable boy or girl in any part of the land were prevented from rising to the full extent of his or her educational posibility because of the defection of some authority. The Glasgow School Board has accepted quite frankly the Clause as amended in Grand Committee, but it is quite possible that on the one side of an artificial boundary you might have an up-to-date authority fully cognisant of its duties and frankly and thoroughly arranging for the maintenance of its capable boys and girls and that on the other side of the boundary you might have a backward authority taking no steps whatever to find out what capacity it had among its children. By allowing this permissive Clause to be restored you are really putting the children of Scotland under a very grave disability indeed.
    I am absolutely astounded that my right hon. Friend, whose educational zeal is beyond question, should permit himself to be guided—I am sure that he has been guided—by other people in the direction that I have indicated. At the last possible moment I would beseech the Committee to stand firm on this question. Its universities have been the glory of Scotland, but scores of thousands have not

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    been able to send their sons to those institutions because they have not had the means. You will give the backward authorities the opportunity of making this Clause of no effect whatever in their own localities. I earnestly hope that the Committee will insist on having the Clause as it passed Grand Committee. My right hon. Friend sets a very bad example to the whole of the Members of the Committee. What is to prevent me or anybody else from refusing to accept any of the findings of the Grand Committee and from putting down again every Amendment in order that we may have them discussed here in this House? My right hon. Friend has behind him a mechanical majority that voted a few minutes ago against Scottish Members being allowed to have their own education Department in their own capital, and, of course, he can carry this Amendment against us no matter what the arguments may be, but I must repeat that I am astounded at his action.
    Mr. TENNANT: I cannot help thinking that we are rather at cross purposes. If my right hon. Friend's Amendment were carried, the Bill would say that it "shall be lawful for an education authority to do as that authority thinks fit." Is it any use this House asserting that it "shall be the duty of any education authority to do as it thinks fit"? It seems to me that there is absolutely nothing in it.
    Mr. CURRIE: As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Fife (Mr. Adamson) knows, I was one of those who shared his views as to the desirability of allowances of this kind being given where necessary, but may I say, as one who voted with him in the Division which took place upstairs, that I think he was altogether in error in making a charge of bad faith against the right hon. Gentleman. May I draw his attention to the rubric of the Clause which stands "Power to facilitate attendance"? It is not an obligation to give in every case. Later on the language used is, "And it shall be lawful for an authority" to do so-and-so. The Secretary for Scotland stands quite discharged from altering the meaning and contents of the Clause. There is nothing in the alteration which he now suggests that clashes with any idea that was in my mind when I voted with the thirty-two Members in favour of the one set of words as against the other. I wish my right hon. Friend would withdraw the
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    charge which has unfortunately been made. I am sure that it has been made under a misapprehension, or, at all events, I am satisfied that it is quite unsubstantiated.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. ADAMSON: I beg to move, in Subsection (1), to leave out the words "so far as practicable."
    Mr. MUNRO: I accept it.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. ADAMSON: I beg to move, after the word "child" ["that no child or young person resident in their education area"], to insert in the Bill the words "having attained the age of thirteen years."
    This is one of a series of Amendments which have for their object the provision of maintenance grants for children over the age of thirteen attending any of our schools in Scotland. I am convinced that if the Scottish people are to get the full benefit of the provisions of this Bill some such arrangements as are provided for in these Amendments require to be made. Unless we have some such provision, the successful administration of the Bill will be endangered. I readily confess that the Bill is a great advance, but great as that advance is, it really does not go as far as the working classes in Scotland desire. For years they have been demanding a standard of education for their children higher than is provided for in this Bill. They want their children to have as easy a passage from the elementary school to the university as is at present enjoyed by the children of the wealthy classes. They recognise the importance of education to their children and to the nation. They fully recognise that unless we can provide the whole of the children of the nation with as high a standard of education as is possible we are not likely to hold our place among the nations of the world. Some very flattering speeches have been made as to the arrangements which have been provided by the Scottish people for the education of their children. The working classes desire even a higher standard of education than is contained in this Bill, but, at the same time, they realise that unless some arrangement is made in the form of maintenance grants for assisting them in securing that education they are not going to get the full benefit of the Bill.

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    The difficulty that stands in the way is an economic one. It is a difficulty that the Secretary for Scotland will find stands in the way of the successful administration of his Bill. I know that I may be met with the argument that the proper method for dealing with a difficulty of this kind is to raise the wages of the parents to a level that will enable them to provide the education for their children that is outlined in the Bill, but as one who has had considerable experience, extending over twenty or thirty years, I can assure the Members of this House that it is not such a very easy task to permanently raise the wages of the working classes to the extent that they would require to be raised in order to enable them to get the full benefit of the provisions of this Bill. I therefore very strongly urge upon the Secretary for Scotland to accept this Amendment and the whole series of Amendments dealing with this particular part of the Bill, and thereby make provision for meeting the economic difficulty of many of the working-class parents in Scotland. I can assure him that by doing so he will make provision for the successful administration of the Bill. On the other hand, unless he makes some such provision, he will endanger, in a serious degree, the successful administration of the measure. In conclusion, I would again personally appeal to him to give his serious and favourable consideration to the series of Amendments which stand in the names of my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee (Mr. Wilkie) and myself, and which have for their object the provision of the necessary maintenance grants to enable the children of Scotland to get the full benefit of the Bill.
    7.0 P.M.
    Mr. CURRIE: I beg to second the Amendment. The question really is an economic one, and to that extent I admit it is not a purely educational matter. At the same time it stands to reason that if you raise the school age of children, and place upon them and on young persons the obligation to attend continuation classes, you put on a large number of working-class shoulders a heavy financial burden. If I were sure that the wage level obtaining at the present time would be stereotyped, I do not think I would support the Amendment, but I am not sure of anything of the sort. I think wages may fall, and in that case serious obstacles will arise which will cause trouble to the education authorities with the
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    working classes by reason of the pressure of inadequate wages. I should like to repeat a suggestion which I made in Commitee, one which I think provides a halfway house for the Secretary for Scotland, if he is inclined to sympathise with this proposal. It is that for a period of years following the introduction of the Bill—say, for seven years—power should be taken to pay these allowances, and that at the end of the seven years the whole question should come up for review, and if the level of wages then proves more satisfactory than it was ten years ago, the allowances might be dropped. In the meantime I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Fife (Mr. Adamson) that in many working-class homes conditons will be such as to interfere with the successful working of the Act, and with the securing of these educational benefits for the young people I hope therefore some concession may be made by the Government.
    Mr. CLYDE: I am going to limit my remarks to the first of the series of Amendments—to the one immediately before the House. I cannot help thinking that almost everything said by the right hon. Gentleman who moved it, and the hon. Member who seconded it, had relevancy to questions arising out of the other Amendments.
    Mr. ADAMSON: I said so frankly; I said that this was one of a series of Amendments which had for their object the provision of a maintenance grant.
    Mr. CLYDE: And that is why I venture to say that what the right hon. Gentleman said was not relevant at all to the Amendment now before the House. What that Amendment proposes to do is to limit the power given under the Clause Whereas, as the Bill stands, the education authority has power to give assistance to any child in an intermediate or secondary school who promises to benefit by study, the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment deliberately takes away from the education authority that power until the child has attained the age of thirteen years. Does my right hon. Friend mean to do that? If he does not, then I ask him to withdraw his Amendment and let us get to that part of his proposal which embodies his real meaning. The power given by the Bill is to grant assistance to a child who seems likely to benefit by being in an intermediate or secondary school. A child who is clever gets into the

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    intermediate school at the age of eleven or twelve. Children are expected to pass into the intermediate school between the ages of twelve and thirteen, but a great many do so when they are only eleven years of age, and if the right hon. Member's Amendment is carried it will take away from that child the opportunity of participating in the maintenance grant until it is thirteen years of age or over. If the right hon. Gentleman does not wish to do that, let him withdraw his Amendment.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: My right hon. Friend has somewhat ingeniously raised a point, but I do not think there is so much in it as he has endeavoured to suggest. He referred to this Amendment fixing the age at thirteen as a limiting Amendment. But he does not take into account the consequential Amendments which are on the Paper. May I call his attention to the fact that the Clause as it stands is a limiting Clause? There is a limit in it. This power of granting maintenance to children does not extend to all children. It only applies to those children who are qualified for attendance at intermediate or secondary schools. There is a very considerable limitation in that. The Amendment of my right hon. Friend aims at removing that limitation altogether and extending the power of making the maintenance grant for all children who have reached the age at which they would presumably be qualified for secondary or intermediate education. There can be no doubt that the age limit of thirteen is roughly the age limit for intermediate and secondary schools, but there may be children under that age who are attending these schools. My right hon. Friend ingeniously takes advantage of this fact to represent the Amendment as a drastic limitation of the Bill. As a matter of fact it is not a limitation. It is an extension of the provisions of the Bill, and we very much prefer it to the limitation in the Clause as it stands. We want the power to apply to all children capable of benefiting further by education, whether in intermediate or secondary or the ordinary schools.
    Mr. FALCONER: Does the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment contend that the maintenance grant which he is advocating should be limited to children over thirteen years of age? Is it his intention in the series of Amendments which he has on the Paper to limit the grant in that way? I agree entirely with
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    the view put forward by the Lord Advocate that this first Amendment would have the effect of limiting the grant to children over thirteen.
    Mr. ADAMSON: My intention is to provide maintenance grants for all children over the age of thirteen attending any school in Scotland, and not to limit it in the way suggested in the Clause.
    Mr. FALCONER: If a child is under the age of thirteen and yet is capable of taking advantage of secondary or intermediate education, will it be excluded from the maintenance grant? I think the Lord Advocate is entirely right in saying that the effect of this Amendment will be to ensure that no child under thirteen years of age will get the maintenance grant.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: I beg to move to leave out the words "is qualified for attendance at an intermediate or secondary school, and."
    The limitation in the Bill at present is that the grant is only to be extended to children who are qualified for attendance at intermediate or secondary schools. We desire to have the power extended to all children. My right hon. Friend has shown a great deal of sympathy in favour of making the provisions of the Bill as wide as possible, and I hope therefore he will accept this Amendment. I hope this Amendment will have the right hon. Gentleman's acceptance, for it is really designed to secure the end to which he professes to be quite favourable.
    Mr. ADAMSON: I beg to second the Amendment. It practically covers every ground of the Amendment which stands in the name of my hon. Friend (Mr. Wilkie) and myself. I have already put my case on the broad general issue that this and other Amendments standing in my name raise, and I have no intention of repeating myself, but express the hope that the Secretary for Scotland will agree to the principle that is contained in this series of Amendments.
    Sir GEORGE YOUNGER: This series of Amendments greatly widens the Clause, and the House should hesitate before accepting them. Why should public money be spent in all cases where it is desired that a child should go to an intermediate, secondary, or other school if it be not qualified or has no particular ability for further education? The right

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    hon. Member simply wants the grant to go on, and surely that is going to be a most expensive business. A large sum of public money would be required, and it is quite wrong that public money should be spent on every child without reference to its ability to benefit.
    Mr. SCOTT: The words are, "that in their opinion shall profit thereby."
    Sir G. YOUNGER: But if you leave out the qualification as to attendance at an immediate or secondary school you obviously widen the scope of the Clause, notwithstanding the words to which my hon. Friend refers.
    Mr. CURRIE: I think a proposal of this kind should not be passed without consideration of the fullest kind, and it should be discussed on its merits. Let us consider what kind of child is likely to be benefited by further training. In my view I do not think it is at all clear, and it should not be taken for granted that the only children who should benefit are those who have passed an examination when quite young. It is further training and discipline which is important, and I go so far as to say that it may be well that a child who may have been very bright from the point of view of the schoolmaster should obtain prolonged training, but it is not wholly or solely to do good to the clever child, who is really able to take care of himself, that we propose this legislation. There is many a child not particularly bright, and whose parents may be poor, that with more training and discipline could be made a better citizen, and it is on that ground I support this proposal. So far as I am concerned, I think the matter should be carried to a Division, for I should like to know the Members of the House who really grudge the money. It is quite true that large sums of money will be spent under the Bill, but I think that it is high time in Scotland that a great deal more money should be spent on education.
    Mr. A. WILLIAMS: An English Member should apologise perhaps for speaking on a Scottish Bill, but I think I am entitled to ask for some information. I do not understand what the difference between between these two phrases in the Clause is. The Clause says, "Who is qualified for attendance at intermediate or secondary schools," and then it says, later on, "Who shows promise of profiting thereby." It seems to me that is practically a
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    repetition. If a child is qualified to attend an intermediate or secondary school, that is to say, if he has sufficient knowledge of elementary work he can go to an intermediate or secondary school, and he must show promise of profiting thereby, and if he shows promise that implies, as a matter of course, that he must have the necessary elementary knowledge, because, if he has not the necessary elementary knowledge it would be a waste of the child's and everybody else's time for him to be there. I should like to have it made clear what is the difference between these two phrases, and what is intended to be covered.
    Mr. ADAMSON: I might explain, for the information of the hon. Member, that this is one of a series of Amendments that seek to provide maintenance grants for children attending any school.
    Sir W. BEALE: If the first of the two phrases were absent it would leave the Clause absolute nonsense. The Clause applies to a child who is qualified for attendance at an intermediate or secondary school. It is proposed to take those words out. What does "thereby" mean if you take those words out "if it shows promise of profiting thereby." The words, it seems to me, are the governing words that it is proposed by this Amendment to leave out, namely, "qualified for attendance at an intermediate or secondary school," and the omission of those words would leave the Clause without meaning.
    Sir H. CRAIK: The hon. Member below the Gangway apparently knows little of school arrangements, and in reply to what he has said I would observe that no Scotsman grudges payment for any child who would benefit under this Bill. But if you put a child to a school for which he is not qualified you are inflicting heavy expenditure on the country, and you are wasting time that can never be made up; you are wasting time at the most important period of the child's life, time which can never be overtaken. If the hon. Member knew something of school arrangements he would see that one of the important points is to get the elementary schools to do their proper work, and the secondary schools to continue that work where the child is qualified. Suitability of the child is not fixed by any examination, but mainly by the opinion of the teachers, who are to judge when suitable boys should pass from the elementary into the intermediate or secondary school, and

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    whether they would benefit by that. If a child is sent to a secondary school before it is qualified you not only waste its time but you are introducing an element of disturbance in the school, because it interferes with the whole of the conditions of that school. It is not a question of grudging money for this educational work, as my hon. Friend suggests; the question is whether a child is qualified or not for further training at the intermediate or secondary school, and I earnestly hope that the Secretary for Scotland will not assent to the omission of words of such importance from the educational point of view.
    Mr. MUNRO: The answer to the Amendment which my hon. Friend has proposed I think has already been given, but perhaps it is only respectful to the House and to my right hon. Friend that I should say a word or two upon this series of Amendments and upon the general argument So far as this Amendment is concerned, I think the House will be well advised in not supporting the omission of these words, for it would be a serious matter if they disappeared from the Bill. I do not think any case has been made out for their disappearance. My hon. Friend is not pressing this Amendment on its merits; he is merely pressing it with one object in view, and that object is to make a maintenance grant mandatory in the case of every child from thirteen attending any school—primary, intermediate, or secondary. That is the purpose underlying this and every other Amendment on this Clause to which his name appears.
    Mr. ADAMSON: Hear, hear!
    Mr. MUNRO: The proposal is not anew one. It was made upstairs, and my right hon. Friend will not disagree with my recollection if I say that he received the very scantiest support for it. My right hon. Friend not only endeavoured to persuade me in the interval that he is right and I am wrong, but he came with a deputation to Edinburgh and urged everything that could be urged, and I undertook to give the matter careful consideration. I have reconsidered the matter before the Report stage, and I really cannot reach any other result than the result which I reached upstairs, and which my right hon. Friend sitting beside me reached upon a similar discussion when it took place on the English Bill. My right hon. Friend the Member for Fife, I think, took part in that discussion. I will not go through all the arguments pro and con. The whole matter was threshed out on the floor of this House. I am very anxious to get on with the Bill, and I do not think I should occupy time by going through all the arguments on this occasion. I cannot, for the reasons I stated upstairs, see my way to accept the general Amendment of this Clause which my hon. Friend has in view, and perhaps it will be better to take a Division on this Amendment in order that the other Amendments may be regarded by him as consequential if defeated on this. Accordingly. I make that suggestion to my right hon. Friend with all respect. I regret that I am unable to accept the proposals he has in his mind.
    Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
    The House divided: Ayes, 109; Noes, 63.

    Division No. 82.]

    AYES.

    [7.29 p.m.

    Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

    Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

    Henderson, John M. (Aberdeen, W.)

    Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)

    Collins, Sir Stephen (Lambeth)

    Hewart, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

    Anderson, G. K.

    Collins, Sir W. (Derby)

    Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

    Archdale, Lieut. E. M.

    Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

    Higham, John Sharp

    Baldwin, Stanley

    Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

    Hinds, John

    Barnett, Captain R. W.

    Cory, Sir Clifford John (St. Ives)

    Holmes, Daniel Turner

    Barnston, Major Harry

    Cory, James H. (Cardiff)

    Hope, Harry (Bute)

    Barran, Sir John N. (Hawick Burghs)

    Craig, Colonel Sir J. (Down, E.)

    Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

    Beale, Sir William Phipson

    Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

    Hope, Lt.-Col. Sir J. (Midlothian)

    Beck, Arthur Cecil

    Dalrymple, Hon. H. H.

    Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

    Benn, Sir Arthur S. (Plymouth)

    Dougherty, Rt. Hon. Sir J. B.

    Jones, William S. Glyn-(Stepney)

    Bentham, George Jackson

    Elverston, Sir Harold

    Larmor, Sir J.

    Bigland, Alfred

    Fisher, Rt. Hon. H. A. L. (Hallam)

    Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle)

    Boyton, Sir James

    Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes (Fulham)

    Layland-Barratt, Sir F.

    Brace, Rt. Hon. William

    Fletcher, John Samuel

    Levy, Sir Maurice

    Bridgeman, William Clive

    Gardner, Ernest

    Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)

    Bryce, J. Annan

    Gibbs, Col, George Abraham

    M'Calmont, Brig.-Gen. Robert C. A.

    Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James

    Gilmour, Lieut.-Col. John

    MacCaw, William G. MacGeagh

    Carew, C. R. S.

    Goulding, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Alfred

    Mackinder, H. J.

    Carnegie, Lieut.-Col. D. G.

    Greig, Colonel J. W.

    Macleod, John Mackintosh

    Cator, John

    Gretton, John

    Macmaster, Donald

    Cheyne, Sir W. W.

    Harmsworth, Sir R. L. (Caithness)

    Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James Ian

    Clyde, J. Avon

    Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

    Magnus, Sir Philip

    Marks, Sir George Croydon

    Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

    Walker, Colonel William Hall

    Mason, Robert (Wansbeck)

    Roberts, Rt. Hon. Geo. H. (Norwich)

    Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)

    Montagu, Rt. Hon. E. S.

    Roberts, Sir H. (Denbighs)

    Walton, Sir Joseph

    Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert

    Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

    Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

    Nield, Sir Herbert

    Royds, Major Edmund

    Wardle, George J.

    Norman, Rt. Hon. Major Sir H.

    Samuels, Arthur W. (Dublin U.)

    Watson, Hon. W. (Lanark, S.)

    Parker, James (Halifax)

    Shortt, Edward

    Wheler, Major Granville C. H.

    Pearce, Sir Robert (Staffs, Leek)

    Spear, Sir John Ward

    Williams, Aneurin (Durham, N. W.)

    Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike (Darlingt'n)

    Stewart, Gershom

    Williams Penry (Middlesbrough)

    Pennefather, De Fonblanque

    Stirling, Lt.-Col. Archibald

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

    Perkins, Walter F.

    Stoker, R. B.

    Younger, Sir George

    Pollock, Sir Ernest Murray

    Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

    Pratt, J. W.

    Swift, Rigby

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

    Randles, Sir John S.

    Tennant, Rt. Hon. Harold John

    Captain Guest and Col. Sanders.

    Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

    NOES.

    Anderson, W. C.

    Hogge, James Myles

    Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

    Boland, John Plus

    Hudson, Walter

    Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

    Booth, Frederick Handel

    John, Edward Thomas

    Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

    Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

    Jowett, Frederick William

    Rowntree, Arnold

    Brady, Patrick Joseph

    Keating, Matthew

    Scanlan, Thomas

    Buxton, Noel

    Kenyon, Barnet

    Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

    Chapple, Dr. William Allen

    King, Joseph

    Sheehy, David

    Clancy, John Joseph

    Lamb, Sir Ernest Henry

    Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

    Clough, William

    Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

    Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

    Condon, Thomas Joseph

    Lundon, Thomas

    Stanton, Charles Butt

    Crumley, Patrick

    M'Callum, Sir John M.

    Sutton, John E.

    Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)

    Macdonald, Rt. Hon. J. M. (Falk, B'ghs)

    Taylor, John W. (Durham)

    Doris, William

    Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

    Tootill, Robert

    Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

    McGhee, Richard

    Trevelyan, Charles Philips

    Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

    Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

    White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

    Falconer, James

    Mooney, John J.

    Whitehouse, John Howard

    Finney, Samuel

    Morrell, Philip

    Whitty, Patrick Joseph

    Flavin, Michael Joseph

    Muldoon, John

    Wiles, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Harbison, T. J. S.

    Nolan, Joseph

    Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

    Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

    Nugent, J. D. (College Green)

    Hazleton, Richard

    Outhwaite, R. L.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

    Helme, Sir Norval Watson

    Parrott, Sir James Edward

    Mr. Currie and Mr. Adamson.

    Mr. WATT: I beg to move, to leave out the words "in their opinion" ["and in their opinion shows promise"], and to insert instead thereof the words "in the opinion of the teachers who have taught the child or young person during the preceding six months."
    I think the education authority is not a good judge of whether the child to whom it is going to extend benefits shows promise of profiting by them. It is bound to take the opinion of those who are in closer touch with the child or children, and the individuals whom it will consult are in all probability the teachers. If the power is left in the hands of the education authority it will lead to wire-pulling, and children who would not show promise will get those pecuniary advantages which are held out in this Clause. I therefore think the education authority, which cannot satisfactorily deal with the question of promise or no promise, should not have the say as to whether these financial advantages are to be given to the child or young person. That opinion should come from the teachers, who are the best judges of whether promise is shown or not.
    Amendment not seconded.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, after the word "opinion" ["and in their opinion shows promise"], to insert in the Bill the words "formed after consideration of a report from the teachers concerned."
    I think this covers the point my hon. Friend had in mind. It is put on the Paper in virtue of a promise I gave in Committee to consider words which would make it plain that the education authority, before deciding whether an applicant for assistance under this Clause shows promise of profiting by attendance at a secondary school, should consult the teacher or teachers who are familiar with the work of the child. I gave that undertaking, and have put the Amendment on the Paper. I think it is a better form than that which my hon. Friend has moved and which was not seconded. There might be practical difficulties in working out the Amendment which he moved. For example, two teachers might differ in opinion, in which case there would be a deadlock. But apart from that, I do not think this determination should be made upon the ipse dixit of any teacher. I quite agree that the education authority, which is responsible for spending public money, ought to have and will have the assistance

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    and benefit of the views of the teacher before reaching a conclusion, but I think the judgment ought to be that of the responsible public authority. In order to secure both these results, first that the public authority shall make the judgment and secondly that it shall be made after due communication with, and on a report from the teacher who knows the facts in regard to the child, this Amendment is put on the Paper.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, to leave out the words, "in lieu of such cost" ["or of a bursary or maintenance allowance in lieu of such costs"] and to insert instead thereof the words, "or any combination of these forms of assistance."
    The object of this Amendment is to make it quite clear that the education authority, in giving assistance towards secondary education, is not restricted to any one of the methods which are specified in the Clause but that on the other hand they may employ any combination of these methods.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. WATT: I beg to move, after the word "person" ["to assist any duly qualified person"], to insert in the Bill the words, "who shows promise of profiting thereby and who is."
    I desire to insert in the second part of the Clause, which deals with persons going to training colleges, universities, or central institutions, the qualification which is in the earlier part, dealing with children and young persons, that they shall show promise of profiting by the proposed advantages.
    Mr. PRINGLE: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. MUNRO: I venture to suggest that this Amendment is really unnecessary, because you are here dealing with a young person who has reached the age for entering a university. If he passes the qualifying examination for entrance to a university I think there can be no doubt that he is a person who shows promise of profiting by the university instruction which he receives. Therefore, I suggest to my hon. and learned Friend that the insertion of these words would be tautological and unnecessary.
    Mr. WATT: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

    CLAUSE 6.—(Provision of Books for General Reading.)
    It shall be lawful for the education authority of a county, as an ancillary means of promoting education, to make such provision of books by purchase or otherwise as they may think desirable, and to make the same available not only to the children and young persons attending schools or continuation classes in the county, but also to the adult population resident therein.
    For the purposes of this Section an education authority may enter into arrangements with public libraries, and all expenses incurred by an education authority for those purposes shall be chargeable to the county education fund: Provided that where in any burgh or parish as defined by the Public Libraries Consolidation (Scotland) Act, 1887, the library rate by that Act authorised is levied, there shall be raised on account of any such expenses within such burgh or parish only such sum as will, with the produce of the said library rate, amount to the sum which would have been raised within such burgh or parish under this Section had such library rate not been levied within it.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move to leave out the words "on account of any such expenses within such burgh or parish only," and to insert instead thereof the words "within such burgh or parish on account of any such expenses."
    This Amendment is really a drafting Amendment, and is submitted in fulfilment of a promise I made in Committee to consider the wording of an Amendment which was then accepted. Really the only difference which this Amendment makes in the Bill is that the sequence of the words in the Bill has been changed for greater clearness. I think the House will agree that that is so if they look at the Bill in the light of this Amendment. The word "only," to which some objection was taken as being unduly restricting, has been omitted as unnecessary.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 7.—(Schemes for Provision of Education.)
    (2) Every education authority may at any time and shall if and when so required by the Department, prepare and submit for the approval of the Department a revised scheme or modificacations of an existing scheme under this Section.
    Mr. SPEAKER: The Amendment which stands in the name of the hon. Member for Fife (Mr. Adamson) is out of order. It deals with the question of salaries.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, after Subsection (2), to insert in the Bill,
    "(3) Schemes prepared and submitted under this Section shall include transferred schools."
    This Amendment is put upon the Paper for the purpose of making quite clear that schemes which are prepared and submitted under this Section include schemes relating to transferred schools. Personally I have no hesitation in saying that I think the Clause as drafted would achieve that result, but I find there are views held in certain quarters that that is not clear. If there is any doubt it is well that it should be resolved now instead of subsequently in a Court of Law. Therefore, to make the matter perfectly clear, I beg to move this Amendment.
    Mr. TENNANT: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he has considered whether this treatment should be meted out in other cases? If you put it in here, will it not require to be put in in a great many other cases? Otherwise, by inference, transferred schools will not share in benefits or be liable to the limitations imposed by this Bill in other Clauses of the Bill.
    Mr. MUNRO: I think the Bill has been examined from that point of view, and I am sure that any further alteration is not desired.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 9.—(Contributions to Maintenance of Certain Schools and Institutions.)
    (2) Every education authority shall continue to contribute to the maintenance of any school within their education area but not under their own management which at the passing of this Act was recognised by the Department as an intermediate or secondary school, so long as such school continues to be so recognised, an amount not less than the contribution made to such school in terms of Sub-section (4) (b) of Section seventeen of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1908, in respect of the financial year ending on the fifteenth day of May, nineteen hundred and fourteen, by any secondary education committee whose powers and duties are by this Act transferred to that education authority.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, in Subsection (2), after the words "Sub-section (4)," to insert in the Bill "(a) and."
    In appearance this Amendment seems to be of a trifling description, but I want the House clearly to understand what it means. It has been represented to me from various quarters that the finances of some schools which are referred to in this
    184
    Clause would be seriously affected by the heavy loss which they would incur by the discontinuance of the grants under Clause 17, Sub-section (4) (a); of the Act of 1908. That is a loss which, according to their view, they have no guarantee will be made good by the contribution which the education authorities are authorised to make under Sub-section (1) of this Clause. I have in my mind the case of Hutchison's Academy in Glasgow,
    Mr. PRINGLE: Hutchison's Grammar School.
    Mr. MUNRO: From that grammar school I received a deputation recently, and I had an examination made of the financial position of the school as it would be affected by the dropping of paragraph (a) of Section 17, Sub-section (4) (a), of the Act of 1908, and in the result I am satisfied that a case has been made out for stereotyping the grant in 4 (a), as well as in (4) (b), at the amount at which it stood on the 15th May, 1914. The House will observe that this is subject to a very important limitation in the proviso to Clause 9 to the effect that the amount of the contribution required to be made under this Sub-section shall not exceed the amount by which the income of such school from all other sources falls short of the expenditure. That means that if there is an increase in the revenue of any particular school—from endowments, as may well happen—then the amount of the contribution under this Sub-section may be diminished to the extent which is necessary to balance the expenditure. Under these circumstances, I suggest to the House that the Amendment is a reasonable Amendment required for the protection of these important schools. I think they may be crippled in their very useful activities if the Amendment were not made. In that view I submit it to the House in confident anticipation that it will be accepted.
    Mr. WATT: I had the honour of seeing a deputation from Hutchison's Grammar School yesterday. They have seen the Scottish Education Department at Dove House and stated their case. They were partially satisfied with the reception of their views by the Scottish Education authorities, but they have not got the whole claim. The Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman now proposes only gives them their claim partially. The position of that particular grammar school is that they will be deprived by

    185
    the Bill as it now stands, and before this Amendment is accepted, of £5,200. The Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman now proposes will give them £4,300 of that sum. Of the balance of £900 the Scottish Education Department yesterday promised them serious consideration, but I gather from the fact that my right hon. Friend has not stated anything about that balance that the serious consideration has resulted in a negative so far as the deputation's claim is concerned. I am sorry about that, and although I am thankful for the concession which has been made on behalf of the Hutchison trustees, I much regret that the right hon. Gentleman has not seen his way to give them the whole, because these trustees will in future be impoverished to the extent of nearly £1,000 a year, a very serious matter in these times. I should be glad if my right hon. Friend would give all the claim that has been made in reference to the further £900.
    Mr. MUNRO: By leave of the House, I may be permitted to say, in answer to my hon. and learned Friend, that when I received the deputation from Hutchison's Grammar School in Glasgow I understood them merely to ask for what I have given them in the Amendment which I have now moved. I did not have the advantage of seeing them when they called upon me in London, but I gather that they then desired something more than was given. That is not an unknown experience in Departmental history. So far as my knowledge goes, they have been very fairly treated, and, I think my hon. and learned Friend will agree, generously treated. I regret that they are not completely satisfied. I will have the matter looked into again, but, as far as I can see at the present moment, I do not think I can go any further than I have gone. I thought they were satisfied with the proposal that I made, and I am sorry if that is not so.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 10.—(Contribution in Respect of Non-resident Pupils Attending Intermediate or Secondary Schools.)
    Where an education authority or any other governing body provide and maintain an intermediate or secondary school, not conducted for profit, which is recognised by the Department, and is attended by children whose parents are resident outwith the education area in which the school is situated, there shall be paid in each year to that authority or to that governing body, as the case may be out of the education fund of
    186
    each education area in which any such parents are so resident, a sum equal to the cost of the education of such children (including in such cost repayment of and interest on loans for capital expenditure) after deduction, (a) in the case of a school maintained by an education authority, of income from all sources of income other than education rate, and (b) in the case of a school maintained by any other governing body, of income from grants made by the Department and from fees:
    Provided that no payment shall be made under this Section out of the education fund of any education area in respect of any child for whom it is shown to the satisfaction of the Department that accessible accommodation is available in a suitable intermediate or secondary school provided within that area, regard being had to all the circumstances, including that religious belief of his parents.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, to leave out the words "an intermediate or secondary" ["maintain an intermediate or secondary school"], and to insert instead thereof the word "A."
    There really seems, on consideration, to be no particular reason why the principle of this Clause, which provides for payments by the education authority in one district in respect of the cost of the the education of children at schools in another district should be confined to the case of intermediate and secondary schools. By Clause 15, Sub-section (12), it is already extended to the case of continuation classes. There remains, therefore, only the case of primary schools or departments of schools to be considered. I suggest that the Amendment is a reasonable one.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendment made: Leave out the words "intermediate or secondary" ["is available in a suitable intermediate or secondary school."].—Mr. Munro.

    CLAUSE 11.—(Acquisition of Land.)
    (3) An education authority may be authorised to purchase land compulsorily by means of an Order submitted to and confirmed by the Department in accordance with the provisions contained in the First Schedule to the Housing, Town Planning, Etc., Act, 1909, as applied to Scotland, and those provisions shall have effect for the purpose, with the substitution of the Department for the Local Government Board for Scotland, of the education authority for the local authority, and of references to the Education Acts for references to "this Act."
    Provided that the Department shall not confirm any such Order even when unopposed, if they are of opinion that the land is unsuited for the purpose for which it is proposed to be acquired.
    Provided also that an Order for the compulsory purchase of land of the nature which by Section forty-five of the Housing, Town Planning, Etc., Act, 1909, is exempt from compulsory acquisition for the purposes of the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, shall be provisional only, and shall not have effect unless and until it is confirmed by Parliament.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move to leave out the words,
    "Provided that the Department shall not confirm any such Order even when unopposed if they are of opinion that the land is unsuited for the purpose for which it is proposed to be acquired."
    This Amendment is put down in consequence of what took place in the Committee upstairs. The House will notice that the proviso which I am proposing to omit empowers the Department to refuse to confirm any Order even when unopposed if the Department are of opinion that the land which has been acquired is unsuitable for the purpose. Upstairs it was suggested that education authorities—especially the large authorities which this Bill contemplates—would exercise due and responsible care in the selection of proper land, and that it was not necessary for the protection of the public purse that this power should be reserved in the hands of the Department. After consideration, I have come to the opinion that that argument should be given effect to, and that this proviso reserving power to the Department to refuse to confirm an Order should be left out.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendment made: Leave out the word "also" ["Provided also"].—[Mr. Munro.]

