§ The following Amendment stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Mr. GRAY:
§ In page 3, line 25, to leave out the words "April, nineteen hundred and seventeen," and to insert instead thereof the words "September, nineteen hundred and eighteen."
The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Robert Young)This Amendment raises the question on which we may take a general discussion.
§ Sir D. MACLEANrose—
§ Lord E. PERCYAm I to understand, Mr. Chairman, that you wish to take a general debate on this more or less consequential Amendment rather than on a later Amendment which raises the question more directly?
§ The CHAIRMANI think this raises the question on which a general discussion can take place.
§ Lord E. PERCYThe only point I was raising was that this Amendment was a consequential one on the one which appears on page 165 which directly fixes the, date. It is not of very great matter, but I was hoping that the discussion 2080 might take place on the substantial Amendment later on, rather than on a consequential Amendment.
§ Sir C. TREVELYANThe difficulty is that we cannot tell what decision the Committee will take, and therefore it might be more convenient to have the discussion on this Amendment. [An HON. MEMBER: "A bargain!"] There may be those who approve of a bargain. I think it will be simpler to take a debate on this Amendment.
§ The CHAIRMANI do not think it matters much.
§ Sir D. MACLEANI beg to move, in page 3, line 25, to leave out the words "April, nineteen hundred and seventeen," and to insert instead thereof the words, "September, nineteen hundred and eighteen."
It seems to me that this is the best way to raise this question. The remarks which I shall address to the Committee on this question will be short, because it happens to be a subject upon which there is a very large measure of agreement among Members of the Committee. It is quite obvious that, if this Bill stands as it is printed, this scheme will come into operation on the 1st of April next, and I think there is general agreement 2081 that that date is much too early. Undoubtedly, considerable alterations have been made by the various education authorities in response to questions addressed to them by the Education Department during the past 12 months and considerable progress has been made. Nevertheless, there is a very large number of other authorities, especially in rural districts, where no preparations have been made, or where, at any rate, such anticipatory steps as have been attempted are of a very primitive kind. I think the Committee as a whole is agreed that April next is not a convenient date.
The question which next arises is what should be the appointed day? It is quite clear that if this Measure is to operate efficiently three things are necessary. In the first place, the buildings should be ready; secondly, the teaching staff should be adequate; and, thirdly, the curriculum should be sufficiently well prepared. If those three conditions are not substantially provided for, it is obvious that the money proposed to be devoted to this great step forward in education will, to a very large extent, be wasted. Further, that would be a waste of money which would be thoroughly unjustified. Many associations and public bodies have been addressing circulars to Members of this House stating their views on this important question. The County Councils Association have passed a resolution in favour of the Bill coming into operation in April, 1933. That is an important body, and its views are entitled to serious consideration. Other bodies of considerable importance have come to the conclusion that September, 1932, would be a suitable date to which to postpone the appointed day provided that the Bill carries out the three conditions to which I have alluded.
I will deal, first of all, with the question of the buildings. Undoubtedly, you cannot get the full educational value of the additional year unless the school buildings are properly adapted, not only to provide accommodation for the additional number of scholars, but also to provide for the reorganised education. It is necessary to have education reorganised under this Bill, and, if we do not get that, it will not be worth while spending the money which it is proposed to spend. In my opinion, if we agree to 2082 postpone the operation of this Measure for 18 months from April next, that will be quite adequate.
With regard to the teachers, I should say that, after the three conditions which I have mentioned have been fulfilled, the supply of teachers is one which can be most easily dealt with. Undoubtedly, there is a very large number of teachers who can be brought into line to meet the requirements of this Measure more quickly than the buildings or the curriculum. Another question which arises is: how is the additional year to be spent? To mark time would be wasteful. Many points of special interest have been put forward during the course of this debate, and one of them which interests me very much is the evident desire to see that this additional year should not be spent merely on book learning, but should be adapted to vocational training. Adequate time will be allowed for that thoroughly to develop if the operation of this Measure is postponed for 18 months from April next.
The question of voluntary schools has been mentioned. It is perfectly clear that that question must sooner or later be dealt with and disposed of, and to attempt to hurry it would only court disaster. I am sure that one of the results of the postponement of the operation of this Bill until September, 1932, would be to effect an amicable settlement of this problem which has beset education for the last 50 or 60 years.
Another reason for postponing the operation of the Measure is the condition of the finances of this country. Grave as was the situation of public finance a year ago, it is much more serious to-day. The amount of money to be spent in connection with this Measure is bound to ha large. I agree that the funds of the nation devoted to education, if wisely invested, will bring back interest many fold. It is a fact that while in other days Governments and Parliaments might have undertaken with a cheerful heart large financial expenditure upon education, to-day it behoves hon. Members especially to see that such expenditure is well and wisely invested, and that is a problem which requires very careful consideration.
For my part, I should be very happy indeed, on national grounds, to bring this Act into operation at the earliest 2083 possible moment, but I certainly hold the view that there never was a time when public expenditure should be more carefully scrutinised than at the present moment, and I think a further 18 months might very well be utilised to see that the expenditure is kept down to the lowest possible amount consistent with full efficiency of service. I hold that, at the present moment, it is not possible for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to include in his Budget the very heavy additional expenditure involved in this Bill. I estimate that this Measure will place upon the Exchequer a charge of about £2,500,000, and a charge on the rates amounting to another £2,000,000. I am certain that it is the desire of the general body of the people of this country to develop and achieve a large measure of progressive education, but we must take the requisite time to see that the money is efficiently and adequately expended. On these and many other grounds, I hope the Committee will adopt my Amendment.
§ Sir C. TREVELYANI have already announced that the Government are prepared to accept the date of September, 1932, in place of April, 1931. I have little to add to what I have already said. I regret the alteration greatly. I never can see in this life why you should not do two things at once. In this case we might have made a great educational advance and we might have greatly helped to reduce unemployment. It could have been done—that is to say, the school age could have been raised in April as the Bill proposes. It would have been at the risk of imperfections—at the risk of considerable imperfections, very likely—but it could have been done. I do not propose to argue the matter further, except to say that I am sorry that the orderliness of mind of my fellow countrymen resented the idea of an emergency effort, which might have secured another year of removal from the labour market, at this juncture, of 500,000 children. I think it is a mistake that we did not do it, but the two parties opposite were adamant; they would have nothing but education under this change.
I admit that that is a most respectable attitude, and I admit also the vast national advantage of everyone with one voice saying, "We cannot bear to think 2084 of raising the school age till we know that every child between 14 and 15 is going to have adequate and interesting education" That was not always so. It is a good thing that we have got agreement about that, and, so far, the attitude of the Conservative party is pleasing. Some of my hon. Friends are resentful at the change which is being made in the Bill; I think that some of them would have liked me to die in the last ditch. Of course, there would have been nobility in that, but I prefer, I will not say to bow to the inevitable, but to use the inevitable. As it appeared to be the main thing which stood between a frank acceptance of the Bill in the minds of a large number of Members, I thought it better to agree with them than to fight them hopelessly. I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Sir D. Maclean) was quite right, there is one real gain in the postponement, because there will be more time to arrange a settlement which will enable the voluntary schools to play their part—not that we might not have found some satisfactory line of advance by next April, as I hope we shall, but it would have been very difficult to find the necessary Parliamentary time actually to carry through legislation by then. I shall continue the efforts which I am making in that direction.
As to the date which is now proposed, and which the Government are prepared to accept, that is to say, September, 1932, I say quite frankly that, if we had been considering from the first the date for raising the school age from a purely educational point of view, that is the date which in all probability we should have chosen. The Hadow Committee's report suggested the beginning of the school year 1932. [Interruption.] There is not such an enormous difference; the Hadow Committee suggested a somewhat earlier date by a few months. I suppose that the most important body in this connection, who realise best what the educational necessities are, is the Association of Education Committees, and they, twice this year, in March and again in November, have urged this date as the best date on which to start. By 1932, all authorities who really want to be ready will be able to be ready. It is quite true that complete reorganisa- 2085 tion, as I have already tried to explain, will not have been accomplished throughout the whole country, but for the children who are coming into the schools there will be schools, there will be places, and there will be teachers. The Committee must recollect that, when we take the date of September, 1932, the full operation of the Act will not be effective until well into 1933.
