HC Deb 16 October 1918 vol 110 c182

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.