    CLAUSE 13.—(Expenses of Education Authorities.)
    (1) The expenses of an education authority (including the expenditure incurred by school management committees in the performance of their duties and approved by the authority) shall be paid out of the education fund of the education area, which shall come in place of the school fund referred to in Section forty-three of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1872, and of the district education fund referred to in Section seventeen of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1908.
    There shall be carried to the education fund all money received as Grants from the Department, or raised by way of loan, or transferred to the education authority under this Act, or otherwise received by the education authority for the purposes of that fund, and not by this Act or otherwise specially appropriated, and any deficiency in that fund, whether for satisfying present or future liabilities, shall be raised by the education authority as hereinafter provided.
    (2) Every education authority shall annually ascertain the amount of such deficiency, and, unless and until Parliament otherwise determine in any Statute amending the law of rating in Scotland, shall allocate and apportion the same among the parishes comprised in the education area, according to their respective valuations in the valuation roll, and shall, not later than the twelfth day of June in each year, certify to the parish council of each such parish the amount so allocated and apportioned thereupon, and the parish council may and shall impose, levy, and collect the same within such parish, under the name of "education rate," in the manner prescribed by Section thirty-four of the Poor Law (Scotland) Act, 1845, with respect to the poor rate, and along with, but as a separate assessment from that rate, and shall from time to time as they collect it, pay over the amount collected to the education authority, without any deduction on account of the cost of levying and collecting the same; and the laws applicable for the time being to the imposition, collection and recovery of the poor rate shall be applicable to the education rate.
    Provided that in parishes where no poor rate is levied, or where the poor rate is imposed otherwise than in the manner prescribed by Section thirty-four of the Poor Law (Scotland) Act, 1845, the education rate shall nevertheless be imposed, levied, and collected by the parish council in the manner prescribed by that Section.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the words "or otherwise received by the education authority for the purposes of that fund."
    I am moving this Amendment in order to inquire what will be the position with regard to special allotments of money to schools for the purpose of benefaction in the interests of certain classes. I have before my mind a case in Banffshire of a certain benefaction paid to a school in the interests of children on a certain estate. There is also another authority in Banff—I thing it is called the Bursary Committee or something of that sort—to provide special teachers for certain subjects. It is quite obvious that the words which I propose to omit seem very wide in their application. It would almost appear that they would entitle these special sums to be calculated in arriving at a deficiency on the education fund and to be diverted from the purpose for which they were originally given. I can hardly think that that is contemplated, and I should be glad to know whether or not it is so, and how benefactions of that kind stand under the provisions of this Clause.
    Mr. PRINGLE: I beg to second the Amendment.
    8.0 P.M.
    Mr. MUNRO: If I understand aright the question of my hon. Friend, what he

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    wants to be satisfied about is that where there are benefactions with special local destinations they shall not be affected by the provisions of this Clause. I do not apprehend any danger whatever of that, and, as I am advised that that is so, I think that my hon. Friend may accept my assurance on that point.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that words may be required to make that clear?
    Mr. MUNRO: I shall have the matter carefully examined, and if words should be necessary to make clear what I think, and I am advised, is clear as the Clause stands, they shall be inserted in another place.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    The following Amendment stood on the Paper in the name of Mr. PRINGLE:
    To leave out Sub-section (2), and to insert instead thereof the words:
    "(2) Each education authority shall annually ascertain the amount of such deficiency and, in the case of the scheduled burghs shall certify to the town council of each such burgh the amount thereof, and, in the case of other areas, shall apportion and allocate the same among the burghs and county or counties constituting an education area, according to their respective valuations In the valuation roll, and shall not later than the twelfth day of June in each year certify to the town council of each burgh and the county council of each county the amount of such deficiency, and the town council and county council shall impose, levy, and collect the same within such burgh or county, respectively, under the name of education rate, and shall from time to time as they collect it pay over the amount collected to the local education authority without any deduction on account of the cost of levying and collecting the same:

    (a) In a county, excluding a burgh, the education rate shall be imposed, levied, and collected by the county council in like manner and under the like powers as, but as a separate assessment from, and without the limit applicable to the public health general assessment;

    (b) In every burgh the education rate shall be imposed, levied, and collected in like manner and under the like powers as, but as a separate assessment from and without the limit or abatements applicable to the public health general assessment."

    Mr. SPEAKER: The next Amendment which stands in the name of the hon. Member for North-west Lanark appears to me to alter the existing law with reference to the incidence of rating.
    Mr. PRINGLE: On a point of Order. I submit that the Amendment which I propose does not alter the law of rating. It
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    merely suggests an alternative method of dealing with this subject of rating. In a previous Bill dealing with this subject the method of levying the rate was dealt with in a different way, and this does not change substantially the law. It merely determines which of the existing methods of levying a rate is to be applied for education purposes under the Bill.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: Undoubtedly this imposes a very serious charge on certain classes of the community. At present under the system of rating proposed under the Bill there are deductions made from rentals of certain classes of property, factories, railways, etc., which entirely disappear if the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman is accepted. Therefore a very large charge indeed would be imposed on such companies as railways and gas companies if the change were made. I submit that the proposal is quite out of order.
    Mr. DUNDAS WHITE: I submit that there is in this no proposal to increase the amount of the charge. The amount of the charge would be the same in either case on whichever basis the rate were levied.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: Not on the individual.
    Mr. WHITE: The question I submit is whether the rate should be levied in the same way as the poor law rate which is raised by the parish council, or whether it should rather be analogous to certain rates which are raised by county councils, and I submit that as there is no increase in the charge, and it is merely a question as to which of two systems, both of which are in operation now, should be adopted, this Amendment is in order.
    Mr. SPEAKER: The change of system surely would affect the individual. Some would pay less rate and others would pay more. If that is so we cannot deal with it under this Amendment.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, in Subsection (2), to leave out the words "not later than the twelfth day of June in each year," and to insert instead thereof the words "annually on or before a date to be fixed jointly by the Department, and the Local Government Board for Scotland."
    Under the existing Education Acts the date prescribed is the 12th June in each year, but more time may be required under the arrangements of this Bill. The later

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    the date the more convenient for the education authorities, and the earlier the date the more convenient for the parish council. It is not easy to fix a date which will satisfy the requirements of both these authorities, and the proposal which is embodied in this Amendment is to leave a duty to the Department who will safeguard the education authority, and to the Local Government Board who will protect the interests of the parish council. There can be no fear of conflict because the Secretary for Scotland is bead of both these Departments.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 15.—(Continuation Classes.)
    (7) Whenever a scheme has been approved by the Department, the education authority shall, in such manner as the Department may by Order prescribe, require every young person to whom the obligation to attend continuation classes under such scheme applies to attend with due regularity for instruction in accordance with the scheme at such times and places as the education authority may appoint.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (7), to insert in the Bill the words,
    "Provided that an education authority may upon such conditions as they think fit, exempt any young person from the obligation to attend continuation classes where, after due inquiry, the authority are satisfied that the circumstances justify such exemption, and the provisions of Section three of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1901, relating to the keeping of a register and to the power of the Department, shall, with the necessary modifications, apply to exemptions granted under this provision."
    The object of this Amendment is to provide that young persons who are obliged to attend continuation classes may, after due inquiry, be exempt from attendance. During the Committee stage of the Bill an Amendment was put down, as I take it, in the interests of the agricultural community, proposing that the school management committee should have the power to grant exemption to any such young person who could be advantageously exempted from attendance, and that the exemption should be confirmed by the education authority. I have also received resolutions from representative agricultural bodies urging that education authorities should be given unrestricted power of exemption in their districts, quite unfettered by any departmental supervision whatever. That view I am unable to accept. My hon. and learned Friend will quite appreciate that I could
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    not accept the Amendment proposed upstairs for similar reasons, partly because it would be unworkable, and partly because it would lead in practice to the same result as unrestricted exemption. I undertook in Committee to consider the whole matter anew before the Report stage. I recognise that there are practical difficulties in the way of an absolute uniform enforcement of this Clause as it stands, particularly in rural districts with sparse population, and where you have to deal with populations who reside at considerable distances from possible centres of instruction. I have therefore carefully considered the matter since it was discussed in Committee, and have come to the conclusion that what difficulty there is would be best met by allowing a carefully guarded power of exemption to the education authorities in this matter of attendance at continuation classes such as has been customary ever since 1901 in the matter of attendance at day schools. The Clause which I put down is merely to apply to the case of continuation classes the provisions of Section 3 of the Act of 1901 which applies to ordinary schools, and the effect of the Amendment is to allow the educational authorities, after being satisfied upon due inquiry into the particular case, to grant exemption under such conditions as they may think fit, but they will be required to keep a register of these exemptions. Power is reserved to the Department to call for a return of persons so exempted, and the circumstances in which and the conditions upon which the exemption in these cases has been granted. If the Department are not satisfied as to the manner in which this has been done, they may require the authority to recall the exemption The education authorities in the past, under the Act of 1901, have exercised this power with great discretion, and almost without interference, and I have every confidence that the new authorities set up under this Bill will use the power with similar discrimination and success.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, after the words last added, to insert in the Bill,
    "(8) If it appears to an education authority that any young person of the age of fifteen years and upwards is neglecting or failing without reasonable excuse to comply with any such requirements of the authority, it shall he lawful for that authority, after due warning to such young person and to his parent and employer (if any), to summon the young person, with or without his

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    parent or employer, to appear before the authority at any meeting thereof, and to require from him or them every information and explanation respecting such neglect or failure; and if such young person or his parent or employer, or some person on his or their behalf, either does not appear, or appears and does not satisfy the authority that there is reasonable excuse for such neglect or failure, it shall be lawful for the authority to order in writing that such young person shall comply with such requirement, or with such other requirement as to attendance as the authority may direct. The authority shall cause a copy of any such order to be sent to the young person by registered letter, and if the young person fails to comply with the order he shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a penalty not exceeding five shillings."
    There was a considerable feeling expressed in the Committee that the power of prosecution conferred by this Section upon the education authorities was too drastic. I found that this view was supported by the Edinburgh School Board, who have shown great zeal in the promotion of continuation classes, and whose opinion therefore in this matter is entitled to respect. It was suggested in Committee that before initiating a prosecution the education authorities should have some intermediate scheme of procedure, some buffer state, as it were, between the pupil and the Police Court, and the suggestion was that something similar to those provisions in Section 8 of the Education (Scotland) Act of 1908 might usefully be invoked. That suggestion, upon full consideration of the matter, I now propose to adopt by the insertion of this Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, after Subsection (12), to insert in the Bill,
    "(13) The provisions of Section four of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1908, which relates to the medical inspection of children, shall apply, with the necessary modifications, to the medical examination and supervision of young persons tinder the obligation to attend continuation classes under this Section."
    The purpose of this Clause is that provision shall be made for the medical inspection and supervision of children who are attending continuation classes. The object of the Amendment is a reasonable one, and I think, after consideration, that an extension to continuation classes of the power which education authorities at present exercise as regards children in attendance at day schools will meet the case. That is the view which I have embodied in this Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 16.—(Amendment of Employment of Children Act, 1903.)
    The Employmnt of Children Act, 1903, so far as it relates to Scotland shall be amended as follows:

    (1) For Sub-section (1) of Section three the following Sub-section shall be substituted—

    A child under the age of thirteen shall not be employed on any day on which he is required to attend school before the close of school hours on that day nor on any day before eight o'clock in the morning or after six o'clock in the evening, nor shall any child who is of the age of thirteen, but under the age of fifteen, be so employed unless he has been exempted under the Education (Scotland) Act, 1901, from the obligation to attend school:

    (2) For Sub-section (2) of Section three the following. Sub-section shall be substituted—

    No child or young person under the age of seventeen shall be employed in street trading.

    (3) To Section fourteen the following definition shall be added—

    The expression "child" means a person under the age of fifteen years, and for the purposes of this Act a person shall be deemed to attain that age on the date prescribed for terminating school attendance next succeeding the fifteenth anniversary of his birth.

    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "substituted" to insert in the Bill the words "a child under the age of twelve shall not be employed and."
    This Amendment would place the Scottish Bill on the same footing with regard to this matter, as the Bill for England which was passed a few weeks ago. In the English Bill employment was forbidden for children under the age of twelve years. I think it is rather a surprising thing that in the Bill as drawn for Scotland we should have neglected that very necessary provision for the protection of children less than twelve years of age, and that it should have been omitted. I should like to ask the Secretary for Scotland why this difference has been made between the two Bills. The English Bill forbids the employment of school children under twelve; the Scottish Bill does not contain that provision at all; it misses out the provision prohibiting employment for profit in the case of children under that age. I feel quite sure that the House, if I may say so, did not regard the provision in the English Bill as an unduly harsh provision. I think the feeling of the House, when the English Bill was under consideration, was that it was wholly reasonable to prohibit the employment of school children

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    under the age of twelve, and I think that most people outside this House felt that it was a wholly reasonable provision to prevent these infants from being employed for profit. That being so, it is, I think, a mistake to imagine that the people of Scotland are going to be content with something less than the protection that was given to English children in the English Bill. I am quite sure that public opinion in Scotland is not less advanced on this question than public opinion in England. I cannot imagine any vested interest in Scotland which would raise any objection—or which, if it raised any objection, would meet with considerable support—to the provision I am now moving, protecting children under the age of twelve from employment. I sincerely trust that the Government will accept the Amendment. Certainly I am not moving it in any controversial spirit—it is not an Amendment that will divide this House on the lines of party. It is, in itself, a wholly moderate Amendment; it simply extends the provisions of the English Act, so far as they relate to children who have not attained the age of twelve years, to the Scottish Bill.
    I do not think that any more words of mine are necessary in order to explain this Amendment, which is so wholly reasonable. I will therefore content myself with pointing out that it is demanded in Scotland; it is demanded by representative bodies in Scotland, who represent every phase of political and social thought. The demand that comes from Scotland for the protection of these children is based upon a knowledge of the very serious social conditions that exist in many parts of Scotland. I must remind the Lord Advocate that in the various inquiries that have taken place on social questions in recent years in Scotland, particular attention has been placed upon the need of doing much more to restrict the way in which the labour of school children was used. I would remind the Lord Advocate of a very weighty Report that was presented to this House dealing with the conditions arising out of street trading by children. I only mention that in passing, because street trading is dealt with in this Bill But that Report contains a vast amount of evidence dealing with the general question of the use of school children in various forms of industry. That is not
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    the only Report, as the Lord Advocate well knows. There are many other very serious Reports that have been presented to the Government and to this House, dealing with social conditions in Scotland, particularly from the standpoint of the use of school children improperly and prematurely in the industrial world. This Amendment will not go a very long way towards rectifying all the evils that have been brought to light, but it will go some way. It will prevent children under the age of twelve from any longer being used improperly in the industrial world, to their ruin and to the great loss of the nation.
    Mr. MUNRO: I have considerable sympathy with the motive which lies behind the Amendment which my hon. Friend has moved, but of course the effect of the Amendment, as he quite sees, is to set up a bar, and to prevent a child under the age of twelve from being employed in any capacity whatever. I may be right or I may be wrong, but the view which was taken when this Bill was framed, and to which I adhered—as I have done so far to the original provisions of it—was that it seemed rather hard and not quite reasonable to prevent young children—say crofters' children—from working on the land or doing a little bit of harvest work for their parents. It strikes me, prima facie, as being unreasonable to set up an absolute barrier against that work.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: That very point was met in the English Act.
    Mr. MUNRO: It is not met in this Amendment. I am quite aware that there is a relaxing power in the English Act—I have not got the Act before me at the moment.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: Well, put that in.
    Mr. MUNRO: But my hon. Friend has got no Amendment to that effect at all.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: Yes; I will move that at a later stage.
    Mr. MUNRO: When I see my hon. Friend's Amendment at a later stage I will consider it. But, in the meantime, I do suggest that apart from any such relaxation it would be quite unreasonable to prevent the employment of a child, even be that child under the age of twelve, from merely assisting his father, say, a crofter or a small agriculturist, in getting in his crops. There would be no harm to the

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    child; it would be all to the child's benefit; and any restrictive prohibition of this kind appears to me to be entirely unreasonable. Therefore I am afraid I cannot accept the Amendment.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to propose, in Subsection (1), to leave out the words "but under the age of fifteen."
    This is a purely drafting Amendment, which is, I submit, necessary in connection with the definition of "child."
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendment made: In Subsection (3), leave out the word "person," and insert instead thereof the words "child attending school."—[Mr. Munro.]