There is one other point to which I want to allude. There is uneasiness in some quarters as to the increase of teachers that is taking place this year. We calculate that in 1931 there will be 1,250 more teachers from the training colleges than in previous years. We are making an effort to increase the number of teachers to meet the new conditions. The new conditions are not only the raising of the school age; they are a whole process of reorganisation, of which the raising of the school age is part; and in that process of reorganisation you can go faster or slower. If the school age is not raised at the date that we originally intended, there is no reason why the teachers should not be used for what everybody knows to be required as well as the raising of the school age, namely, the reduction of the size of the still too large classes. One of the arguments used by the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) and his friends is that I am proposing to raise the school age too fast, before I have got the size of the classes down to what it ought to be. I agree that the classes are not down to what they ought to be, but I think that the raising of the school age is more important than getting perfection in that direction at once.
If, as the result of not raising the school age this year, but putting it off for another year, a proportion of the increased number of teachers coming into the profession will find it difficult to get employment, it is perfectly easy for the local authorities to develop the decreasing of their classes and the improvement of their organisation so as to employ more teachers. The actual number of teachers who by this particular process will come into the profession is only 1 per cent. of all the teachers. It will not be difficult to absorb that number, and I shall use all my efforts to see that those teachers are 2086 absorbed, knowing perfectly well that they can be absorbed if the local authorities do their duty. I shall be pressing the authorities to do this even if the age is not raised. I ask the Committee to accept the Amendment proposed by my right hon. Friend. I think that the date is the right one from the purely educational point of view, and, in spite of the disappointment which I know exists on this side among many of my hon. Friends, as well as in my own mind, I think it wise that we should accept it.
§ Lord E. PERCYMay I at the outset, in order to clear up the question of what this general discussion is covering, ask if I am right in supposing that it covers the question of the general date for the whole country, but not the Amendment as to non-provided schools which stands in the names of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Major Llewellin) and others of my hon. Friends—in page 3, line 29, at the beginning, to insert the words:
In order that children between the ages of fourteen and fifteen may receive efficient elementary instruction in public elementary schools hot provided by the local education authority, this Act shall not come into operation until an Act has been passed empowering local education authorities, during such period as the Act may determine, to contribute to the cost incurred by the trustees or managers of such schools in providing adequate and suitable accommodation for the efficient elementary instruction of such children, but, subject to this proviso.
§ The CHAIRMANThe Noble Lord is quite right in his assumption. The debate will be a general debate, but excluding the Amendment to which the Noble Lord refers; it will not include the question of non-provided schools.
§ Lord E. PERCYAnd equally, I take it, it will cover all the various proposals which come later for postponing the date in the particular year?
§ The CHAIRMANIn so far as I select them.
§ Lord E. PERCYCertainly, in so far as I select them. We are faced with a very curious situation. This is the fourth time that the right hon. Gentleman has changed his mind, and he says that he has changed his mind under the united pressure of a hard-hearted Opposition. But has he? How does he 2087 know that we would ever have agreed with our Friends below the Gangway on a particular date? How does he know that we should have voted with them? We certainly shall not vote with them on this Amendment, for reasons which I propose to explain. The real truth of the matter is that this is the result of a bargain, with which we on this side of the House above the Gangway have had nothing to do. The right hon. Gentleman came down to the House on the Second Reading and said to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) that now at last the Liberal party ought to vote for the Government and support the Government, because he was a hundred per cent. he-man and was really going to do something. But all this red-blooded courage oozed from him when he was confronted with even so mild-mannered a gentleman as the right hon. Member for North Cornwall (Sir D. Maclean). That is the situation with which we are faced so far as Parliamentary manoeuvres are concerned.
§ Colonel BURTONThe gun was not loaded!
§ Lord E. PERCYThe right hon. Member for North Cornwall said the other night that he welcomed this bargain because it relieved us of a certain amount of sham fighting. He speaks for himself when he speaks of sham fighting, but, if sham fighting has been ended by this arrangement, the fight has ended in a sham treaty, for, of all conceivable proposals, this one for September, 1932, is, in my judgment, the most nonsensical. There was a good deal to be said for the right hon. Gentleman's original idea. He said that the schools would not be ready. He rather exaggerated the extent to which they would be ready, but he said,"I quite agree that they will not be ready, but, at any rate, by bringing this into force now, we shall be doing something to relieve unemployment."
I disagree with him in that belief and I disagree with his reasoning. I do not think it will be a contributon of any considerable amount to the relief of unemployment. But on that reasoning and on that belief there was a good deal to be said for the right hon. Gentleman's proposal. It, hung together. Now, how- 2088 ever, as is usually the case with deals of this kind, which are done in a corner, which are not done across the Floor of the House, but are arranged in some purlieus upstairs, those who tried to make a deal have fallen hopelessly between two stools. The unemployment side of this Bill has gone past recall. Nobody any longer pretends that it will have the slightest effect in relieving the serious crisis which confronts us at the present moment.
The Bill has become a purely educational Bill, and, to my amazement, the right hon. Member for North Cornwall and the President of the Board of Education unite in saying that on educational grounds September, 1932, is the right and best date. I can only say that when I was at the Board of Education I never met anyone who did not agree that, on purely educational grounds, September, 1932, or April, 1932, was the worst possible date that could be selected. What arguments have been brought before us to show that September, 1932, is a good date educationally? The first is that it is recommended by the Hadow Committee. I know it is, but the Hadow Committee had before them no single scrap of evidence as to the amount of the variation in the numbers of the school population in future years, and they took their decision without any account whatever of the number of children who would be in the schools.
§ Mr. MARKHAMSurely they had before them the birth statistics for the years under consideration?
§ Lord E. PERCYI think the hon. Member will find that they did not.
§ Sir D. MACLEANOn page 144 of the Hadow Report this is quite clearly dealt with.
§ Lord E. PERCYI am afraid the right hon. Gentleman has got the wrong end of the stick. May I read the passage he has indicated?
The task of making the provision required will in some districts be somewhat, lightened by the decrease in the school population which has taken place as the result of the decline of the birth rate, the effect of which will be, as the President of the Board of Education stated on July 22nd, 1926, in the House of Commons, a fall in the next three years of upwards of 20 per cent. in the number of children over the age of 11 in elementary schools.2089 In other words, they base their recommendation on the decrease in the school population resulting from the low birthrate during the War years, but they never took into consideration the much greater increase in the school population which would take place after those years.
§ Mr. MARKHAMWill not the Noble Lord withdraw his statement that the Hadow Committee never considered the birth statistics?
§ Lord E. PERCYIf the hon. Member understood my statement to mean that the Hadow Committee never considered that the low birth-rate during the War would produce a fall in the school population, he is right and I withdraw.
§ Sir D. MACLEANThe Noble Lord said the Hadow Committee had never considered this question of the number of school children. It is clear throughout the report that they did consider it.
§ Lord E. PERCYI am within the recollection of the Committee. I was arguing that the Hadow Committee had never taken into consideration the growth of the school population after the year 1932, and I repeat that. There is not a line of evidence in the report to show that they had anything of that sort be fore them. They were dealing with the decrease.
§ Mr. MARKHAMThe Noble Lord is misleading the Committee. May I point out that the figure of 1932 was never mentioned in the first part of his speech.
§ Lord E. PERCYI am within the recollection of the Committee. If the hon. Member says that, I do not think it will be supported. That is the first thing they recommended, and I am sorry to say that they were wrong.
The next point is that the Association of Education Committees have passed resolutions in favour of it. That also is perfectly true, but it should be remembered that, when the Government actuary produced full statistics of the numbers of the school population, the Association %f Education Committees cancelled that resolution and substituted 1933. They have now come back to the year 1932, but surely both the right hon. Gentlemen who have spoken realise that it is hardly fair to quote the Association of Local Education Authorities at this 2090 moment for a particular date. If the right hon. Gentleman has had to give way to the right hon. Gentleman below the Gangway, does he not know that the Association of Local Education Authorities, and every local authority, is impressed with the absolute necessity of going as far as they possibly can to carry out the wishes of the Government of the country? Any Association of Local Education Authorities will always meet the President of the Board of Education more than half way, and to quote any resolution of that kind as evidence that this is educationally the best date is too absurd for words. At any rate, we have had no reasons given by the Minister as to why it is educationally the best date, and he was content to quote other people, which is not, after all, a dignified attitude for a Minister of the Crown. We have a right to be presented with some argument, particularly when it is quite notorious that a great many people regard it as a bad date and when many arguments have been brought forward to show that it is a bad date.
It is a had date for this reason. The 18 months between April, 1931, and September, 1932, are 18 months when the school population will be comparatively low. In April, 1931, there will hardly be more children in the schools between 11 and 15 than there will be children between 11 and 14 a few years later, and in those 18 months, therefore, it will be fairly easy to provide for the extra number involved. From September, 1932, it will become increasingly difficult, because you propose to raise the school leaving age exactly when the bulge is beginning. In other words, this much trumpeted deal between the Labour party and the Liberal party, this situation in which the Liberal party has emerged as the god from the machine to save education and to save the country, amounts to this, that you are going to relieve the local education authorities of providing accommodation during 18 months when it would have been comparatively easy and you are going to leave them under the obligation of providing accommodation, teachers and so on during four months when it will be admittedly impossible.
Let us frankly face this fact. With a few exceptions, such as my own authority in Hastings which, through no virtue of 2091 its own, has a considerable surplus of school accommodation, there is no local education authority in the country which even proposes to provide additional accommodation for that bulge period. Of course, any local education authority would be doing something wholly incompatible with sound administrative methods if it was to do so, because it would be providing accommodation, teachers and so on for a number of pupils who will only be in the school for four years, and it is known to be quite impossible for the local education authorities to provide adequately during those swollen years.
We come to other effects of the right hon. Gentleman's volte face. The first is the effect that he mentioned on the teachers—the extra number who have been trained in the training colleges for two years and are coming out. The right hon. Gentleman says he will use that extra number to reduce the size of classes. Surely he has learned this elementary maxim, that the size of classes depends on the number of class rooms rather than upon the number of teachers. What is the good of cramming a thousand extra teachers into existing class rooms so that you will have two teachers in the same room teaching two classes? He has room for teachers exactly to the extent that he has extra accommodation, and he has not got that extra class room accommodation now and, therefore, these optimistic forecasts about being able to absorb any surplus number of teachers by reducing the size of the classes is fallacious, and it is equally fallacious if you use the argument about the period after 1936.
I suggested the other day that out of every seven extra teachers who would be employed by local authorities to deal with the bulge, and to raise the school-leaving age before the bulge, three at least would be unemployed in 1938. The reply to that is the reduction in the size of classes. That, also, rests on the assumption that you are going to provide surplus accommodation over and above what you need in normal years, and that you will have extra class rooms in which to divide off the classes and employ the extra teachers. That is not what is going to happen. You always come back to this fact, that you will have, if you raise the school-leaving age, say, between 2092 1936 and 1938, a, roughly steady level of school population and, if you raise the age before then, you will have a swollen number of pupils during those years for which you will not provide accommodation in excess of what will be needed after that period and, therefore, if you have to employ an extra number of teachers during that period, as you will have, those teachers, after that period is over, will not find the extra number of class rooms in which to teach, and all your talk about employing more teachers by reducing the size of classes in a pure piece of academic dreaming. It cannot happen, because you will not have the number of class rooms. Those are some reasons why September, 1932, is the worst possible educational date.
8.0 p.m
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall (Sir D. Maclean) really amazed me when he said he had come to the conclusion that by September, 1932, there would he enough teachers and enough buildings and the whole thorny question of the curriculum would be solved. There is not very much difficulty about the number of teachers in 1932, although there will be tremendous difficulty as to the number of teachers after September, 1932. The right hon. Gentleman has never yet shown how he can produce the 12,000 or 15,000 teachers for that period. How does he really think we can solve the problem of the curriculum? There is not an expert official of the Board who does not look forward to 10 or 15 years of experimentalliy working out the curriculum.
The idea of solving the 8.0 p.m. problem of the curriculum by September, 1932, is a pure piece of imagination. This is the flimsiest pretext that ever was put before the House; it abandons all the unemployment arguments in favour of the Bill, it does nothing to improve the educational advantages, or disadvantages, of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education says he has come up against the orderly mind of his fellow countrymen; but he has got into this mess because he has the orderly mind himself. With his orderly mind he has said that the school age must be raised from a particular date for the whole country, without exemptions of any kind. He would not let the local education authorities give exemption for children for 2093 whom there was not sufficient accommodation and provide, part-time courses. He must have a complete system of compulsion in every area applied to all children without exception. That is why, having that cast-iron attitude, he has had no choice but to throw over his own scheme and to take what is given to him from the Liberal benches. It was a bad Bill on the Second Reading, and it is a ten times worse Bill now.
§ Mr. EDEThe greater part of the speech of the Noble Lord is in effect that the Noble Lord is opposed to the whole Bill. As between the two dates, there is very little of his argument that has any real application. When he talks about a deal in the corner with such indignation, I can almost believe he has been in the corner himself and failed to do a deal.
§ Lord E. PERCYIf the hon. Member makes that assertion seriously, may I say that there is no foundation for that suggestion.
§ Mr. EDEI have spoken in that way about the Noble Lord's speech; but I feel doubt if I should be able to use language which you, Sir, would allow me to use in alluding to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall (Sir D. Maclean). On 13th November, 1929, the right hon. Gentleman moved in this House:
That this House urges the Government to bring forward without delay the details of its scheme for raising the school age, especially the financial proposals connected therewith, so that local education authorities may know what their commitments are likely to be; and further urges that any changes in the existing law that require legislation shall at once be put in the form of a Bill and presented to this House.In the course of his speech the right hon. Gentleman said:Another point is this. Has the right hon. Gentleman"—that is, the President of the Board of Education—thought out the question of the effect of his proposal on the labour market, the unemployment question, the insurance question? The Hadow Report, issued in 1927, I think, said the school-leaving age ought to be raised within five years from this date, but the Government with great courage and as far as I am concerned I am going to support them in their great task"—2094 I want the Committee to listen to the next few words—I think I can speak for my hon. and right hon. Friends as well—have decided that it must be done by 1931.I really thought the right hon. Gentleman meant it. What has happened since to make the right hon. Gentleman depart from the quite sane principles he laid down that evening? I did not find in his speech to-night one single syllable that shows any recollection of the speech that he made in November, 1929. I shared the disappointment expressed by the President of the Board of Education that we are unable to do anything to relieve the labour market until 1st January, 1933. The words of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall are sufficient condemnation of him and of his colleagues on the Liberal benches. I cannot help thinking that the House, and our party in particular, must now address itself to this Measure entirely as an educational Measure. No child will be kept in school beyond the age of 14 until 1st January, 1933, and there is no longer any argument for this Bill as an immediate measure to deal with unemployment. It will eventually have its effect, but the President of the Board of Education regards it as no longer a Measure directed towards dealing with the present crisis. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will realise that this imposes on the Government and this party the necessity of seeing that by 1st January, 1933, as large provision as is possible is made to make this a thoroughly sound educational advance. If in the two years that intervene, the President of the Board of Education will direct his mind towards that, I am quite sure that, from an educational point of view, there may not he too much to be regretted in the delay, regrettable as it is from the employment point of view.My own experience in dealing with local authorities shows me this. We have been told that some local authorities would not have been ready by April,1931; I believe that those are the people who will not be ready on 1st September, 1932. There is a type of local authority which only acts when the emergency arises, and they will see in the 17 months' postponement of the appointed date and the 21 months' postponement before they will have to deal with the first child retained in school, an excuse for 21 2095 months' postponement of dealing with the situation. I hope the President of the Board of Education is going to assure us that he will use all the persuasion, and all the other powers that he has, to make it quite sure that the schools will be ready on that date. I thought it was rather hard of the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) to say that the 1st September, 1932, was a most nonsensical date. No matter from what motive they did it, it was the second thought, which is presumably the best thought of the Association of Education Committees, and it is rather hard on them to use this as a weapon with which to attack the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall, The Noble Lord has apparently spent a great deal of time mastering the mathematical inclination of the bulge, and when he is rather gravelled for arguments against the Bill, he refers to the statement about the bulge. I believe that the mere presence of this large number of children is an additional reason why the Bill should be passed during their school lifetime.