    CLAUSE 18.—(Transfer of Voluntary Schools.)
    (1) It shall be lawful at any time after the first election of education authorities under this Act for the person or persons vested with the title of any school which at the passing of this Act is a voluntary school within the meaning of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1897, with the consent of the trustees of any trust upon which such school is held, to transfer the school, together with the site thereof and any land or buildings held and used in connection therewith, by sale, lease, or otherwise, to the education authority, who shall be bound to accept such transfer, upon such terms as to price, rent, or other consideration as may be agreed, or as may be determined, failing agreement, by an arbiter appointed by the Department upon the application of either party.
    (2) Any school so transferred shall be held, maintained, and managed as a public school by the education authority, who shall be entitled to receive grants therefor as a public school, and shall have in respect thereto the sole power of regulating the curriculum and of appointing teachers.
    Provided that—
    (i) the existing staff of teachers shall be taken over by the education authority and shall from the date of transfer be placed upon the same scale of salaries as teachers of corresponding qualifications appointed to corresponding positions in other schools of the same authority.
    (iii) subject to the provisions of Section sixty-eight (Conscience Clause) of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1872, the time set apart for religious instruction or observance in any such school shall not be less than that so set apart according to the use and wont of of the former management of the school, and the education authority shall appoint as supervisor of religious instruction in any such school, or in any group of such schools of the same denomination, a person approved as regards religious belief and character as aforesaid, and it shall be the duty of the supervisor so appointed to
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    report to the education authority as to the efficiency of the religious instruction given in any such school.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "buildings" ["any lands or buildings"], to insert in the Bill the words, "and furniture."
    I submit that this is a reasonable Amendment. It deals with the case of schools which are transferred under the provisions of the Bill. It is provided that there shall be transferred the school, the site, and any land or buildings held and used in connection therewith. I propose to add "and furniture." It seems to me that the furniture will be quite useless to the authorities transferring the schools while it may be of service to the authorities to which the school is being transferred. It is, I think, a necessary and reasonable corollary to the previous words.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (1), to insert in the Bill,
    "(2) Any Grant payable to a transferred school which has accrued in respect of a period before the date of transfer shall be paid by the Department to the education authority to whom the school is transferred, and shall be applied by that authority in payment of any liabilities on account of the school then outstanding and, so far as not required for that purpose, towards the maintenance of the school."
    This Amendment is really an adaptation of paragraph (2) of the Second Schedule of the English Education Act of 1902. That Act made similar provision for the application of Grants which would be otherwise due in respect of unexpired portions of the school year on the occasion of the transfer of voluntary schools to the local education authority of the district in which those schools are situated. It seemed to us that it was a reasonable provision to insert in this Bill—that is the view which has been taken by my colleagues who represent the interests of the transferred schools, and I think it is quite a reasonable view to which to give effect.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. WATT: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (2) (i), to insert in the Bill the words,
    "and that years of recorded service in any school or schools transferred to an education authority shall for the purpose of this Subsection be deemed to have been in the service of that education authority."

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    This Amendment deals with the transfer of voluntary schools to education authorities. Those transfers are compulsory under certain provisions. One of those provisions is that the existing staff of teachers shall be taken over by the education authority and placed on the same scale of salaries as teachers of corresponding qualifications appointed to corresponding positions in other schools of the same authority. The Amendment seeks to provide that the years of recorded service in the schools so transferred shall be placed to the credit of the teacher, and it seems to me it is so reasonable that it is quite likely that the right hon. Gentleman will accept it. It is scarcely necessary to argue that the teachers transferred from voluntary schools will be under a disadvantage if they do not get credit for their years of recorded service they would suffer in status, pension, and seniority, and I contend that this Amendment should therefore be passed in order that those disadvantages may not arise.
    Mr. DUNDAS WHITE: I beg to second the Amendment. I am not by any means certain that this Amendment is necessary, but the object of some of us in putting it down was to remove any doubt. As the Bill stands, the provision is that in the case of those voluntary schools taken over the existing staff of teachers shall be taken over by the education authority, and shall, from the date of transfer, be placed upon the same scale of salary as the teachers of corresponding qualifications, and so on, under the other schools under that authority. There is a doubt whether under this provision they would be entitled to count their years of recorded service as if that recorded service had been under the old school board, and it is in order to remove that doubt that this Amendment is moved specifically providing that the years of recorded service in any school or schools transferred shall for the purposes of this Sub-section be deemed to have been service under that education authority. I hope my right hon. Friend will see his way to accept this proposal.
    Mr. BOLAND: I desire to support this Amendment. I know that the teachers do attach very considerable importance to it, and not merely those teachers who will be in the area of schools transferred, but very largely in the case of teachers who may be transferred from other education authorities. They are very anxious to
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    make it quite clear that any service they have given in past years will count in future.
    Mr. CLYDE: It is not by any manner of means from lack of sympathy with what hon. Members had in their minds that we are compelled to refuse acceptance of this Amendment. The reason why it must be refused is this. To accept it would only create another grievance, and a more serious one. Let me explain what the situation is. The teacher in the transferred school taken over is placed as regards salary, exactly in the same position as other teachers of similar qualifications in the education area into which he is absorbed. There are not many schools in Scotland in which the salaries depend on the number of years' service. What I mean is this: There are few, but very few, cases of teachers employed in Scottish schools at a salary of, let us say, from £100 rising £150, or £150 rising £200. There are some, but there are very few, and it is only in those few cases where the importance of getting reckoned your number of recorded years' service is great. There of course it is, but nowhere else, because in all other cases when the school is transferred the teacher, whatever be the salary that was paid to him or her before, gets in future exactly the same salary as the educational authority gives to other masters or mistresses, as the case may be, of the same qualification. The grievance, limited though it is, is undoubtedly there, and that is why we have sympathy with it. Why we are compelled to refuse it is this: No similar arrangement exists, nor under the Bill can be made directly, in the case of the appointment of a teacher to one school from another.
    The reason why there is no such arrangement is that there are so few cases in which there is a salary rising by years' service; but suppose a man is employed in a school in Aberdeen and he gets a better appointment in Glasgow or Edinburgh, wherever it is, which is one of these appointments with a rising salary, there is no allowance given under the existing system at all to the fact that he has already served for so many years in Aberdeen, and therefore, if you were to try to get this in in the case of the transferred school, you would only create a fresh grievance, and a more serious one, because the person who was in the position of having been appointed first to school A, and then appointed

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    from that to school B, would not get the benefit, and he would naturally say, "You have given this to the teacher in a transferred school, and it is monstrous that I should be left out in the cold and rain." Lastly, there is another matter to which I must refer. There is, as hon. Members who have written to me know, going to be a new scale of salaries propounded, and it is hoped—and certainly, if it can be done, it is intended—under the new scale to avoid difficulties of this kind altogether; but for the reasons which I have indicated the Amendment which is proposed is one which we are driven to refuse, not out of lack of sympathy with those who have the grievance, limited as it is, but because we think it better not to give a merely partial remedy which would create a fresh grievance elsewhere.
    Mr. SCANLAN: The right hon. Gentleman has explained frankly—he is always frank with the House—the true facts of the case with which this Amendment deals, and what he said plainly comes to this, that there is a grievance, and that he thinks the words used in the Amendment are not words appropriate to cure this grievance, and that if they removed the injustice under which the teachers from transferred schools suffer they would intensify the injustice in other cases. I think the very fact that the Lord Advocate admits a grievance of a flagrant nature in the case of a certain number of teachers throws upon him and upon the Secretary for Scotland the duty of finding a means for removing this grievance, and I trust my hon. Friends who have proposed and seconded this Amendment will ask for a Division unless the Secretary for Scotland will give us an assurance that, if not here, at least in another place, he will find an opportunity of introducing some Amendment which will remedy the grievance which the representatives of the Government on the Treasury Bench admit will exist unless something is done in this matter. We do not want to intensify the grievance of the teachers in the ordinary schools, but where you are going to put teachers in the transferred schools under disability I think something should be done to cure this grievance without doing anything to injure any other person in Scotland. The matter is so reasonable as it has been put by the Lord Advocate that I trust the Secretary for Scotland will be
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    able to give us an assurance which will obviate the necessity of going to a Division on this matter.
    Mr. MUNRO: I am not sure that I can really add anything to what has been already said by my right hon. Friend the Lord Advocate, or to what has been implied in his speech He referred, among other matters, to the provisions of Section 7 of the Bill, and, in answer to what my hon. and learned Friend has said, I think that very probably the cure for the grievance which he feels, and which is not disputed, will be found in the provisions of Sub-section (c) of that Section. My hon. and learned Friend will remember that when the Bill was passing through Committee upstairs he, I think, moved to add this Sub-section. Now, it is the duty of every educational authority within twelve months after the appointed day to prepare and submit a scheme for the approval of the Department. That scheme formerly was merely to deal with the provision of educational facilities throughout the area and also for the power to facilitate attendance at secondary and intermediate schools. But we have now added at the instance, I believe, of my right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow and St. Andrew's Universities (Sir H. Craik) this also, that every scheme must include
    "a scheme for scales of salaries for the teachers employed by the authority, satisfying such conditions as to minimum national scales of salaries for teachers as may be laid down by the Department after consultation with representatives of the educational authorities and of the teaching profession."
    These schemes are to be adjusted after full representations have been made, not only by the educational authority, who are familiar with the grievance, but also by the teachers themselves, who know it, and I really put it to my hon. and learned Friend that along these lines, without any alteration or addition to the Bill, I am very hopeful that the grievance he has felt will eventually be solved.
    Mr. SCANLAN: My right hon. Friend is a great and distinguished lawyer as well as an important State official as Secretary for Scotland, and he admits that it is a matter of some doubt whether the provisions of Sub-section (c) of Section 7 will remedy this grievance, and I think if he could give us the assurance that if he or the Department finds that the grievance will not be remedied by this provision he

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    will take some departmental or some other means of meeting the grievance, there may be no necessity to go to any Division.
    Mr. MUNRO: I have no hesitation in saying to my hon. and learned Friend that I shall have this matter re-examined in view of what has been said by him, with the intention, if possible, of remedying the grievance to which he has referred.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. BOLAND: I beg to move, in Subsection (26, iii.), after the word "supervisor" ["shall appoint as supervisor"], to insert in the Bill the words "without remuneration."
    The object of this Amendment is to make it perfectly clear that when the supervisor who will have the duty of attending the schools and seeing after the religious instruction is appointed, so far as he is concerned no charge of any kind will fall either on the rates or on the central funds. Any expense that is incurred in connection with his duties will entirely be borne, if my Amendment is carried out, by the denomination to which he belongs.
    Mr. SCANLAN: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. MUNRO: This Amendment I have no hesitation whatever in accepting. I am glad to see my hon. Friend has put it upon the Paper. I am well aware there was a feeling in some quarters in Scotland with regard to the proposal which was assumed to be contained in the Bill that the supervisors to be appointed should be paid for out of the rates. That objection has entirely disappeared in virtue of the Amendment my hon. Friend has put upon the Paper. In those circumstances I have no hesitation at all in accepting it.
    Sir J. JARDINE: Will my right hon. Friend say to what particular denomination this proviso applies?
    Mr. MUNRO: It applies to all transferred schools, whether Catholic or Episcopalians, so long as they are under public authority.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. SCANLAN: I beg to move, in Subsection (2, iii.), to leave out the words "in any such school, or in any group of such schools of the same denomination," and to insert instead thereof the words "for each such school."
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    This Amendment follows, I think, necessarily and very reasonably after the Amendment which has just been accepted. The supervisor is to be unremunerated, and what I submit to the House is that it is a domestic matter for the religious bodies which have set up and carried on those schools to decide for themselves the religious instruction which shall be supervised. The change I am proposing is that there shall be a supervisor for each school, instead of a supervisor for a group of schools. If there were a supervisor for a group of schools it would be necessary to give remuneration. It is not suggested that he should be remunerated out of the rates, but it stands to reason that if a Catholic clergyman, say, in regard to Catholic schools, devotes his time to supervising a group of schools, he is unable to discharge the other duties which ordinarily fall to him, and we propose that the clergyman who ordinarily looks after the religious instruction in the school should continue to do so. That is the effect of the Amendment which I move—that there shall be a supervisor for each school.
    Mr. BOLAND: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Whitley): The Amendment as handed in, I think, is not quite in regular form, but I will take it, as the intention is expressed quite clearly.
    Mr. MUNRO: I agree with what fell from my hon. and learned Friend that this is largely a domestic matter. I do not regard this as a question of substance really. I think it is consequential upon what has preceded, and in that view I have no hesitation in accepting the Amendment. I would like to take the opportunity at this stage, if I may, in coming near to the end of this Clause, of expressing my indebtedness to my hon. and learned Friend and his colleague for the spirit in which they have met me with regard to all the Amendments upon this Clause during the Recess. The House will remember that this Clause was not discussed in Committee upstairs, but was left over in the hope that by interchange of views and by conference it might be possible to avoid many of the controversies which seemed to lie underneath the numerous Amendments then on the Paper to this Clause. The net result has been that, instead of three pages of Amendments, we have only three Amendmenta

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    moved upon this Clause to-night, which result seems to justify the policy then pursued. I thought it was due to my hon. and learned Friend and his colleague to say how much I appreciate the fairness with which they have met me upon all these points.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. SCANLAN: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (2), to insert in the Bill the words,
    "The supervisor shall have right of entry to the school at all times set apart for religious instruction or observance. The education authority shall give facilities for the holding of religious examinations in every such school."
    This Amendment is similar to the last Amendment in that it is purely domestic. It provides for religious examinations. If it is conceded that there is a right to have religious instruction in the schools, it follows most naturally from that that there should be an annual or other periodical examination in order to see that the instruction has been properly given and properly carried out. In asking the House to accept this Amendment, may I express, on behalf of my colleague, who was with me on the Committee, and myself, our indebtedness to the Secretary for Scotland? We believe that this measure, incorporating as it does the denominational schools of Scotland in a great national system, is a great Act, and in perfecting this measure and bringing as great a degree of co-operation as we have seen in the House to-day my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland has achieved a distinct triumph in educational legislation. I ask the House to accept this Amendment in the spirit in which they have accepted the other Amendments. I have believed all along that the people of Scotland and the Members from Scotland, representing all classes, would act fearlessly and generously towards those who have been responsible for the carrying on of denominational schools in Scotland. Those schools have been built by the denominations at their own expense. They are now being given over, and the safeguards asked for and granted are considerably less than the safeguards given when a similar transference of denominational schools was carried out in regard to England. We might have hoped for more, but, as the result of negotiations and interchange of views, we have accepted on behalf of those for whom we are entitled to speak the Amendments
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    which have been made, and I ask the House in that spirit to accept this Amendment.
    Mr. BOLAND: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. MUNRO: As the House will observe, and as I think my hon. and learned Friend has said, this right of entry which is supposed to be conferred upon the supervisor is limited to the time set apart for religious instruction or observance. So limited, it seems to me to be the corollary to what the House has already accepted from my hon. Friend. If there is to be a supervisor of religious instruction it naturally follows that he must have a right of entry to these schools at a time when that instruction is being given. It also follows that he should be given facilities for holding examinations in these subjects at appropriate times. In that view therefore, again, I think it is reasonable to accept this Amendment, as I propose to do.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 20.—(Advisory Council.)
    It shall be lawful for His Majesty in Council by Order to establish an advisory council consisting, as to not less than two-thirds of the members, of persons qualified to represent the views of various bodies interested in education, for the purpose of advising the Department on educational matters referred to the advisory council by the Department, and the Department shall take into consideration any advice or representation submitted to them by the advisory council.
    Mr. ADAMSON: I beg to move to leave out the words "as to not less than two thirds of the members of persons qualified to represent the views of various bodies interested in education," and to insert instead thereof the words
    "of fourteen members, six being representatives of local education authorities, two of trade unions, two of the industrial co-operative societies of Scotland, two of employers of labour, and two of teachers."
    This Amendment is moved with the object of changing the composition of the advisory council. We want to make it more democratic than appears upon the Order Paper. I do not know that I quite understand what is meant by two-thirds of the members being qualified to represent the views of the various bodies interested in education. We think it would be better to have a council composed of a definite number of representatives drawn from various specified bodies as suggested in the Amendment. We feel that unless

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    some such arrangement as we suggest is embodied in the Bill that labour and the co-operative movement will stand very little chance of representation on such a body. Unless we have this representation it will be a distinct hardship for a very large section of the community. Consequently I beg to move.
    Mr. BOOTH: I beg to second the Amendment.
    9.0 P.M.
    Mr. MUNRO: The Amendment which has just been proposed is one which the right hon. Gentleman proposed upstairs in Grand Committee. It resembles the Amendment which he proposed a little while ago in this House. Both here and upstairs, however, his Amendment has received, according to my recollection, very little support. This was not from the view that labour should not be properly represented upon the advisory council. Far from it! I think we all anticipate that labour may be represented upon the advisory council. That, however, is not the question before the House. The question before us is whether we are prepared at this stage to stereotype the representation on the council in the way suggested. The view taken upstairs was that it was highly undesirable so to do. It was indicated, for example, that the council would possibly include representatives of councils, of central institutions, of technical colleges, of schools of art, and many other such institutions. The House will observe that none of these institutions are mentioned in the Bill. In other words, it has been thought extremely undesirable to stereotype here and now the composition of this council as to the number and character of its representatives. That will be a matter for careful inquiry when the body comes to be constituted. I do not think that it would be desirable here and now that the House should do anything to decide, without full knowledge of the circumstances—and we cannot have full knowledge of those circumstances—that there should be so many representatives from various bodies on the council. It may be found that the course suggested is a very proper one. I do not, however, think it would be proper that this should be done until after very full consideration of the circumstances. I think that no rigid direction should be given by the House, which
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    cannot at the moment project itself into the position of knowing future conditions in this matter. Therefore for these reasons, which I do not desire to rehearse at length, because they were fully stated upstairs, I regret I cannot accept the Amendment.
    Amendment negatived.
    Sir J. HOPE: I beg to move to leave out the words "referred to the Advisory Council by the Department."
    The effect of this Amendment is to give power of initiation to the advisory council. I hope at this stage, in view of what has gone before, that the Secretary for Scotland will agree to this Amendment. It is a very small matter. The Scottish Education Department are not to be overruled by this council. I am not suggesting any Amendment which would force the Scottish Education Department to take advice offered by the advisory council. I am only asking leave for this advisory council to give advice and make recommendations to the Department without being specially asked to do so. If this advisory council is to be of any use, or any authority, surely the Members might be allowed to give advice without first asking permission from the Scottish Education Department! It seems to me not to allow this is a very small and petty matter; for a good many of those concerned set a good deal of store by it, and it would give a better status if these words were taken out. I do not see that the alteration would in any way affect the dignity of the Scottish Education Department. They are still left the power of taking the advice into consideration, and that is all they are asked to do. I am sure the Secretary for. Scotland will seriously consider the acceptance of this Amendment, which will give an improved status to the advisory council. Leave the Clause out altogether; otherwise give the council a chance.
    Mr. GULLAND: I beg to second the Amendment.
    The Secretary for Scotland has made admirable progress with his Bill to-night, and I am quite sure if he is in a mood to grant a small concession of this nature he will really add to the popularity of his Bill in Scotland. It will also add to the smooth working of it. A few minutes ago he said that he thought it would be a mistake to stereotype the membership of the council. What we are asking him now to do is to refrain from sterotyping the duties