If there is any good to be done by retaining the children in school, it should be secured for the largest number of children our generation will ever see in the schools. I have come to the conclusion that when I reach the place where I find my ideals, I shall not he in the company of the Noble Lord opposite. But in a practical world we really never reach our ideals, and we have to do the best we can with what is at our command. Nature has provided us with a large number of children who could be best benefited by some provision of the kind which I have indicated. I believe they could be absorbed into the educational system and retained there and given a greater opportunity than any generation has ever had. I think all the "academic dreaming" has been done by hon. Members opposite.
Except the Noble Lord himself, I have not heard any speech from the Opposition benches which convinces me that a single hon. Member there has any conception of what an elementary school is like. They speak as if this is a layer of children being superimposed on the rest of the school, distinct from the rest of the school and never to be really a part 2096 of the life of the existing school. The whole basis of the Hadow report— "The New Prospect"—and of the White Paper which accompanied it is that the raising of the school age should he used to secure the complete four years' course for every child. I agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall when he urged that some attention should be given to the curriculum, but I am sure the Noble Lord will agree that that curriculum must be secured in the way of a complete four years' course.
§ Lord E. PERCYIt is quite true that the children between 14 and 15 ought to be able to go upwards, but you have not sufficient accommodation for the separate age groups which is to be brought in, and you Will not be able to have a full four years' course even if you keep those children four years at school.
§ Mr. EDEThe Noble Lord will recollect that I did state that if my right hon. Friend was to use the next two years in order to see that that was secured, then, much as we on this side of the Committee may regret that we are unable to use this Measure for the immediate relief of unemployment, we shall have no ground to complain that our educational ideals remain unfulfilled. We have been twitted for not carrying out "Labour and the Nation." As far as I am aware, this is the first time we have definitely taken "Labour and the Nation" and tried to place it on the Statute Book. The unfortunate result is, that the moment we try to do so both parties opposite fall upon us and try to prevent it. I believe that the Liberal party, when they think over this situation, will greatly regret the part that they have taken in this matter, and that the Conservative party, while they may feel that something has been gained, will find that we shall be able, through this delay on the educational side, to turn our adversity into a source of success for our policy.
§ Mr. CAMPBELLThe fact that the President of the Board of Education has so readily accepted the Amendment for extending the time by another 18 months rather gives away his case and tends to show that practically every one of the Amendments proposed from this side of the Committee were Amendments of 2097 substance and were, in fact, in the interests of the Bill and of the children. We have put down Amendments with regard to insufficient teachers, insufficient accommodation, reorganisation, and curricula, every one of which has been turned down by the Board of Education, and yet, for a reason best known to the right hon. Gentleman and the party concerned, when a few Liberals come to him and ask him for a concession of 18 months he at once accepts their proposition. I suggest that the acceptance of the Liberal Amendment will, in the long run, cost the country a great deal of money, because the Liberals are not going to make a bargain with the Socialist party unless they get a quid pro quo. Therefore, this concession of 18 months may mean that the Socialist party will be kept in office for an extra 18 months, which fact will cost the country a great deal more than the £8,000,000 which this Bill is going to cost. Therefore, what is regared as a gain for the children will prove to be a loss to the country.
§ Mr. SEXTONHow much will you cost?
§ Mr. CAMPBELL; I have been asked how much I shall cost, but I do not think that such a question is in order, seeing that I have not cost the country very much as yet, and that I have worked my way through in the same way as tie hon. Member who has asked the question. Therefore, while we realise that a concession has been made and that the President has admitted that he ought never to have suggested the 1st of April, 1931, we on this side are pleased even with the so-called concession of 18 months. We still consider that we are not getting value for our money. As a business man, I am often apt. to suggest that a firm should launch out along some line or other and should expend money in order to reap the benefit in some other way, but we maintain that, owing to the fact that the time is not yet ripe for this Bill, the money which is to be expended will not produce a sufficiently large dividend in the interests of the country, and of the ratepayers and taxpayers, and of the children themselves.
I am most distressed about the question of the reorganisation and the 2098 curricula. The hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) seemed to think that nobody on this side except my Noble Friend the late President of the Board of Education knew what the inside of an elementary school looked like, or what kind of education was given in an elementary school. I do not think that that was very flattering to those of us who have spent a great deal of our time in trying to learn something about education which we realise is for the benefit of the country itself. I do not think that it is very flattering to be told that we do not know much about the matter. I think I know a good deal. I consider that the child who stays at school voluntarily after 14 years of age does not get any additional education. The child may stay in school six or eight months longer in an endeavour to get better education, but as often as not it is merely experiencing a repetition of the work learned during the previous six months. That is the sort of thing we want to change.
We are very anxious that the schools should be so reorganised and the curricula so arranged that girls may receive definite vocational training such things as cooking, needlework and domestic service, which between the ages of 14 and 15 are highly beneficial, no mailer what a girl may intend to do; and with regard to boys, that far more attention should be given to physical training and organised games, both in and out of school, and to such like things as, at the present moment, are catered for by the girls' clubs and the boys' clubs which are run by voluntary effort and which do so much to benefit the younger generation. These are the things which I am very anxious to see introduced as part of the educational training if these children are to be kept at school between the ages of 14 and 15. It is no use continuing on the present lines. They must do something of definite advantage to themselves and to the country, and we must do something which will be of definite advantage to the taxpayers and ratepayers and justify the expenditure of this extra money. As the President of the Board of Education has so readily adopted the Liberal Amendment it convinces me that, as regards the question of accommodation, he also is not 2099 satisfied that except in a, few places accommodation is ready, or even will be ready in 1932.
The other day the Noble Lady the Member for Perth and Kinross (Duchess of Atholl) was discussing the London figures, and was contradicted by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove). I am sorry the hon. Member is not in his place, but I would ask him to read to-morrow what I have said. In any case, I should like to put the matter right so as to have it placed on the records of the House. He said that Mr. Gater, the Education Officer of the London County Council, had said that in London there are at present 80,000 empty places in the schools. It is true that he did say that, but he said something more than that. Unfortunately, the distribution of empty places is uneven, and, while there are some parts of London in which a margin of places exists, there are other places in which the schools are already full. He goes on to say that this shows clearly that in large measure the need for additional places is temporary to cover the peak years from 1832 to 1935.
I estimate that in London 10,000 additional places will be required in 1932, but in all probability not more than 5,000 of these will be needed permanently. I imagine that the London situation is typical of that in other areas.
§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Morgan Jones)Will the hon. Member complete the sentence?
§ Mr. CAMPBELLYes.
I imagine that the London situation is typical of that in other areas, and it is perhaps reasonable to assume that the provision of accommodation will not he amongst our greatest difficulties.
§ Mr. MARKHAMDoes he not also mention the fact that redistribution could fairly easily be affected?
§ Mr. CAMPBELLYes, but he also says that it is no use our spending money which is going to be wasted eventually. He says that if you bring in a scheme—
§ Mr. MARKHAMrose—
§ Mr. CAMPBELLThe hon. Member will have his opportunity of speaking, later.
§ Mr. MARKHAMI am wondering if I shall.
§ Mr. CAMPBELLIn Bromley and Beckenham our great cry is the lack of accommodation. We have a great number of London children who have migrated to those districts and there is not sufficient accommodation even for the children who are in school already. The President of the Board of Education has suggested that we should not worry as much as we have been doing; but we have been trying to cut down the number of children in classes and he now suggests that that does not matter. If the Bill is brought into operation too hurriedly it will upset the schools as they are at present constituted. We have to consider that there are children in school to-day who are bound to be there according to law. I am more anxious to see that there should be fewer children in. the classes as the schools are than that we should cram the schools with other children, so that the whole educational system of the country will suffer.
There is the question of the teachers, but as I have no special knowledge of the teaching staff I will not deal with that matter. The mere fact that the Amendment has been so readily accepted justifies all that we have said. It has not been a sham fight but a very real fight. After great study and after going into the matter night after night we have drafted Amendments which have justified themselves, if for no other reason than that the Minister has said to-night in so many words: "In all that you have said, and all that I have contradicted, you were really right, because I hale now carried forward the date by 18 months." The one thing that we have to grouse about now is that he has not put the date to 1935 or 1936 when, as the last. speaker said, the schools, the teachers, the organisation and the curriculum will be available, for the benefit of all concerned.
§ Mr. LLEWELLYN-JONESNothing has impressed me so much in this debate as the absolute insincerity of the speeches delivered by hon. and right hon. Members above the Gangway on this side of the Committee. They did everything in their power to oppose the raising of the school age, otherwise why should they have voted against the Second Reading of the Bill? For them to come here now 2101 and to suggest that the date proposed in the Amendment, the 1st September, 1932, is the worst possible date is simply an indication of their insincerity in connection with the matter. The hon. Member for Bromley (Mr. Campbell) has referred to the fact that he is interested in the schools. Seeing schools from the outside, as many hon. Members above the Gangway have only seen them, is a very different experience from seeing the schools from the inside, as many hon. Members opposite and hon. Members on these benches have done.
I should have rejoiced if it had been possible for the operation of the Bill to have begun next year but, as was pointed out by the Minister, on educational grounds—and in dealing with an Education Bill one has, in the first instance, to approach it from the educational standpoint—there can be no question that the date now suggested is very much better than the date in the original Bill. The hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) referred to a speech made in 1929 by my right hon. Friend. It is obvious that what was meant by that speech was that a certain time must elapse before the education proposals of the Government could be passed into operation, and obviously it would be perfectly correct in 1929 to bring in a Bill to come into operation in 1931. Therefore, if we are to deal with the Bill on the analogy now suggested we are right in proposing that a Bill introduced in 1930 should come into operation in 1932. It simply means the lapse of the necessary time between the Bill becoming law, and the appointed day upon which the local authorities have to put it into operation.
The Noble Lord seemed rather to sneer at the opinion of the Association of the Local Education Authorities, but I think we must all realise that by far the greater number of those who take interest in education in the various education authorities are the people who sit upon that association. Their prime interest is in the education of the country. They do not desire simply to adopt resolutions which they think will please the President of the Board of Education. It is nor their busness to follow the President of the Board of Education. Their business, as an authority with intimate knowledge of educational administration, is to make suggestions which may be of value to the 2102 President of the Board of Education, and in suggesting the date which is going to be adopted they have suggested a date which from their experience and their knowledge of conditions appears to be the most suitable date for bringing the Act into operation.
One hon. Member from the Government benches suggested that there were certain education authorities who were not disposed to move very rapidly. Is it not the position that the education authorities have to wait until the legislature has adopted certain proposals before they are justified in incurring expenditure in carrying out those proposals? Until the proposals of any Government are embodied in legislation a local authority is not justified in assuming that there is going to be legislation on those lines. Immediately these proposals are embodied in an Act of Parliament you will find that the great majority of local education authorities will he prepared, even without that pressure of which we have heard so much, to move forward and do everything in their power to see that buildings a re provided, that teachers are provided, and that the organisation of the schools will enable the Bill to be brought into operation on the 1st September, 1932. It would he extremely difficult, almost impossible, from what I have learned from representatives of rural education authorities for these proposals to be brought into operation on the 1st April next, and it would be an educational disaster to bring the Bill into operation and find local education authorities, in the short time at their disposal, unable to organise their schools satisfactorily in order to give effect to the change.
During the last few days a very interesting report has been jested by the Board of Education. It is the report of the Departmental Committee on Rural Education in England and Wales, and it would be well if hon. Members representing rural constituencies would get a copy of that report and peruse it. There are a number of suggestions with regard to the organisation of rural education which are of value not only to Welsh educationists but to educationists in other parts of the country. Some of the suggestions put forward with regard to rural education, the type of education that should he given and the organisa- 2103 tion of rural schools, ought, as far as possible, to be adopted by local education authorities before the appointed day under this Bill. As far as rural schools in Wales are concerned it will be an unmixed blessing to postpone the appointed day until September, 1932, in order to give local authorities an opportunity of adopting the recommendations made in this report. I support the Amendment. I feel certain that from an educational point of view it is a far better date than the one suggested in the Bill.
§ Mr. MARKHAMThe Noble Lord the ex-President of the Board of Education has accused the present President of the Board of Education of changing his attitude at least four times in as many months on this question. It is within the knowledge of every hon. Member who was in the House in the years 1924 to 1925 that no Member of this House changed his views more rapidly on the subject of education than the Noble Lord himself. Let me give one short instance. In 1925 on the 8th April the ex-President of the Board of Education supported a. Resolution to this effect:
That local education authorities should he called upon to prepare schemes by which without a reasonable period adequate provision may be made for secondary or some form of full-time post primary education or all children up to the age of 16 …. and for the development of maintenance allowances on such a scale that no children may be debarred from higher education by the poverty of their parents."—[OFFICIAI. REPORT, 8th April, 1925; col. 2350, Vol. 182.]That was the Motion which the Noble Lord and Members of the party opposite supported. Their attitude soon changed when it came to doing something practical. Then they began to use their influence, which has been extended and developed during the past few months, to delay any practical reforms. In 1928, when the matter was brought up again, the Noble Lord, instead of doing his best to get educational authorities to get on with the Resolution which had been passed by this House, did his best to hamper their activities by restricting their financial resources. One is led to this conclusion that hon. Members opposite never intended that the raising of the school-leaving age should come into 2104 operation at all, and the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Beaumont) has indicated as much.
§ Mr. BEAUMONTThere is no secrecy about it. My Noble Friend has always said that he did not believe the school age should ever be raised compulsorily. There has been no concealment about it.
§ Mr. MARKHAMI am very glad to have that confession from the hon. Member.
§ Mr. BEAUMONTThe hon. Member surely must know that that has been our attitude all through. It has been the attitude adopted by my Noble Friend, and he will see that it is so if he will read through those debates.
§ Mr. MARKHAMIt means that the Conservative party will oppose the raising of the school age by any means in their power, by fair means or foul, no matter how; and it also means that the Resolution I have read was just a pious Resolution supported by the Noble Lord the ex-President of the Board of Education and by hon. Members of the Conservative party who were in the House at that time. May I ask whether the Noble Lady the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross (Duchess of Atholl) agrees with this pious Resolution or not?
Duchess of ATH0LLI only want to say that if the hon. Member will read the speech he will see that my Noble Friend was ready to accept the Resolution as something which should be the ultimate aim of our educational policy.