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    of the council. We ask that its working may be a little more elastic than suggested in the Bill. I think this is desirable in order that the council may be a success, because many people do not approve of it, and are throwing cold water upon it. If it is properly worked, the council may be a most admirable body. Even if this Amendment is agreed to, it does not take the matter very far, because, after all, the Department can do practically what it likes. In the first place, they appoint the council, and they can appoint whoever they please, and the members may be as tame as the Department likes. The Department may appoint men and women beforehand whom it knows exactly what they will say, and after they have reported the Department does not need to accept or adopt one single recommendation they make. It is merely an advisory council, and surely when you are going to set up a council like that it ought to have a little freedom. The Bill grudgingly says that it may consider matters submited to it by the Department, but if this council is to have any usefulness at all, it ought of its own initiative to be allowed to advise the Department on matters which it wishes to bring forward. To-day there was a very strong discussion and a very strong Division on the question of transferring the Scottish Education Department to Scotland. I do not know what the votes of Scottish Members were, but I should not be surprised to see from the Division List that a very large number of Members representing Scotland did not vote with the Secretary for Scotland.
    This is a matter on something like the same lines. This advisory council is a Scottish body sitting in Scotland, presumably, and it really would be a little concession to those Members who have pleaded before for the transfer of the Department to Scotland if the Secretary for Scotland would really for once allow some-body else besides the Department to have something to do with education in Scotland. Let the people of Scotland have some initiative. Surely a Liberal Secretary for Scotland—and I emphasise the word "Liberal"—can trust an advisory council which he himself appoints merely to recommend him something that they feel strongly about, and which he does not permit himself to accept or adopt even when they recommend it. I feel very strongly that this advisory council, which, I think, will be a very useful thing, should be given a little more freedom and initia-
    210
    tive at the early stages. At a time when the right hon. Gentleman is carrying everything before him, as he has done to-day, I hope he will grant us a little concession of this nature.
    Sir W. BEALE: I think the Secretary for Scotland would be well advised to accept the Amendment, for there is no subject on which people like to make suggestions more than upon education. I think it would be very useful if people, instead of having to bring all their ideas before my lord could go to the advisory committee. I am sure this course would tend very much to improvements in education, and it would give opportunities of doing a great deal in the way of furnishing useful advice, and it would save a good deal of useless advice.
    Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR: I wish to associate myself with the earnest and eloquent appeal which has been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dumfries Burghs (Mr. Gulland) and other hon. Members who have spoken upon this Amendment, which I hope the Secretary for Scotland will see his way to accept. Unless these words are deleted from the Clause as it stands you certainly will not get the people to accept office upon this advisory committee which we desire to see acting, because their powers are so extremely limited. The right hon. Gentleman has indicated the type of persons, such as the representatives of universities or schools of art and other institutions throughout the country. These gentlemen will all be more or less experts in educational matters, and they will possess very valuable information and knowledge which they can bring to the notice and attention of the Department. To suggest that they are to be appointed on the advisory committee and never to give any advice unless they are asked, and they may not be asked, is very remarkable. There is no suggestion that they are to be invited to give advice from time to time, and therefore it rests entirely with the Department to say whether or not they are ever to open their mouths.
    Surely that is not a position which any man of standing will be prepared to accept, and I sincerely urge upon the Secretary for Scotland that in this matter he should make the advisory council from the beginning of such a status and position of influence that it will attract to it the best educational advisers in Scotland. I have had the privilege of acting upon

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    one or two advisory committees in connection with various Departments and I have never known one appointed simply to give advice when it is asked. The rule is that they deal with certain problems which they consider, and then they give the benefit of their advice to the Department directly. Of course the Department need not take action, but in many cases one has known that the advice given has been regarded as valuable and useful, and has been accepted with considerable advantage. I sincerely hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept this Amendment.
    Mr. MUNRO: There are two considerations which incline me to accept this Amendment. The first is quits irrelevant, and the second is entirely relevant. The irrelevant consideration is that I am deeply grateful to the House for the progress I have been enabled to make with this Bill to-day, thanks to its courtesy and consideration, and if this concession were regarded as a small return for that consideration, I would willingly make it. The relevant consideration is the extraordinarily persuasive and eloquent speech which my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries Burghs (Mr. Gulland) has made. I feel it difficult, indeed, almost impossible, to resist such an appeal. However upon his shoulders must rest any evil consequences which may befall us if this Amendment be accepted. I propose to accept it subject to that note of warning. I hope the house will not regard this as ungrateful. I am willing to take the risk, always reminding the House and the country that the responsibility lies upon the shoulders of the right hon. Gentleman opposite.
    Sir J. JARDINE: I would like to congratulate the Secretary for Scotland upon having yielded to the persistent demands of the right hon. Gentleman opposite and other hon. Members who have spoken on this subject. We require to have advice tendered by competent men upon these questions, and I think our experience shows the great value of getting enlightenment by whatever means you can and from whatever cause.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 21.—(Education (Scotland) Fund.)
    (2) (a) After providing for the payments mentioned in Sub-section (1) of Section sixteen of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1908, the balance of
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    the Education (Scotland) Fund that may remain in any year shall be applied as nearly as may be in making Grants in aid of the expenditure of education authorities (or outgoing school boards and secondary education committees) and managers of schools in accordance with Minutes of the Department laid before Parliament:
    Provided that no minute of the Department framed under this Section shall come into force until it has lain for not less than one month on the Table of both Houses of Parliament.
    Mr. GULLAND: I beg to move, in Subsection (2, a), to leave out the words "one month," and to insert instead thereof the words "two months."
    I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind acceptance of the last Amendment, and I assure him that my shoulders are broad enough to bear the responsibility of any possible failure This Amendment is a very small one. It is asked for by existing education authorities. The Clause provides that "no Minute framed under this Section shall come into force until it has lain for not less than one month on the Table of both Houses of Parliament," and my Amendment says "two months." I rather think that the existing system is three months, but at any rate the education authorities feel that these new Minutes ought to be considered by the new education authorities. Very often they are very complicated documents. This very Clause takes a good deal of reading before one understands it, I will not say that it takes one month to digest it, but I would remind the Secretary for Scotland that in a later part of the Bill it is enacted that the education authority shall meet at least once a month. I think he will agree that it is only right, especially in the early stages of the working of the Act, that an opportunity should be given to these education authorities to consider any Minutes laid upon the Table by the Department. It would be a great pity if these Minutes were rushed through without an opportunity being given to the education authorities to consider them. This Act will need a great deal of sympathetic consideration by the Department and the authorities, and in the circumstances it is a fair request to make that these Minutes shall rest upon the Table of the House for two months instead of one month before they come into operation.
    Mr. MUNRO: I confess that I have not found my right hon. Friend quite so persuasive upon this occasion. He has not convinced me that there is any necessity for this Amendment. I agree that there

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    is not very much in it, and my only objection to accepting it is that it might involve considerable delay in getting out Minutes when it might be important that they should be promulgated at the earliest possible moment. Take the case of the teachers' salaries last year. The House will remember that a Minute setting apart £400,000 for that purpose was promulgated. It would have been both unnecessary and a pity if that Minute had been held up for two months instead of one month.
    Mr. GULLAND: Is the existing practice one month?
    Mr. MUNRO: My information is that the existing practice is one month. It has been found to be ample and has caused no inconvenience. I am afraid of inconvenience if I accept this Amendment. With that explanation, perhaps my right hon. Friend will be willing to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

    CLAUSE 22.—(Qualification of Electors.)
    The members for an electoral division of an education area shall be elected by the persons registered as local government electors for that division under the Representation of the People Act, 1918.
    Mr. D. WHITE: I beg to move, after the word "as," to insert in the Bill the words "Parliamentary electors or as."
    The object of this Amendment is to extend the franchise for the election of education authorities in order to include a very considerable number of men now serving with the Colours who would otherwise be excluded. As the Clause stands, the provision is that the members for an electoral division of an education area shall be elected by the persons registered as local government electors for that division under the Representation of the People Act, 1918. The Amendment provides that they shall be elected by the persons who are registered as Parliamentary electors or as local government electors for the division under the Act. At first sight it may seem that this would rather complicate the matter, but I submit that the practical difficulty would be very easily got over, because in the greater number of Scottish counties and county boroughs—in fact practically in all—the arrangements are similar to those in Glasgow, where there is a consolidated register with asterisks or other marks against the names of various people to show whether they are in the Parliamen-
    214
    tary or local government register. I know that it may seem rather a strange thing to say that the Parliamentary register should be used for this purpose, but the Parliamentary register is the better register for a great many purposes. Only the other day I received a communication from a very important representative body in Scotland urging that the Parliamentary register should be used.
    I have said that a very considerable number of gallant men who are at present serving at the front would be disfranchised so far as the election of education authorities is concerned if the register were limited to local government electors. In support of that I would like to give the figures for Glasgow which were supplied to me by my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland just before the House rose. I asked him if he could state the number of unmarried men serving with the Forces of the Crown who were Parliamentary but not local government electors in Glasgow, and if he could say whether the number was estimated to be about 30,000. He replied that he understood that so far as could be estimated at present 30,000 naval and military voters would be on the Parliamentary but not on the local government register in Glasgow, but it was not possible to say how many of them were unmarried. The House will see that if this franchise is limited to-local government electors the effect will be not to enfranchise some 30,000 men serving with the Colours so far as Glasgow is concerned. It may be said that a great many of them are unmarried. My right hon. Friend was unable to give me any statistics as to that, but though a considerable number of them may be unmarried, I can assure my right hon. Friend that a very considerable number are married, and very likely, owing to high war rents and war prices and the difficulties of living, they have given up their homes for the time being and their wives and families are living with friends and relatives. There is a vast number of these, and I maintain it would be deplorable if these men, who are serving their country at the front, were deprived of the franchise for electing these education authorities. If we take the number in Glasgow as 30,000, and accept it as the proper proportion for the rest of the country, if we bear in mind, too, that Glasgow contains rather more than one-fifth of the total population of Scotland, we shall see that the numbers serving at

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    the front who would be deprived of the right to elect the educational authorities would probably be somewhere between 130,000 and 150,000. It is a very serious matter that they should be disfranchised both on general grounds and particularly for the reasons I have stated, and in order that these men who are fighting at the front should have the privilege of voting for these authorities, I beg to move this Amendment, and I hope my right hon. Friend may see his way to accept it.
    Mr. BOLAND: I beg to second the Amendment.
    The figures which have just been given by the hon. Member will probably have come upon the House as something of a surprise. My own information with regard to the city of Glasgow exactly tallies with the figures given, and it is clear that 30,000 men now serving with the Forces of the Crown will not be allowed to exercise the franchise as far as the Education Act is concerned. One statement made by my hon. Friend—that no new register will be required—is to my mind very important. I can imagine that the Secretary for Scot-land at this stage of the Bill might say that he could not make any concession of this kind, as it might involve a new register. But that is not necessary, as I understand that the register now in existence can be utilised without a single change. May I say further that in view of the very valuable Report issued the other day by the Reconstruction Committee dealing with the question of adult education, a Report in which it is laid down that one of the most necessary things to be done is not merely to look after the education of children and young persons, but to enable grown-up men and women to also have these educational advantages, it will be a little bit of a slap in the face to the men serving with the forces if they are not to be allowed to vote on the question of education for themselves, as well as for the children of the country. That is an unreasonable position to take up, and I therefore hope the Secretary for Scotland will see his way to accept the Amendment.
    Mr. CLYDE: I am by no means certain of what I am going to say, but I am nearly certain that if this Amendment were adopted these elections would be hopelessly unworkable. It is all very well to say that for local government purposes you want to make use of the Parliamentary
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    register. But that is not all. You will also want to make use of the whole of the machinery, particularly with regard to soldiers and sailors, which is to be set up for Parliamentary elections. That is a very much larger concern. Under this Bill the Regulations for the election are to be made by the Department, and therefore I suppose what this Amendment really contemplates is that the Department should make a separate Regulation so as to bring into complete operation the entire machinery from top to bottom for recording and collecting the votes of absent soldiers and sailors. If that is not the intention, the object which the hon. Member has in view cannot be accomplished, for it is no use saying you are to use the Parliamentary register if you are not going to give the absent sailors and soldiers the power of voting.
    Mr. WHITE: I think my right hon. Friend has overlooked the fact that the Act is not to come into operation until the "appointed day," and by the appointed day we hope that these difficulties which he is suggesting will have passed away.
    Mr. CLYDE: I am very far from overlooking that, but I assume that one important point with regard to the soldiers and sailors is that they may be absent at the election, and you want to give them the power of voting; otherwise the Amendment will be worthless. If the soldiers and sailors are to be treated in this matter as in the matter of Parliamentary elections, my answer is that that cannot be done by this Amendment, and if you attempt to make a regulation to enable it to be done the expense which will be involved would be out of all question. This is not a practicable thing. It is no use looking at the matter in an idealistic frame of mind. It is but a very short time ago that the Legislature made up its mind, when reviewing the whole question of electoral rights and electoral tests, that there should be a Local Government register and a Parliamentary register. I think we must accept that decision of the House, and it would be unreasonable, so soon after it had been arrived at, to say that we will have another register which would be a hotchpotch of both the Local Government and the Parliamentary register. I do not think we ought to make a third and fancy register, even if we did think that Parliament was wrong in having decided to have two registers. Parliament having

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    made up its mind, it seems only reasonable to accept the local government register for the purposes of electing the educational authorities.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: The issue before the House is a very simple one. We want this election to be held on the very widest franchise, a franchise which will bring in the largest number of residents in a constituency. We have two registers in existence, and the Amendment suggests that by using both registers we can bring in the largest possible number of electors which the existing machinery will enable us to have. My right hon. Friend, with a very subtle mind, raised a difficulty with regard to the next election, and the machinery for dealing with absent soldiers and sailors. But we are not so much concerned with the next election. What we are concerned with is the permanent position, if there is any difficulty about the next election in regard to absent soldiers and sailors, seeing that that difficulty has already been overcome in the case of Parliamentary elections by machinery being devised for overcoming it, it ought to be equally possible to have an election for the educational authority conducted on similar lines. If the machinery cannot be provided in the Bill now, it surely would be quite easy to introduce it into the Bill in another place. If this Amendment is carried, and if it is necessary to make a further adjustment of the Bill, to secure adequate machinery for carrying out the Amendment, then Amendments in the way of machinery already in being, as regards the new Representation of the People Act, could easily be introduced in another place. I submit that we are dealing with a permanent system, and that we ought here to adopt a system which will bring in the largest number of electors. In Scotland our local government system has been practically identical with the Parliamentary register. It is different under the new Franchise Act, in which a change was made—in the face of some opposition—that was not contemplated in the report of the Speaker's Committee, and the intention of the Scottish Members who were present as members of that Committee was that the system should remain as at present, the local government franchise to be the same as the parliamentary franchise. The House, I believe, is not fully aware of all the conditions. This Amendment would secure
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    what we have had in practice in Scotland in the past, and, in another place the machinery for carrying it out could be perfectly easily embodied.
    Mr. ADAMSON: The Lord Advocate in the course of his remarks said this question was a practical one. With that statement I entirely agree. I am not sure that he exactly appreciates where the difficulty comes in. The difficulty which this Amendment seeks to remedy has arisen in consequence of the change made by the Representation of the People Act. In consequence of the change made in that Act a large number of young men of Scotland, who previously had the local government vote, have been disfranchised. It does not apply to soldiers and sailors, but it applies to all unmarried men generally. Thousands and thousands of those who have previously had a local government vote, under the new conditions, have been disfranchised, and this Amendment seeks to remedy the damage done them. When the Representation of the People Act was under consideration the Secretary for Scotland undertook to see that the position of the local government vote under the new Bill would be no worse than under the old one. That should have been carried out, because the position of the unmarried male voters in Scotland is very much worse. Thousands upon thousands have been disfranchised, and will not be able, unless a change is made in the law, to exercise the local government vote in future. To such an extent is that the case that the Secretary for Scotland will to-morrow be meeting a large and influential deputation from Scotland to bring that very point before him. I expect that Scottish Members will be interviewed by that deputation. This Amendment seeks to put the matter right, and it should get the sympathetic and favourable consideration of the Secretary for Scotland. I do not think that the young men of Scotland should be disfranchised, though it may have been done by mistake. If it has not been done by mistake, or even if it has, then we ought to take the earliest opportunity of remedying it so far as we can, at any rate, so far as the school board is concerned.
    Amendment negatived.