§ Mr. MARKHAMIt comes to this, that the Resolution was nothing snore than pious platitudes which hon. Members opposite were prepared to profess, but it is quite a different thing when it comes to putting them into practice. What they do on county councils is amazing. I am glad that at last we are getting at the real attitude of the party opposite. The ex-President of the Board of Education not only supported the principle of raising the school age on this occasion but on many subsequent occasions, and he also supported the principle of maintenance allowances. The attitude of the Noble Lord and the party opposite is now precisely the reverse. They say that on no account will they agree to the raising of the school age or to maintenance allowances. It is now a fight with 2105 the gloves off. One of the reasons given by hon. Members opposite for suspending the operation of this Bill is because local authorities are not ready. Who is the cause of that unpreparedness? It is hon. Members opposite. I can give case after case where they have used their influence to secure delay on local education authorities against the wishes of other members of those councils.
§ Lord E. PERCYIf the hon. Member can give instances of that kind, will he kindly do so?
§ Mr. MARKHAMMost decidedly. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Beaumont) and myself have been members of the Education Committee of the Bucks County Council, and I am sure that he will agree with me, in justice and in honesty, that he himself put up a great fight on that council for delaying this Measure from coming into operation.
§ Mr. BEAUMONTAs the hon. Member has mentioned my name, may I state, perfectly frankly, that I have always said that I hoped that this Measure would not come into force; that I did not believe that any money ought to be spent until it hail come into force, and that I would do everything in my power to prevent it coming into force. I have said so, openly, in the county council, in the House of Commons, and on the platform, and I have never concealed that fact, but the hon. Member seemed to suggest that hon. Members on this side had been doing something underhand to try to stop it being carried into effect.
§ Mr. MARKHAMThe hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Beaumont) has always been above-board in his expression of his ideas upon this matter. It is the ex-President of the Board of Education who has said in this House that he is in favour of these things, and, then, by various means has endeavoured to postpone them—
§ Lord E. PERCYWhat does the hon. Member mean by that?
§ Mr. MARKHAMI was explaining that hon. Members on the opposite side had used every means they could to stop this Bill from coming into operation. The hon. Member for Aylesbury admitted that he himself has used every endeavour on the Bucks County Council Education Committee to prevent it coming into 2106 operation, and that applies, not only to the hon. Member for Aylesbury but to many other hon. Members opposite.
§ Lord E. PERCYBut the hon. Member bas suggested that while the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Beaumont) has been above-board in his opposition to the Measure, I, on the contrary, have been hypocritical. What does the hon. Member mean by that statement?
§ Mr. MARKHAMThe Noble Lord in 1925 gave his verbal allegiance, or his passive allegiance, to the principle of raising the school age and giving maintenance allowances with it.
§ Lord E. PERCYRaising the school age by compulsion?
§ Mr. MARKHAMThe words of the Resolution are "post-primary education for all children up to the age of 16."
§ Lord E. PERCYDoes that mean compulsion?
§ Mr. MARKHAMAnyone who has been at an elementary school as I have been and who has come from a working-class family knows that you could never give all children up to that age post-primary education without compulsion and maintenance allowances.
§ Lord E. PERCYThe hon. Member is like other hon. Members opposite, who have always been trying to put off their responsibility for compulsion and to put it on to me. Hon. Members who were present at the debate to which reference has been made know perfectly well that at that time and all through my term of office I was in favour of providing accommodation and teaching for all children up to the age of 15 or 16 who wished to stay at school. But I was consistently against compulsion, and there is no use in hon. Members trying to get rid of the odium of compulsion by seeking to put it on to me. Really, hon. Members opposite are in alliance with Lord Rothermere all the time.
§ Mr. MARKHAMWe on this side have realised that the question of compulsion must arise inevitably. The Noble Lord himself in 1924 assented to the principle that no child should be debarred from higher education—
§ Lord E. PERCYHear, hear!
§ Mr. MARKHAMYou will not make that education available to all children unless you have compulsion and maintenance allowances. The Noble Lord has resented the term "hypocritical" being applied to him in this connection, but what could be more hypocritical than the action of hon. Members opposite who give approval to the principle of this thing, and then every time when something practical is about to be done, oppose it on the ground that the time is not opportune, that this year is not suitable, that next year is not suitable, that no year apparently is suitable. The Noble Lord has mentioned several dates on which the Bill ought to come into operation. In these discussions we have beard at one time that it should be September, 1932, at another time it should be 1931, and this evening it is 1938. What is that but sheer rank hypocrisy? There is no other word for it. I, for one, am glad to get to: he root of this matter. I feel sorry that the President of the Board of Education has given way on this matter to any hon. Members opposite, Liberal or Conservative, and I sincerely trust that if there are any further occasions in connection with this Bill when the Minister cannot get his way, except by truckling to hon. Members opposite, he will take the bold heroic course of going to the country.
§ Sir JOHN WITHERSI congratulate the President of the Board of Education upon having got rid of the element of unemployment in connection with this matter, as it helps us very much in the consideration of the very important question of the date. That being so I should like to make a suggestion on the basis of what has been said already to the effect that of the 317 local authorities concerned a considerable number will be ready soon. If you are going to have a Bill of this kind, I fail to see why the local authorities who are ready, should not start at an earlier date, and by arrangement, we could bring in all the local authorities by 1936–bringing in the others as they are ready. While the President of the Board of Education may be averse from doing things piecemeal, I cannot see why he should not bring the Bill into operation in the areas of the local authorities which are ready for it. It seems a reasonable way of dealing with the matter 2108 and I think it is the way which would be adopted in any other sphere of action.
§ Captain CAZALETThe arguments which the Minister gave in reply to the proposals put forward from these benches in the previous discussion, to the effect that local authorities should bring in the Bill at different periods, were rather cogent, and I was considerably influenced by them. I think they provide the right answer to the hon. Member who has just sat down. The hon. Member who spoke from the Liberal benches had the audacity to accuse us of insincerity but it was only a few minutes before his speech that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Northern Cornwall (Sir D. Maclean) was exposed in a most glaring instance of insincerity. The hon. Member for Northern Cornwall only last year urged the Government to introduce something along the lines of this Measure and wound up his speech by saying that it could, and should, be introduced in April 1931. We have heard from him to-night a speech giving reason after reason why it should now be postponed until September 1932. For a Member of the right hon. Gentleman's party to accuse us of insincerity is a little difficult to bear.
We have heard to-night not only from the Liberal benches, hat from the Minister, many of the arguments which we have been putting forward for the last month. The Minister himself said that if the Bill were put into operation in April next year there would be considerable imperfections. He also said, in regard to the voluntary schools, that it would be a definite educational benefit if he could have a further extension of time in order to make satisfactory arrangements, and conduct negotiations. We have heard arguments about expense, about the lack of teachers, the lack of accommodation and the lack of appropriate curriculum. Those are all arguments which we have been urging from these benches on practically every Amendment, and. therefore what the debate to-night has shown, and what the President himself has confessed in accepting this Amendment, is that the Conservatives have been right all the time.
We are pleased that the coming into operation of the Bill has been postponed till 1932. It is certainly better so, than 2109 that it should come into force in 1931, and I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Chatham (Mr. Markham), who made such a spirited speech from below the Gangway opposite, because I think he cleared up the question as to what principles we advocate on these benches and what principles they advocate on those benches. I think the Committee should be very grateful to him for having, by various interruptions, made perfectly plain what I think we on these benches thought always was perfectly plain.
May I dissociate myself and, I know, my hon. Friends on these benches, from the accusation that we had anything whatever to do with the agreement or arrangement come to, as it was said, in a corner, in some secret conclave, as to the actual date which the President has now accepted? I should have thought that the argument put forward in the Second Reading debate regarding what is known as the bulge was complete and adequate to show that, while 1932 is a better date than 1931, in itself it is a completely unsatisfactory date. In 1932–and I quote the figures given by the Minister himself—you will have some 420,000 children between the ages of 14 and 15 in school; in 1934, owing to a variety of circumstances, that number is increased to 578,000; and in 1935, it will be increased by another 50,000 to 627,000.