    CLAUSE 24.—(Dismissal of Teachers.)
    (1) No resolution of an education authority for the dismissal of a certificated teacher from their service shall be valid unless—

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    (a) written notice of the motion for his dismissal shall, not less than three weeks before the meeting at which the resolution is adopted, have been sent to the teacher and to each member of the education authority; and

    (b) the resolution is agreed to by a majority of the full number of members of the education authority.

    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, in Subsection (1, b), to leave out the words
    "by a majority of the lull number of members of the education authority,"
    and to insert instead thereof the words
    "two-thirds of the members of the education authority present and voting."
    My hon. Friend the Member for Lanark moved, upstairs, that the Clause should read "two-thirds of the members present and voting," and I promised to consider the matter before the Report stage. I was disposed at the time to accept the proposal of my hon. Friend, but there was difficulty, in regard to the larger and more sparsely populated areas, as to securing the full attendance at meetings of the education authorities concerned. So far as the regular meetings of the authorities are concerned, that is quite a different point, I admit. Perhaps we might meet that by an Amendment lower down on the Paper. At the present moment my view is that if there is any question of the dismissal of a teacher upon the agenda paper of the education authority, it would be certain to have a large attendance of members on that occasion. Certainly the friends of the teacher would be there, and very properly so. Accordingly my first observation would be that if this matter were given notice of beforehand, it would ensure a very large attendance of the education authority. Will the House please observe how that matter stands? Under the Section at present there must be three weeks' notice of any proposal to dismiss a teacher; that notice must be given to every member of the education authority, and also to the teacher himself, so that every one of these persons concerned would have the fullest notice of the proposal to dismiss a teacher. I do not think there is any risk which a teacher would run as the result of the House accepting the Amendment. Even if all these safeguards to which I have referred were not sufficient, I beg the House to remember that I accepted an Amendment upstairs which involved, even under the new and larger authorities, that there shall still be a right of
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    appeal to the Education Department. It was thought in the Committee that that right of appeal under Section 21 of the Act of 1908 is really unnecessary now in view of the larger education authorities which are to be set up, and there is a great deal to be said for that view; but yielding, as I thought, to the view of the great majority of the Members who were present, I have restored that Section, which was repealed in the Fifth Schedule to this Bill, and, in terms in the Clause which is under consideration, it is now clearly enacted that the right of appeal shall remain, even though the authorities are larger and probably more responsible than the smaller school boards. Therefore, inasmuch as there is full notice—three weeks—to the teacher and to each member, inasmuch as the proposal to dismiss a teacher will always ensure a full attendance of the education authority, and inasmuch therefore as a snap Division is really not to be anticipated, and, finally, inasmuch as if it did occur, there is a right of appeal to the Education Department, which would have to decide whether the dismissal was reasonably justifiable or not, I submit that the rights of teachers are amply safeguarded by this Amendment.
    Mr. GULLAND: I am rather disappointed that the Secretary for Scotland has put down this Amendment, because my recollection was that the Committee was quite satisfied generally with the way it was left upstairs. I have always understood that one of the reasons for this Bill was to ensure security of tenure to teachers, and I am not convinced by the arguments that the Secretary for Scotland has used. Perhaps I have some right to speak on the matter because he has several times used the words "snap Division." I claim to be a victim of snap Divisions, and am therefore rather interested in trying to prevent them, and I am not at all convinced of the dangers of snap Divisions being non-existent. You never know when a snap Division is coming. That is the nature of it. And even with three weeks' notice of a meeting and of the business of the meeting you might have a bad day and you might have all sorts of conditions arising which would prevent a full attendance of the authority. Let us see what this Amendment actually means. A quorum of the education authority is one-fourth, and a teacher may be dismissed by two-thirds of the members of the education authority present and

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    voting. Two-thirds of a fourth, if my arithmetic is right, is one-sixth, and it may be even less than a sixth, because it is those present and voting, and there may be quite well some members of the authority who are present and do not wish to declare themselves on one side or the other. That means that you may have a teacher dismissed by a sixth, or less than a sixth, of the members of an education authority.
    Mr. MUNRO: There is still the right of appeal.
    Mr. GULLAND: No one wants to have these appeals. It is far better that the education authority should be responsible because the right of appeal is always there, but I do not see why the right hon. Gentleman has shifted his ground in this matter. I do not think he is very convincing in his arguments. I merely wish to put the case that the teacher is entitled to justice, and we understood he got it, in the terms of the Bill, by a Resolution agreed to by a majority of the full number of members of the education authority. That is a clear and definite number that he knows and everyone knows, but when you come to two-thirds of those present and voting you get into a sea of uncertainty and danger, and as one object of the Bill is to obtain security of tenure to the hardworking and capable and good teacher, I really do not think the Secretary for Scotland should depart from his original idea.
    Sir J. YOXALL: I very much hope I may be allowed to say a few words although intervening in an affair with which I have no direct concern. I deprecated to some extent the repeated interference of certain Scottish Members in the English Education Bill, and therefore I am all the more chary of saying anything on this Bill. But upon this point the teachers of Scotland are entirely opposed to the proposal made by the Secretary for Scotland. The last speaker has very ably exposed the immediate and detailed objections to the proposal. If you have a good teacher, it is to the interest of the school and the locality that you should back him up and make him secure in the discharge of his functions. The plan proposed by the Amendment might be very well in an urban area, but in county areas, particularly in the smaller parts of the county areas, in; small villages and hamlets, you have the teacher trying to do his duty, in the midst
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    of backbiting jealousies and difficulties engendered by his very efforts to do his duty, and the proposal made would be to place the teacher at the mercy of local jealousies and difficulties arising from the discharge of his duties. It is better to have no teacher at all than to produce in the teacher the fear that if he does his duty he may suffer because of the opposition and cabals of the parents of the children whom he found it his duty to chastise, to chasten, or to discipline in the proper way. To say that a teacher, having acted to the best of his opportunity and capacity, may be dispossessed from his position by a vote of a sixth of the local education authority is surely a proposal which cannot be sustained in this House. In England there must be a majority, and the fact that there must be a majority is found to be sufficiently operative to secure justice. It is true the English local authorities will be larger than the Scottish authorities in rural areas, and that in itself secures a fair amount of justice, but under this proposal I think, and I am sure the teachers of Scotland think, their proper safeguards will not be obtained. I would ask the Secretary for Scotland if he does not think it very important to fall in with the wishes general consensus of the communityega of the House, and of the teachers, and the general consensus of the community that a teacher doing his duty should be backed up in doing it. A disaffected parent who is perhaps opposed to education altogether, who disapproves of compulsory attendance at school, and who is not desirous that his child should be properly disciplined at school, should not be able by any amount of intrigue or cabal to bring about the dismissal of a teacher. When the Secretary for Scotland points out that three-weeks' notice having been given there would be a large attendance of the Committee, I think he is proposing to the House a fallacy. There are always in every locality a certain proportion of persons who prefer to abstain from a Division, who cannot make up their mind upon the Debate as it proceeds, and who are constitutionally unable to make up their minds, or if that be not the case they are cautious persons who look to the next election, and think of the weight of opinion on one side or the other, and decide that on the whole they had better abstain from voting. Therefore, you cannot depend upon having a full meeting of the education authority upon three

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    weeks' notice, and it may be that the dismissal of a teacher will be decided by not more than one-sixth of the total number. Is it necessary to make this change? Why vary the procedure which has been in existence up to now? Why make this change because a snap Division upstairs adopted a proposal of this kind? [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] I was not there, and if I am wrong I beg to withdraw the statement. But, for some reason which the Secretary for Scotland did not propound, this change is to be made. It was not in the original Bill, and I do not think it is his wish that a change should be made. However, we have this Amendment proposed which nobody wants, so far as I can understand. The teachers do not want it. Is there any proof that the local authorities want it? Is there any proof that anybody wants it other than the Member who proposed it to the Committee upstairs? Then why make the change? There is no real reason for making the change. In the past things have worked very well. The teachers have asked me to speak in their name, and I think I may claim to do that even upon a Scottish Bill. I urge and I beg the Committee to maintain for the teachers in the future as in the past that safeguard for independence in the discharge of their duty which security of tenure for the teacher means.
    10.0 P.M.
    Colonel COLLINS: The Secretary for Scotland, in moving the Amendment, has been carried away by the eloquence of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-West Lanark in the Grand Committee Room upstairs. It must be particularly gratifying to my hon. and learned Friend to find that he has been able to persuade the Government as to the force of his argument. I gathered from the arguments which he advanced in moving this Amendment that the Secretary for Scotland was satisfied that there would not be any opportunity of a snap vote. In other words, if he thought there would not be a snap Division or a small attendance of Members voting, he would not have been disposed to move this Amendment. My hon. Friend who followed him pointed out, and pointed out accurately, that the attendance on a particular day might be very small and that the majority of members voting for the dismissal of a teacher might be a very small percentage of the
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    total members of that committee. Is the Secretary for Scotland willing to increase the quorum which is necessary for voting to be held on that day? At the present moment the quorum is one-fourth of the total number. Is he willing to increase the quorum so as to remove the chance of a snap Division, which might very readily occur, and which, I understand, he is anxious to meet if at all possible?
    Mr. FALCONER: I hope the Secretary for Scotland will adhere to the Amendment. The discussion which has taken place seems to me to proceed upon the assumption that the whole purpose of this Bill is to give absolute security of tenure to the teacher, on the assumption that every teacher is an excellent teacher, doing his duty, and that he may be persecuted by some people in the local place where he is working. So far as persecution and local jealousies and rivalries are concerned, that consideration is entirely removed by the fact that the dismissal could only take place at the instance of the education authority over a very wide area. In no county of Scotland would you get jealousy in regard to the conduct of a teacher in a particular school influencing members of the education authority selected from a wide area throughout the county. If the argument we have listened to is to be given effect to, what is to become of the school where the teacher is inefficient? It will become absolutely impossible to get rid of inefficient teachers. The reason why I support this Amendment is the overriding consideration of the interests of the children who are being educated. We must make provision for the removal of those teachers who are not efficient. I do not believe that any teacher who is doing his duty runs any risk of being dismissed by an education authority over a wide area unless there is good cause shown. Under the school board there have been differences through personal jealousies arising among teachers and parents, but that could only apply to the parents of scholars attending a particular school, and could not apply to the new education authorities. In some counties the members of the education authority have to come from very wide distances, involving probably a day's journey, and there will be many occasions, especially during the winter, when the chances are that you will not be able for months to get together a majority of the education authority, so

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    that one or two members might be sufficient to retain in his position for a long time a teacher who is not fit for his position.
    Sir J. YOXALL: Or to dismiss him!
    Mr. FALCONER: I think the danger is all the other way. I can imagine a circumstance where two or three members might be able to retain a teacher in his position when one-half, or nearly one-half, of the educational authority were satisfied that he ought to be dismissed. It is on that ground, and in the interests of the education of the children, and because I believe the teachers have better security of tenure than almost anybody I know if they are doing their duty, and if there is an education authority drawn from a very wide area, that I hope the Secretary for Scotland will adhere to his Amendment.
    Mr. J. HENDERSON: I agree with the hon. and learned Member that he ought to make good teachers' tenure as secure as possible. They are entitled to be free from any nagging, worrying, or undercurrent, which may be intended to remove them, from some personal feeling or other wise. I have come across in Scotland only two cases of what you might call unreasonable dismissal. I have come across several cases where you could not get rid of a bad master—a man whose habits were bad. It was difficult to get anybody in a small community to come forward and give evidence. The result was that they had an inefficient teacher. If you have a council of forty and you have made the quorum one-fourth—that is ten before the whole quorum is there, and you want twenty-one votes to dismiss a man, all voting for his removal, is that common sense? It is very difficult even to get two-thirds of those present. The whole question was discussed upstairs. You hardly ever get a very full attendance, except upon very special occasions, and there will always be a few men who will come there as personal friends of the master, however bad he is, who perhaps associate with him in some of his little amusements, and you cannot get twenty-one men there to get rid of the individual teacher. That is not what good teachers want. It is against their interests that there should be bad teachers alongside them. I cannot imagine that any teacher would complain if it was put to him that you have got to have two-thirds of those present, and it is not the old parish authority, but some-thing wider. One of the greatest protect-
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    tions of the teacher was that he was to be taken away from the local parish and to go to a larger authority. Is it conceivable that you would get two-thirds of the men from a distance, men not mixed up with any local quarrels, who would deliberately dismiss a man if he was a reasonably good man? Further than that there is an appeal to the Department. No good teacher wants anything more. They are not unreasonable. On the contrary, this Bill gives a great protection by insisting that two-thirds of those present who take an interest in the subject and take the responsibility of it should be required to vote and that there should then be an appeal to the Department. I cannot imagine a more reasonable security, always remembering that you should never put too great difficulty in the way of removing a bad teacher, because you must admit that there are such men, and, after all, as my hon. Friend has said, it is the interests of the children which have got to be considered.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: This is really a narrow point, but it is a very clear point, and there is not very much in it. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be persuaded to adhere to his first thoughts in this matter. We are in a fortunate position in opposing the Amendment of my right hon. Friend. We are not opposing the Government or opposing my right hon. Friend. The choice is not between my right hon. Friend and one of his critics or one of the opponents of the Bill. It is between my right hon. Friend in his first thoughts and my right hon. Friend in his second thoughts. In my right hon. Friend's Bill the proposal was that the teacher should be dismissed by a bare majority of the council. His second proposal is that he should be dismissed not by a bare majority of the council, but by a majority of two-thirds of those present at that particular meeting. My hon. Friend the Member for Forfarshire made a strong point of not giving teachers absolute security of tenure. I agree that it would be very dangerous to give teachers, or any other officials, absolute security of tenure, but the Bill, in the form in which it is before us, does not give absolute security of tenure. Very far from that. It renders the teacher liable to be dismissed by a bare majority of the council, and it is not difficult, in the case of an avowedly bad teacher, to get a bare majority.
    My right hon. Friend has argued against that, and has said that there is sure to

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    be a large attendance. If there is a large attendance, then it would be necessary to get two-thirds of that large attendance, which is more than the bare majority, but the teacher is willing to accept the bare Majority. My hon. Friend the Member for Forfarshire says that there will not be a large attendance, that there will be great difficulty in travelling, especially in winter time, which is quite contrary to the case which has been put by my right hon. Friend, who said that in this case there is certain to be a large attendance. Where there is a large attendance the teacher recognises that this would give him the advantage, but he is quite willing to abide by the bare majority of the council, but he is afraid of the limited number of instances that will arise where there is a small attendance, as my hon. Friend opposite says will happen fairly frequently, and of the risk of the vote given where there is that small attendance. If that is possible, how do we stand? My right hon. Friend has said that there will be an appeal to the Education Department. He made that a very strong point, and the hon. Member for Aberdeen reiterated it. But the appeal is not an appeal for reinstatement, as my right hon. Friend rather conveyed, not intentionally. The appeal, even if it is successful, does not lead to reinstatement. It only leads to a small monetary compensation. Even if the Department thinks that this teacher has been wrongfully dismissed, the Department cannot reinstate him. It can only give him a small monetary compensation. Now, the teacher here is perfectly willing to sacrifice the safeguard of the two-thirds majority on a large attendance. In many cases there would be a large attendance and that would be a safeguard to him. But he is perfectly willing to sacrifice that in order to safe guard the large number of teachers who may be dismissed on a small attendance. He is perfectly willing to abide by a Majority of the council. In that case there is no appeal in the Bill which would compensate him, even if the Department thought he was wrongfully dismissed. Now, as we were appealing, not against the Government, not on behalf of some critic or opponent of the Government, but merely on behalf of the first thoughts of the Government as against the second thoughts, and as there is very little in it—there are only a few cases that might
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    arise—I hope that my right hon. Friend will agree to adhere to his first thoughts on this matter.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 25.—(Advisory Councils in Education Areas.)
    It shall be the duty of an education authority to establish an advisory council, consisting of persons qualified to represent the views of bodies interested in education, for the purpose of advising the authority on matters referred to the advisory council by the authority, and the authority shall take into consideration any advice or representation submitted to them by the advisory council.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move to leave out the words "an education authority," and to insert instead thereof the words "every education authority within three months after the first election thereof."
    This Amendment would give effect to the promise which I made in Committee to the effect that I would consider whether words could be inserted on the Report stage requiring the education authority to appoint a local advisory committee not later than a certain specified date. The only question was, what that date should be. The proposal in this Amendment is that the education authority should, within three months from the first election of the authority, set up that council. I think that is an ample space of time to admit of that authority being set up. I would further like to point out that it is exceedingly desirable that the local advisory committee should be set up at the earliest possible moment, because it will be of great use to the education authority, for example, in the matter of drafting schemes under Clause 7, which are to be submitted to the Department, and which must be submitted to the Department within twelve months of the setting up of the education authority. In these circumstances, without further delay, I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 27.—(Approval and Carrying Out of Schemes.)
    (2) The due submission of schemes and the due carrying thereof into effect shall be a condition of all grants from the Department, and such grants may be reduced or withheld in respect of any failure in those duties by an education authority.
    Mr. GULLAND: I beg to move to leave out Sub-section (2), and to insert instead thereof,

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    "(2) If the Department are of opinion that a scheme does not make adequate provision in respect of all or any of the purposes to which the scheme relates, and the Department are unable to agree with the authority as to what amendments should be made in the scheme they shall offer to old a conference with the representatives of the authority, and if requested by the authority shall hold a public inquiry in the matter.
    (3) If thereafter the Department disapproves a scheme they shall notify the authority and if, within one month thereafter, an agreement is not reached they shall lay before Parliament the report of the public inquiry (if any) together with a report stating their reasons for such disapproval and any action they intend to take in consequence thereof by way of withholding or reducing any grants payable to the authority."
    Sub-section (2) provides that due submission of schemes and the due carrying thereof into effect shall be a condition of all grants from the Department, and such grants may be reduced or withheld in respect of any failure in those duties by an education authority. That means that practically the Department has complete control of the authority, and a complete say as to whether a scheme is sufficient or not. The punishment that the Department can levy against an education authority is the withholding or reduction of the grant. In fact, it makes the Department omnipotent. Starting on a new scheme like this, the co-operation of both Department and education authority will be desirable, and it is a question whether the Department ought to be that supreme in such a dictatorial way as is provided by the Clause as it stands. I confess I much prefer the procedure adopted in England. I am extremely glad to see the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education of England present, because my Amendment, which I call on him to support, is in the words of his Act, which in this respect is, I think, more generous and tender and fairer than this Bill as it is now. The first and new Sub-section provides for the offer of a conference, and the second Sub-section that if the Department disapprove of a scheme they shall notify the authority, and if within a month agreement is not reached that they shall lay before Parliament the Report of the public inquiry (if any), together with a report stating their reasons for such disapproval, and any action they intend to take in consequence. That is a much more moderate, and sane, and reasonable proposal, and I should be extremely glad if the right hon. Gentleman would second the Amendment.
    Mr. MUNRO: I have listened to my right hon. Friend with great care, as I always do, and again I have found his persuasive powers to be exercised to their full extent on this occasion. Having regard to the consideration that a similar Amendment was accepted by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Fisher) in the English Bill, and that on the face of it the proposal seems to be fair and proper, I propose to avoid, as I hope, any further discussion on the point by accepting the Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.