In those three years between 1932, when this Bill is to come into operation, and 1935 you will have an increase of over 200,000 children between the ages of 14 and 15, and therefore this is a point that we may very pertinently put: Even if you are ready with your schools, your accommodation, your teachers, and your curriculum in 1932, you will not be ready or prepared to give the extra teaching and accommodation in 1934 and 1935, and you will have all the same problems in. those particular years as you would have had if you had made the Measure operative in 1931, unless of course the local authorities burdened themselves with a large additional amount of accommodation, which they are not obliged to do, and which would involve them in even greater expenditure than that which they will have to bear under the present Bill. Further, if the local authorities burden themselves with some additional expenditure, in order to provide for what is known as the bulge, this 2110 accommodation for extra teachers will not be required after the year 1935, because, as we know, the figure descends from that year.
9.0 p.m
There is another point. We have had the usual arguments to-night casting, I will not say aspersions, but some reflections on the activities of certain local authorities. In. these debates the poor local authorities are always abused or accused by certain hon. Members opposite, but what is the fact? We have heard a great deal in these debates, and we have heard to-night from the right hon. Member for North Cornwall, of the financial burden which this Bill is imposing on the Treasury. He also gave an interesting figure as to the additional burden to be placed on local authorities. He gave the figure as £2,000,000 for 1932, and that figure will gradually increase. I think the finances of the local authorities to-day are in almost as parlous and grievous a condition in many cases as are the finances of the central Executive and the Treasury, and one of the main reasons that prompts us to wish that the date of the coming into operation of this Bill should be postponed is that we believe that in a few years hence the local authorities may be, like the State, in a better financial position to meet the greatly increased burdens which this Bill will impose upon them.
§ Sir C. COBBThe hon. Member for Chatham (Mr. Markham) inferred, I think, that it was impossible to hope that the older children of the working classes would be able to get extended education unless that education was compulsory.
§ The CHAIRMANThe hon. Member must not enter into the argument between the Noble Lord and the hon. Member for Chatham (Mr. Markham). The question now is the date.
§ Sir C. COBBI am coming to the date.
§ The CHAIRMANYes, the hon. Baronet must come to it.
§ Sir C. COBBAt any rate, we in London are extremely anxious that the date should be postponed as late as possible. [An HON. MEMBER: "Who are 'we'?"] I am quite sure that that is the opinion of the local authority, and 2111 the reason that the local authority in London wishes that date to be postponed as late as possible, is that the great majority of the children are already enjoying this post-primary education which this Bill is supposed to be going to give them, and, what is more, they are enjoying a post-primary kind of education which is very much more useful to them than the extended kind of elementary education which the Bill would give them. Therefore, we think that if we could have a longer time before this Bill comes into operation, we should be able to make our arrangements very much better and more satisfactorily for the children.
At the present time we have 20,000 children, out of a total number of 51,000 children who form the age group of 14 to 15, who are enjoying post-primary education in evening institutes, and we say that those children should be able to go on for as long a number of years as possible in those evening institutes, because they are there learning for two or three years—not for the one year which this Bill would give them—those things which are really useful to them in the course of life which they will pursue. In the same way, we have in the day continuation schools no fewer than 6,000 children whom we should like to continue for two or three years in those schools in order that they may study those things which are useful to them for the professions or occupations which they are going to adopt. That makes 26,000 children out of a total of 51,000 of from 14 to 15 who are in part-time post-primary education and learning those things which will be useful to them in their after life, and we wish them to stay in those schools for two or three years and that they should not have to exchange that kind of education for the one year in an elementary school which you are going to give them under this Bill.
In the same way, we have 14,500 children having whole-time education of a similar kind. Children in the central schools number 4,500 and children in the ordinary elementary schools, who are staying on in the 14 to 15 group, number about 10.000. Therefore, we have 14,500 children out of the total of 51,000 which forms the age group 14 to 15, who are now taking post-primary 2112 education of the type which their parents most desire for them. What have we to exchange for that in this Bill? We are given in exchange one year in the elementary schools, the children going on and getting the same type of education that they ate now receiving. That is a bad change, and the longer we postpone the operation of the Bill, the better it will be for the children.
§ Mr. ANNESLEY SOMERVILLEThe Minister made an interesting remark in his speech on this Amendment when he said that one reason, at any rate, for postponing the date, was that it would give time to deal with legislation with regard to the non-provided schools. That was a very welcome remark. In the last Bill there were provisions dealing with the non-provided schools, and I hope that the discussions that have been going on between the right hon. Gentleman and the non-provided schools will lead to a solution. These schools are an essential part of the education system, and anything that tends to their advantage tends to the advantage of the system. The hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) twitted us on this side for knowing nothing about the inside of elementary schools. I can assure him that there are some of us on this side who have some knowledge of and the greatest sympathy with the education which is given in our elementary schools.
If I could be assured that the raising of the school age to 15 would provide all the children with a real education and with proper teaching. I could not possibly vote against this Bill, but because I have an honest belief that the raising of the school age will result in waste, and will not provide the teaching that is necessary for the children of 14 to 15, I oppose the Bill and would like to postpone its operation until at least 1935. It was interesting when my Noble Friend was speaking of the necessity for a 10 or 15 years' experiment in the curriculum in central schools, to find that two practical teachers sitting opposite, the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. McShane) and the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove), approved. I was discussing with the headmaster of a central school of 20 years' experience the question of the curriculum, and he was of the same opinion. I was there 2113 fore amazed at the complacency of the right hon. Member for North Cornwall (Sir D. Maclean) in saying that everything would be ready by 1932. It was proof that he at least did not realise the size of the problem.
I wish to direct the Minister's attention to one particular point. He is not going to provide the right teachers for the boys of 14 to 15 by September, 1932, or 1933. Do hon. Members opposite wish the teaching of the boys of this country to fall into the hands of women? At a conference of head mistresses recently one of the subjects discussed was co-education, and there was an almost unanimous opinion that from 12 onwards the teaching of girls should be in the hands of women, and the teaching of boys should be in the hands of men. Most people who think about teaching will agree with that view. What is the fact?
§ Mr. KIRKWOODThe fact is that the best teacher of a boy is his mother.
§ Mr. SOMERVILLEI quite agree, but the teaching that a mother gives is the moral teaching at home, and we are speaking more particularly of instruction, as well as the formation of character. Let me remind the Committee of the facts. There are three times as many women teachers as men in our schools. In 1927–28 the figures were 42,300 men and 125,600 women. There were rather more boys than girls, exclusive of infants, in the schools, namely, 2,107,000 boys and 2,017,000 girls; so that at present the main part of the teaching is in the hands of women. The school age is now being extended, and how does the Minister propose to provide the extra teachers? He said that he would absorb the unemployed teachers; they will be mostly women. He will re-employ married women—women again. He will retain in the schools teachers about to retire—women again. So that he will provide for the teaching of these boys of 14 to 15 by an increase of women teachers. The result will be that the teaching of the boys of the country will fall more and more into the hands of women. That is not for the good of teaching, and, unless you provide the right curriculum and the right teaching, the Bill will be not an Education Bill, but a Detention Bill, simply to keep children in school for one year. Whereas 2114 the Government are postponing the date, the object of the detention, which was to help the unemployment problem, will disappear. I hope that the Minister will take this particular point into serious consideration and do his best during the next three years to provide that the boys of 14 to 15 will be taught by men.