    CLAUSE 31.—(Interpretation.)
    In this Act unless the context otherwise requires.
    (5) The expression "transferable vote" has the same meaning as in the Representation of the People Act, 1918.
    Amendment made: After Sub-section (5), insert in the Bill,
    "(6) The expression 'transferred school' means a school transferred to or provided by an education authority under the Section of this Act relating to transfer of voluntary schools."—[Mr. Munro.]

  SECOND SCHEDULE.

    PROVISIONS AS TO EDUCATION AUTHORITIES.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, after paragraph (7), to insert
    8. (Meetings.)—An education authority shall meet at such times as the conduct of business may require. There shall be at least one general meeting of every education authority in each month, except the months of August and September."
    This Amendment I have referred to on more than one occasion in the course of to-day's proceedings. Its purpose is to ensure that the education authority shall meet at due and fitting seasons—that is to say, shall meet as often as is necessary to transact the business which one may reasonably anticipate it will have to transact. After full consideration, I have come to the conclusion that a reasonable provision would be that that education authority should be enjoined to meet not less than once a month, with the exception of the two months of August and September, during which there may be some difficulty in getting a quorum, and during which time the holiday season may render meetings not only difficult but also unnecessary. In these circumstances I hope the House will agree with the provision as a reasonable one and that the Amendment will be accepted.
    Mr. GULLAND: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to leave out the words "the months of," and to insert instead thereof the words "in two of the months of July."
    I agree entirely with the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman, and my point is a very small one of convenience. It is true that in many parts of the country the holiday months are August and September, but in many other parts of the country the holiday months are July and August, and I am quite sure the right hon. Gentleman would not wish to insist that August and September shall be the holiday months everywhere. As a matter of fact, in the elementary schools of Scotland it is almost universal that the holidays are in July and August, and therefore I beg to move my Amendment, which means that the authority can choose July and August if it likes.
    Mr. MUNRO: I do not admire the draftsmanship of this Amendment, and I am sure my right hon. Friend will probably agree with me in that criticism, but so far as substance is concerned, I think he has made a reasonable case. I am prepared to accept the Amendment, and I will see whether, before the Bill goes to another place, the drafting cannot be improved.
    Amendment to the proposed Amendment agreed to.
    Proposed words, as amended, there inserted in the Bill.

  FOURTH SCHEDULE.

    PROVISIONS AS TO TRANSFER OF POWERS, PROPERTY, AND OFFICERS.
    5. All debts and liabilities of any school board or secondary education committee whose powers and duties are transferred by or in pursuance of this Act to an education authority shall become debts and liabilities of that authority and shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, be defrayed by them out of the education fund of the education area:
    Provided that any surplus or deficiency shown in the accounts of a school board, made up and balanced as at the appointed day, shall in the year succeeding the transfer be taken into account by the authority in determining the amount which they certify to the parish council or councils levying poor rate in the area which formed the district of that school board, to be imposed, levied, and collected as education rate therein, under the Section of this Act relating to expenses of education authorities.
    10. Section one hundred and twenty of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1889 (which relates to compensation to existing officers), shall,
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    with the necessary modifications, apply to officers transferred under this Act or by this Act declared to be entitled to compensation, who by virtue of this Act or anything done in pursuance or in consequence thereof suffer direct pecuniary loss by abolition of office or by diminution or loss of fees or salary subject as follows:

    (a) References to the county council shall be construed as references to the education authority.

    (b) In the proviso to Sub-section (2), "the passing of this Act" shall, except in the case of abolition of office, mean the date of transfer, and in the case of abolition of office the date of such abolition.

    (c) Any expenses shall be paid out of the education fund of the education authority.

    (d) Sub-sections (8) and (9) shall not apply.

    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, in paragraph 5, after the word "the" ["deficiency shown in the"], to insert in the Bill the word "revenue." This is a drafting Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, at the end of paragraph 5, to insert,
    "6. A parish council shall, in imposing, levying, and collecting the education rate, take into account any sum standing at the credit or debit of the council in respect of any balance of school rate already levied by them."
    This Amendment is intended to provide for a detail of some practical importance. A parish council, on receiving a mandate to raise a given sum for school rates, proceeds to raise the sum as exactly as may be, but the proceeds actually collected may be a little less or a little more. There may be arrears of rates which are levied but not recovered at the time. The same will be the case with regard to the new education authority; but for any balance one way or the other there is already provision made in Clause 13, Subsection (4). There may, however, be a balance either way in respect of the old school rate outstanding at the appointed day when the new system comes into force. The Amendment directs the parish council to take account of this in levying the new education rate. That, I think, the House will probably agree is a reasonable Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move, at the end of paragraph 10 (a), to insert in the Bill the words,
    "(b) The reference to the Acts and Rules relating to His Majesty's Civil Service shall be construed as a reference to the Acts and Rules which were in operation at the date of the passing of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1889."

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    This Amendment is really a drafting Amendment. It is proposed in accordance with an answer I gave in Committee to some questions which were put to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley. Section 120 of the Local Government Act, 1889, which is here applied, limited the amount of compensation to that payable on the abolition of offices under the Acts and Rules which relate to the Civil Service. It was thought fair to apply these Acts and Rules as they then stood, not as they have since been modified, particularly by and under the Superannuation Act of 1899. A provision identical with this appeared in the recent English Act.
    Amendment agreed to.
    The following Amendment stood on the Paper in the name of Mr. MURRAY MACDONALD:
    At the end of paragraph 10, to insert the words,
    "(e) Notwithstanding the terms of Section one hundred and twenty of the Local Government, (Scotland) Act, 1889, the compensation to be paid to any officer, either whole or part time, who suffers pecuniary loss as above-mentioned, shall be calculated on the basis of one-sixtieth of the average salary and emoluments of such officer during the three years immediately preceding the passing of this Act for each completed year of service, and so far as inconsistent with this proviso Sub-section (2) of Section one hundred and twenty of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1889, shall not apply."
    Mr. SPEAKER: With regard to this Amendment, I am not sufficiently acquainted to be able to say whether or no the new proposed scale of compensation is in excess of that which now exists. If it is less than the present scale, the Amendment would be in order, but if it is in excess of the present scale the Amendment would be out of order.
    Mr. MACDONALD: Yes, Sir; it would be in excess of the present scale. May I explain the purposes of the Amendment? It has been represented to me that the provision of the Kill as it stands would operate unjustly in the case of a good many part-time officers. The Act of 1908 proposed considerable additional duties on these officers, and the boards in Scotland were extremely slow in increasing the emoluments of those officers for the additional work imposed upon them by the Act. It is only within the last few years, and in some cases, I am told only within the last two years that the boards have recognised that the Act of 1908 did impose large additional duties
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    upon these officers, and only within that time the increased pay has been given. These men say that if there is to be an average, it is fair to them that the average should be limited to the last three years rather than extend over the last five years. It is obvious that that would mean an increase in the allowance to them if their services were dispensed with by the authority.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid that cannot be dealt with on Report. It ought to have been raised in Committee.

  FIFTH SCHEDULE.

    ADAPTATION OF ACTS.
    4. In the Education (Scotland) Act, 1901—
    In Section two, for the words "after nine o'clock at night from the first day of April to the first day of October, and after seven o'clock at night from the first day of October to the first day of April there shall be substituted the words on any day on which he is required to attend school before the close of school hours on that day, or on any day before six o'clock in the morning or after eight o'clock in the evening."
    5. In the Education (Scotland) Act, 1908—
    (b) The expenses which may be sanctioned by minutes of the Department under paragraph (7) of Section three shall include the travelling and personal expenses of the members of the education authority of a county necessarily incurred in attending meetings of the authority or any committee thereof, and also contributions by any education authority to any association of such authorities concerned in the consideration of educational questions.
    6. The Department may by order at any time after the passing of this Act make such further adaptations in the provisions of any Act (including any local Act and any provisional order duly confirmed, and any scheme under the Educational Endowments (Scotland) Act, 1882) as may seem to them necessary to make those provisions conform with the provisions of this Act, and any order so made shall operate as if enacted in this Act: Provided that nothing in this provision shall prejudice or affect any application to the court of sessions under Section twenty of the said Act of 1882.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move to leave out paragraph 4.
    This is a drafting Amendment. The proposed adaptation of Section 2 of the Education Act, 1901, has become unnecessary owing to the Employment of Children Act, 1903, which is embodied in an amended form in Clause 16 of the Bill.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. ADAMSON: I beg to move, in paragraph 5 (b), after the word "include" ["shall include the travelling and personal expenses"], to insert in the Bill the words "uniform allowances for."
    The Amendment seeks to make uniform the travelling expenses and subsistence allowances provided for in the Bill. I think that the travelling and personal expenses allowed to members of boards should be uniform. Under present conditions, in connection with certain of our local authorities, there is a difference in the expenses allowed. Some members are allowed to charge first class, whilst others charge third-class railway fares. As to personal expenses, if the member happens to be a working man, his personal expenses are fixed at a very low figure; if a professional man they are fixed very much higher. We think that is very unfair. Whatever is allowed for travelling and personal expenses ought to be of a uniform character.
    Mr. MUNRO: If my right hon. Friend waits until I move my Amendment which immediately follows his on the Order Paper, he will probably find that the present Amendment is unnecessary. At any rate, if he does not reach that conclusion, it is open to him to move an Amendment to my Amendment. I conceive I have met the views he expressed upstairs—as I hope to explain to the House in a moment—quits fully, and I think generously, in my Amendment. Therefore I would suggest to my right hon. Friend not at this stage to press his Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. MUNRO: I beg to move in Paragraph 5 (b) to leave out the words,
    "the travelling and personal expenses of the members of the education authority of a county necessarily incurred in attending meetings of the authority or any committee thereof, and also."
    and to insert instead thereof the words,
    "(i) travelling expenses necessarily incurred in attending meetings of an education authority or any committee thereof;
    (ii) an allowance at uniform rates to be prescribed by the Department in respect of other personal expenses necessarily incurred and time necessarily lost from ordinary employment in attending such meetings; and
    (iii) "
    The history of this Amendment I can narrate to the House in a very few minutes. When my right hon. Friend
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    moved his Amendment in Committee upstairs to the effect that members of education authorities, in addition to re-imbursement for expenses, should be compensated for time lost from remunerative employment, I expressed sympathy with his view. I conceived it was highly desirable that we should have in these education authorities the co-operation of all sections of the community. Further, I expressed the view that the co-operation of labour, in particular, was, in my humble judgment, indispensable. Lastly, that that co-operation could not be reasonably expected or secured unless some provision of the kind which my right hon. Friend pleaded for was made in the Bill. I gave an undertaking to consider the matter before the Report stage, and I indicated that I thought a flat rate of compensation would be the proper way in which to meet the request. The Amendment which I have put on the Paper is based upon Section 3, Sub-section (7) of the Act of 1908, which provides that it shall be lawful to pay reasonable expenses to ensure the proper discharge of a member's duties. The Amendment I am submitting proposes to provide, firstly, for travelling expenses incurred in attending the meetings of education authorities or committees; and, secondly, an allowance of a uniform rate in respect of other personal expenses necessarily incurred and time lost from ordinary employment in attending these meetings. It would be impossible in regard to time lost to take into account the circumstances of individual cases. You might have a labourer or a miner who lose so, many shillings, and you might have a doctor or a barrister who might lose a 100 guinea fee. I do not think any guarantee of compensation apart from a flat rate is really conceivable or workable. Accordingly, I have proposed that in the Minute of the Department regulating this matter a standard allowance in consideration of time lost in remunerative employment shall be fixed at a figure such as would certainly include a well-paid artisan, and this allowance will be claimed by all who have necessarily incurred loss of remuneration through attending these meetings, whether the actual amount is above or below the amount of standard allowance. I think the exact figure will be a matter for careful consideration, and it can be raised from time to time if the

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    Minute on the Table of the House is not satisfactory. Having considered with every sympathy the arguments put forward by my right hon. Friend, it seems to me and those who advise me that this is the best means of meeting the case he has made, which, I think, requires and deserves to be met in a sympathetic way.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I see the President of the Board of Education in his place. May I ask him whether it is contemplated to extend this procedure to England, and, if so, how these fees are going to be arrived at? It seems to me to be a proposal which will operate very unfairly. I do not know at what amount the flat rate will be fixed, but if it is fixed at £10, then the barrister or doctor who loses a 100 guineas fee would lose £90, whereas the artisan who only lost £l would gain £9. This may be the only way out of the difficulty, but it seems to me to be a way that will lead to very considerable injustice and expense. If it is going to be extended to England, I should certainly object to it being brought forward. After all, it must be remembered that these people do this work because they think they are doing some good to the country, and if they are going to get all their out-of-pocket expenses, and, in addition, some hypothetical sum of money which might or might not represent what they would have earned, seems to me to be a rather extraordinary proposal. As the Minister of Education is here, and as I attach very great importance to his opinion, I hope he will reply to my question.
    Mr. J. HENDERSON: On a point of Order. I do not know whether it is open to a Minister to alter the rates, but you ruled that an Amendment of my hon. Friend was out of order on the Report stage because it would increase the rates. This Amendment would certainly increase the rates.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I had my doubts, but I thought it better to allow the discussion to develop. I think it is quite clear that if this Amendment be carried there will be a charge imposed. That being so, I am bound to hold that it cannot be inserted on the Report stage.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Would it be in order to introduce this charge in another place?
    Mr. SPEAKER: Of course, if the Government attach importance to it, the proper course would be to recommit the Bill.
    Mr. CURRIE: May I ask the Government if they will be good enough to recommit the Bill so that effect may be given to their intention?
    Mr. GULLAND: I should like very strongly to urge that, because, as the members of the Committee will remember, this was distinctly promised by the right hon. Gentleman upstairs. There was no question as to accepting the principle; the only difficulty was as to the uniform rate. I would therefore strongly urge the right hon. Gentleman to recommit the Bill for this purpose.
    Mr. ADAMSON: I hope that we are going to have a promise from the Secretary for Scotland to recommit the Bill, in order to give effect to what he has just stated to the House. I was more than pleased to hear the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and, in view of your ruling, I hope that he will promise to recommit the Bill. This is very necessary for the successful administration of the Act.
    Mr. MUNRO: I shall consider very carefully the position which has arisen as the result of Mr. Speaker's ruling. I understand that the Bill is to be taken again to-morrow, and if after a night's reflection it seems the proper course to adopt, it will be quite possible to recommit the Bill. But I do not want to give a definite undertaking to-night.
    Mr. HENDERSON: I beg to move to leave out paragraph 5 (b).
    The Educational Endowment (Scotland) Act laid down a certain procedure which was to be adopted in dealing with any particular endowment. There have been many schemes agreed to between the trustees of the various funds and the Department without going to the Commission appointed, and they are operating now. Then a great many went to the Commission and were approved by the trustees and the Department, and they are in operation now. I do not like the idea that the Department should by Order set aside what has been done under the Act of 1882, and say that a certain fund

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    shall go to a certain educational authority. It ought not to have power to interfere with what has already been done under any Act. I have put this Amendment down in order to find out what is in the mind of the Lord Advocate or of the Secretary for Scotland, and whether they cannot protect these schemes, which are working satisfactorily, from being interfered with by the Department under this Bill.
    Mr. WATT: I desire to second the Amendment.
    This is a most drastic paragraph giving the Department extraordinary powers, and I submit it is inadvisable that any Department should have the power to alter any Act of Parliament if and when it thinks necessary. I, therefore, hope the Secretary for Scotland will not insist on this paragraph.
    Mr. CLYDE: I hope it will save further discussion if I say a few words now. Of course, there are plenty of precedents for asking powers to make adaptations in such cases as these. My hon. Friend who has moved this Amendment seems to apprehend that this may involve a really serious interference with schemes of endowed schools settled under the Act of 1882. These are technical matters which I do not propose to go into now, but, as I told the hon. Gentleman upstairs, I am of opinion that his fears are groundless or at any rate very greatly exaggerated. Still, we have, in order to remove any doubt, fully considered the question, and have decided that we can afford to dispense altogether with the words in this Clause which relate to Endowment Act schemes. I shall, if so desired, move the omission of the words "and any scheme under the Educational Endowment (Scotland) Act, 1882," and then the proviso at the end of the paragraph will also come out. The result will be that the schemes under the Act of 1882 will be protected from being touched at all.
    Mr. HENDERSON: I am prepared to accept that suggestion.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Amendments made: In paragraph 6, leave out the words "and any scheme under the Endowments (Scotland) Act, 1882."
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    Leave out the words "Provided that nothing in this provision shall prejudice or affect any application to the Court of Session under Section twenty of the said Act of 1882."—[Mr. Clyde.]

    SIXTH SCHEDULE.
    Enactments Repealed.
    8 Edw. 7, c. 63, the Education (Scotland) Act, 1908, Sections 9 and 10.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: I beg to move, in "Sections 9 and 10," to insert,
    "In Sub-section four of Section three the following words 'epileptic or crippled or defective' and the words 'within the meaning of the Education of Defective Children (Scotland) Act, 1906."'
    This Schedule repeals certain portions of enactments, including certain portions of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1908. I propose in Sub-section (4) of Section 3 of the Act to repeal certain words. This Section gives power to the education authority to incur expenditure on the training of children outside their area, and that power is limited to epileptic or crippled children within the meaning of the Act. It is possible that other children not epileptic or crippled may need the benefit of the provision, such as blind children. We have an example in Glasgow where the Board has bought 8½ acres out-fide their area for the training of children better suited to a country than to a town life. They are not epileptic or crippled within the meaning of the Act, and I therefore propose to omit the words "epileptic or crippled within the meaning of the Act," which will enable the Board to deal with any child better suited for treatment outside than inside a large town.
    Mr. WATT: I beg to second the Amendment.
    Mr. MUNRO: I have considered this Amendment as well as I can in the time at my disposal. I have taken advice on the point, and I propose to accept the Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.
    The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

  FOOD SUPPLIES (FAT CATTLE).
  Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 13th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
  11.0 P.M.
  Sir JOHN SPEAR: I am sorry to detain the House at this late hour, but I feel that the question of the slaughter of fat cattle is so important that it was not possible to deal with it by question and answer across the floor of the House. I cannot produce exact figures as to the extent of the difficulties that have arisen, but I think I am within the mark when I say that of every fat beast exhibited to the butchers two, if not three, are rejected through lack of opportunity to dispose of them. The Parliamentary Secretary this afternoon spoke very sympathetically, but I rather felt that he failed to realise the magnitude of the difficulty which has arisen and certainly he failed to encourage us to think that he was provided with any immediate and sufficient remedy to deal with it. He seemed to think that by keeping back these fat cattle at this time he will make more liberal provision for winter use. He is in error in coming to that conclusion. These cattle go back on the pasture and not only lose condition but they are consuming food which was necessary and indeed intended by the farmer for the purpose of completing the fattening of later grades of cattle for use in the ensuing months of the year and in early winter. The farmer has been urged by the Prime Minister and others to do everything possible to produce meat, and we, have been asked more than once this year to keep back the beasts and make them heavier in order to increase the food supply, and now there is not by any means sufficient outlet for these cattle. In addition to these difficulties, the Government is commandeering a great part of the hay. My hon. and gallant Friend spoke of the lack of provision for cold storage. I think the Government is very seriously to blame for the neglect to make provision of this character. On 17th July last year I appealed to the Government to provide cold storage to take the surplus cattle which accumulate practically every autumn, and put the meat in cold storage for winter use. I regret that that has not been done, and experience of what happened last year, a serious glut in the autumn and then a great scarcity in
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  winter, should have convinced the Government of the necessity of making this provision, which would have dealt with the difficulty. The surplus cattle could have been slaughtered and the meat put in cold storage, when it would have been very valuable for winter use.
  I would suggest one or two remedies for the difficulty which has arisen for the consideration of the Ministry of Food. While we realise the difficulty, which is approaching disaster to the farmer, after all it is a matter for congratulation that after four years and more of war we are dealing with the difficulty of home supply instead of lack of food for the people. We want this great supply to be utilised to the best possible interests of the consumer, without any injustice to the producer. Only grade I cattle should be taken for a month, or at the most six weeks, because there are certain farmers the character of whose land would not enable them to produce more than second grade cattle, beasts quite fit for slaughter though not of the first grade. Unless they obtain relief within, at the outside six weeks, they would be very seriously inconvenienced and would suffer great loss. For a month we might safely take first grade cattle for slaughter and thereby avoid their depreciation in weight. The same applies more or less to sheep, but not so pressingly. I would urge again on my hon. Friend (Major Astor) who has shown appreciation of the case, the necessity of the immediate liberation of damaged grain, and of allowing farmers to use for their cattle all the dredge corn which they have grown. That remedy will not be very immediate, because much of this corn has been harvested in such a bad condition that it cannot be threshed until the frost has dried it. Ultimately it will be a very valuable help, but not immediately. Cake not required for milking cows should be freed for use. I would also suggest that there should be an increased price for meat during the winter (possibly it might be introduced to a partial degree during December) after Christmas. There should be an increase of at least 5s. per live cwt., to encourage farmers to keep on their cattle and to remunerate them for the extra outlay which will be necessitated in the use of corn and in the purchase of cake. I suggest that that money should be taken from the 11s. 4d. per cent., which the consumer has to pay for his meat over and above the sum that

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  is paid to the farmer for his cattle. The 11s. 4d. per cwt. means on the average from £4 to £5 per bullock, and surely from that fund, which cannot all be used for official expenses, there might be taken a sum of money that would afford an increase of 5s. per cwt. liveweight during the winter. This would not increase the cost to the consumer. The money would be taken from the 11s. 4d., and I think the cost to the consumer would not be increased.
  I claim that the great influx of cattle from Ireland which we have had this year should be checked. The British farmer feels very strongly on this point. His son and key man has gone to the War, and he has struggled to produce cattle; therefore he objects to unfair competition from Ireland where there is no controlled price. The beasts come in as freely as ever they did. It is unjust to the British farmer who is handicapped by losing his men that he should be unable to dispose of his cattle in consequence of this unfair competition. I would suggest that the question of redistribution should be reconsidered, that the cattle should be forwarded direct from the producing district to the big towns, the consuming centres, rather than be sent to the local centres to be retrucked, meaning often delay and loss of weight through cattle being kept without food. I have never known quite so serious a danger to the industry. It can be mitigated if the Government will only face the question. I would suggest that for two months the purchasing value of the meat coupon might be increased by one-half. That would cause a greater demand for meat. People would appreciate it and it would ease the difficulty a little, and the whole scheme which I have suggested would result in the provision of more meat during the winter time when it is extremely important that it should be forthcoming for the use of the people.
  Sir CROYDON MARKS: I represent a large agricultural district. My Constituents are very much concerned with the question which is now before the House, inasmuch as they have found that while there is a great shortage of meat there is a surplusage of cattle, cattle being sent to market and then returned to them because it is impossible for them to be purchased. Cattle which are in good condition at present and ought to be
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  slaughtered are sent back to consume food which ought to be consumed by the immature cattle. The position is that the cattle which are in a condition now to give the best meat have had to be waste-fully fed, owing entirely to the inelastic Regulations which unfortunately are so strenuously followed by the Food Department. We have so many Regulations connected with the different Departments which control us that they actually bring discredit on the Government because of the manner in which they adhere to them without any suggestion of their being revised to meet emergencies that always arise. It is not a fact that the shortage of meat is in only one place. The shortage of meat is general. One would assume that it was due to the shortage of cattle, whereas it is well known in cattle-producing areas that cattle are now there which if kept there any longer will be wasting the food that is needed for the other cattle. There is not enough food to go round. And while this is happening, the Regulations of the Food Department are so inelastic that apparently the authorities do not see the result which is being produced. I hope that the result of this discussion may cause the Department to vary the Regulations, and permit cattle to be slaughtered rather than have them waste-fully consume food that is needed for other cattle. People familiar with agricultural districts can support this statement. They could give instances of farms in other districts where cattle are sent from farm to market and from market back to farm, while butchers are calling out for meat but cannot get it owing to the Regulations. I hope that some mitigation will be made so that the people of the country may be able to get the meat that is ready for them.
  Major LANE-FOX: I regret very much that this discussion should have been curtailed into the very small amount of time available. The Adjournment should have been asked for, and possibly the House would have granted it on a matter of vital importance to the whole of the country and to the agricultural industry in particular. I need not repeat what has been fully said and is fully known to the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Major Astor), and to the right hon. Gentleman beside him (Mr. Prothero). I am quite certain that their letter boxes for the last month have been absolutely crammed with complaints about the operations of

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  the Ministry of Food in connection with the production of cattle. There is no need for me to elaborate what the hon. Gentleman said who opened this Debate. I can only say that in the north of England the same conditions are prevailing, and all over the country the same things happen. These cattle are being sent to the markets ready for slaughter, and are being returned to the farms, where there is no food to keep them going. In consequence, there is a great waste and loss, not only to the owners, but to the people in general. It is not for me to suggest a remedy, but I would like to suggest two courses which occur to me. We are getting an enormous supply now of American bacon. This has saved our food situation. At the same time, would it not be possible for some of that bacon to be released, or that, instead of bacon, foodstuffs for our own cattle should be brought over to enable us to maintain our own supply. The bacon is filling up the cold storage, which is badly needed for these cattle and for the supply for the people, which might otherwise be ample. If cattle are to be stopped from coming from the market, the Irish cattle should be stopped before the English cattle. That seems obvious, and a regulation about that might be made. I hope something can be done, even now—though great damage has been caused to the cattle industry and food supply—to mitigate the cast-iron regulations which apparently govern the Department, and to bring some common sense to bear.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Major Astor): I wish to associate myself entirely with what my hon. and gallant Friend has said in regard to the raising of this matter this evening, not that we wish to avoid discussion, but because it is a matter, as has been said, of such interest to the agricultural community and their representatives here and to so many people outside that I should have preferred, if the House could have had a fuller opportunity of discussing it in greater detail than they possibly can do in the few minutes available this evening.
  Sir F. BANBURY: Will the Government give time for it?
  Major ASTOR: That is a matter for the Leader of the House.
  Sir F. BANBURY: Will you ask him?
  Major ASTOR: In the very few moments that are available I wish to put as many facts as I can before hon. Members, and I welcome this opportunity of doing so, even in a restricted manner. First of all, I quite realise—and we all realise—the extraordinary difficulty farmers are placed in at the present time. We fully appreciate that. But we are quite confident when they realise the facts and difficulties that we shall be able to count upon their co-operation.
  Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY: More sacrifices!
  An HON. MEMBER: Why do not you buy refrigerating plants?
  Major ASTOR: First of all, the situation which has arisen is entirely owing to the military programme decided upon by the Allied Governments. So far as the Food Controller is concerned he has to fit his programme of imports of food in with the military requirements of the Allied Governments. In preparing an import programme of foodstuffs my right hon. Friend has acted in consultation with the President of the Board of Agriculture and the Agricultural Departments. They have agreed, and we have all agreed, as to the programme. The Food Controller, no more than the President of the Board of Agriculture, wants to cut down feeding-stuffs—it is obviously not to our interest to do so; we are interested in the maintenance of the production of food—but, owing to the military requirements and programme, we have had to cut down our requirements to a minimum. The figures which have been agreed to have been approved of and settled by the Cabinet with due regard to the military programme.
  Mr. LEIF JONES: May we know what tonnage they have allowed?
  Major ASTOR: I cannot give the figures. As regards the present situation it is due to a certain extent to the fact that in last August and September we had considerable difficulty in providing meat as growing cattle were not coming forward as well as we expected. They were kept longer on the farms owing to there being a great deal of grass during those months. I can assure hon. Members that the various proposals which have been put forward will receive sympathetic consideration. Some of them are already being considered, and others will be carefully attended to by my right hon. Friend.

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  May I mention some of the steps which are being taken to relieve the situation? First of all, we are trying to get as much fresh meat consumed as possible, while at the same time reducing the amount of frozen meat which is being consumed. The Army has been taking fresh meat four days a week. Arrangements have now been completed with the War Office whereby the military forces in England will take fresh meat on two additional days—that is to say, they will have fresh home-killed meat for six days per week.
  The Navy are taking as much fresh meat as they can, but it is quite obvious that they have to depend to a great extent on frozen meat, since they have to go to sea. We tried to see if we could export any cattle so as to give the Army in France the use of fresh meat, but we found that they were not in a position to deal with the cattle as they had not got the slaughtering arrangements. We are still considering whether it is possible to send any cattle across, and if we did we should, of course, get a quid pro quo from them in the way of frozen meat. As regards storage accommodation and refrigerating accommodation hon. Members are quite wrong in saying we have not got enough storage accommodation. [HON. MEMBERS: "Refrigerating!"] We have got ample refrigerating accommodation for storage purposes, but the difficulty is that the plant is not adapted for freezing. It is quite impossible or practically impossible to use the present plant for freezing. We provided the necessary storage accommodation to meet the situation required by the military programme. There is a shortage of freezing plant in the United States at this moment, and, in addition to that, although we are freezing a certain amount, we find considerable difficulty owing to the lack of skilled men. We have not in the past gone in for freezing and chilling, and we have not, therefore, got the men with the necessary knowledge and skill. We should be very rightly blamed if we froze meat improperly and it went bad and was wasted, and it is impossible to adapt many of the plants for the purpose of freezing meat. As a matter of fact, we are able to obtain a certain amount of relief. We hope to deal with a total of 2,000 tons by chilling, and as far as freezing goes, at present I think we are freezing 4,000 to 5,000 beasts per week, and we hope to work up to a maximum
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  of 8,000. That is all we can hope to do, but it will be of considerable assistance. I only wish we could do more in this way, but normally, in a country where there is always a large quantity of frozen meat, it is only natural that the plant for freezing should not be in existence. We tried to see whether we could preserve the meat by salting, but, unfortunately, we have not got the plant, the casks, the tins or the skilled labour.
  As I informed my hon. Friend at Question Time, we are, and for some weeks we have been, slaughtering only first-grade beasts, and we hope to continue that for some time. It has been suggested that we ought to increase the meat ration now, and thus relieve the situation. I am sure the House will agree with me that it is essential to be able to guarantee a fair meat ration from January to April. Whatever we do, there is a strong possibility that the meat ration may be reduced, that it may come down. We want to keep it up in the middle of the winter as much as possible. If we eat the surplus of cattle now, we shall not have them during those months. In providing the meat ration we have to depend upon a given number of home-grown beasts coming forward month by month. We supply them and provide the balance by imported frozen meat, and we shall require from January to April a certain number of cattle, and it is because of that, because we need these cattle later on in the winter, that we cannot increase the meat ration now. We cannot look to any increase of frozen meat from the U.S.A. We cannot rely on any increase of importation on our present expectations. Anything more which comes will be in the nature of a windfall, but we cannot look at it as a certainty. In our opinion it is essential to try to maintain the ration during the winter. As regards damaged grain, as I told my hon. Friend at Question Time, nine-tenths of the applications for licences have been granted already, and our reports are that the machinery is working satisfactorily. I should like to say more about this, but I am afraid that the time at my disposal does not enable me to do so. We are going to have a new Order shortly dealing with composite meals, which, I believe, will be of considerable assistance to the farmer and do away with some of the genuine grievances which have existed in the past.

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  I have tried to put before the House the facts which explain the situation. We shall be very grateful for any suggestions. I can assure my hon. Friends they will receive sympathetic consideration. But I am perfectly convinced that farmers like every other section of the community are prepared—in fact, desire—to do all in their power to bring the War to a termination. I am sure there is no farmer who is not willing to submit to any inconveniences and difficulties—and he will have to face inconveniences and difficulties during the winter—if by doing so he can do anything to shorten the War even by a
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  few weeks. What is happening in France shows, I think, the Government are justified in concentrating their efforts in bringing the War to an early termination, and I am perfectly certain that when the facts are known—and I have tried to put them briefly before the House—we shall be able to count on the ready co-operation of the farmers whose difficulties we fully appreciate.
  It being Half-past Eleven of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without. Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at Half after Eleven o'clock.