§ Mr. DUNCAN MILLARAs a Scottish Member, I feel in some difficulty. This Bill applies to England and not to Scotland, but it is quite obvious that it may be taken as settling a date for Scotland as well as for England. According to the provisions in the Education Act of 1918 for Scotland, the appointed day may be fixed by order of the Department. It will be out of order for me to discuss the question in its relation to Scotland at this stage, but I should like to have some undertaking or understanding that there will be an opportunity afforded to Scottish Members to put the case of their constituents in regard to the questions which may arise.
The DEPUTY - CHAIRMANThe Minister of Education cannot possibly answer such questions as the hon. Member requires.
§ Mr. MILLARI shall take an opportunity of putting a question on the subject to the Leader of the House. I should like to associate myself with what was said by the right hon. Member for North Cornwall (Sir D. Maclean) about the reasons justifying the postponement of the date. Listening to the Minister it appeared to me that he was prepared to accept the views which have been stressed from these benches, and to regard them as affording extraordinarily good grounds for the postponement of the date. I attach great importance to the financial burden, and I have received many strong representations on that point. I am quite satisfied that it will be for the advancement of education throughout the country to allow a longer period for the preparations. The view of the Minister that it will be to the advantage of all concerned to have a substantial postponement is a welcome one, and I hope it will be possible to consider the point again at a later stage and before the Bill comes into operation.
§ Mr. TILLETTI am astounded at the effrontery of the Opposition in claiming to speak as authorities on the education 2115 of the children of the workers. If we told the Opposition that they must not educate their children after the age of 14 or 15 or 16 the old British aristocracy—the dead ones—would rise from their graves in protest. Here we are, listening to the same arguments as were employed in 1870, and as have been brought forward in every discussion on education. There has always been a reference to the financial difficulties of the country, though in the course of a long life I have never heard any anxiety expressed as to industry absorbing our children as "machine fodder." Back in my early days, when people discussed the education of the dear children, they talked about their practised and capable fingers and the great service they could render to the industry of their country. I do not know whether Forster's ghost is alive; if he were, he would be alarmed at the figures that are quoted and the statements made. I happened to be 10 years old when the Education Act of 1870 came into force, and I can remember the arguments of the hon. Members of the Opposition and their lady supporters of those days, how anxious they were to safeguard the interests of the children!
I want to say, quite frankly, that the party opposite have never appreciated the importance of culture for the children of our people, the importance of their education, of their mental evolution or development; and here they are to-day using their educational abilities to present meticulous arguments and figures against the right of our side to have education for our children. I am sorry that we on this side have given way. It was said in 1870 that there had been no preparations. Always, during the last 60 years, it has been said that there have been no preparations. We have had the same arguments ad nauseam. If we on our side attempted to discuss the merits of education for the children of hon. Members opposite, we should be attacked as revolutionaries, and classed as Communists, Anarchists and "Clydites." I am sick of the hypocrisy of it. The other side have declared against education for our children all the way through. Only the best brains and the best souls among the party opposite, the men with a love of their country and a love of culture, have helped us; the majority 2116 have been opposed to us all the way through. The whole discussion has hung upon sheer hypocrisy and sheer make-believe. I am astounded that hon. Members opposite do not recognise that we must secure a higher educational standard for our children in the future, in order to compete with other nations. We are behind Germany, we are behind America, we are even behind Scotland in education.
§ Mr. WALLHEADNot now.
§ Mr. TILLETTI should like to believe that was true. On this side we have met the position in which we find ourselves in regard to this Bill with calmness and with reason. Our accommodating Minister has done his level best. In spite of that, however, we are still met with the old arguments, raised from the grave, against giving education to the children of our class. I wish hon. Members opposite all the culture in the world, and why on earth cannot they allow us a chance? Why cannot they allow our children to be trained to become competent for the highest offices in the State?
Duchess of ATHOLLI will say frankly to the Parliamentary Secretary, in the absence of the Minister, that I am one who, if I cannot get a whole loaf, prefer to have a quarter of a loaf to nothing; and it is in that spirit that I view the concession which the Minister has made to the speeches from another quarter of the House. I think it is very much a quarter loaf, because though more local authorities will be ready with their additional classrooms and teachers by September, 1932, I am quite sure the Minister cannot think that all the authorities, or anything like all, will be ready. He cannot have forgotten that the County Councils' Association expressed the view, only a short while ago, that the counties would not be ready before September, 1933; and I am certain, also, that he does not forget the large factor which the voluntary school form in the educational system of the counties. If local authorities are to be able to reorganise their school in such a way that the raising of the school age is of benefit to the children an agreement must be come to with the voluntary schools, and, as we know, the Minister has not been able to embody any such agreement in this Bill. Even in the West Riding of 2117 Yorkshire where agreement has been come to between the local authority and the voluntary schools, and where the chairman of the Education Committee has been most warmly seconding the Minister's efforts, we have it on the authority of the chairman that the schools in the West Riding cannot be ready for six years from last year. September, 1932, is very far from being a date when we can expect all the councils to be ready.
I must also remind the Minister that he must have a little regard for Scotland, although he does not have to answer for Scotland. It is unthinkable that English Members should be sitting here to pass a Bill without any thought of what the Scottish authorities can do. I noticed a tardy sign of realisation from the Liberal benches just now that all is not on the point of readiness in Scotland. I listened with great surprise when the right hon. Member for North Cornwall (Sir D. Maclean) spoke the other day as if Scotland wanted this change. I venture to suggest that he has exiled himself rather from Scotland by standing for a Cornish seat. If he represented a Scottish seat, as the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Millar) does, he would have known the views of the education authorities in Scotland. The fact is that only last Friday there was a conference of education authorities in Scotland at which a resolution was unanimously passed saying that September, 1934, was the earliest date at which the authorities could be ready. That is a point of very great importance which the Minister must take into account. If there is one thing in the world that Scotland will not have it is to be dragged at the heels of England, and yet here we see Scotland in danger of being dragged at the heels of a Minister who, however near he lives to the Scottish border, seems rather to have forgotten the existence of that country. Perhaps it is because he lives so close to and south of the Scottish Border that he is not going to care what happens to it. That is a possible explanation.
However that may be, there is the fact that the Scottish education authorities, at a conference in Edinburgh only last Friday, expressed the view that they could not be ready before 1934. One 2118 very important burgh authority, Aberdeen, which we are accustomed to regard as always in the van in educational matters, has told us it will not be ready before 1935. The Committee will see what the difficulties are, and I think it is very hard that the education authorities in Scotland are to have no consideration paid to their views. It is all the more remarkable, because in Scotland there is a surplus of teachers. The authorities are not faced with quite the same anxiety as the English in the matter of having sufficient teachers by the appointed day. Therefore, this decision that the age cannot be raised before 1934 rests almost entirely on the question of accommodation. It shows, as my right hon. Friend said not long ago in debate, that the question of accommodation is the first thing, and that even if you have a surplus of teachers, you cannot use them unless you have the additional class-rooms. Here you have Scotland showing us the truth of what my right hon. Friend said. A further proof of the truth of what he said was that it was all the new schools which were built between 1925 and 1929, the replacement of old schools and the new schools in the new housing areas, that enabled a great reduction in the number of large classes to be made. In our term of office the large classes were reduced from 25,000 to 10,000, and that was mainly Owing to the fact that so many new schools were built.
The position of the President of the Board of Education is a much more difficult one than that of the Scottish education authorities, because he has to find his additional teachers. In Scotland they have a large surplus at present, but the right hon. Gentleman told us he had got to find 13,000 additional teachers by 1932–33, assuming that the school age were raised by April, 1931. I admit that the change of the date will, no doubt, throw that large number of teachers back a year later, but it will mean that by 1931–32 8,500 additional teachers will be needed, according to the figures he gave. The right hon. Gentleman said he expected to have 4,000 additional teachers trained by 1932–33, but he has not been able to substantiate that figure. He has got 1,800 additional teachers training now. He has got 1,800 who will be available in 1932. 2119 In answer to a question put to him, he said it was impossible to say what teachers would be going into the training colleges next autumn. We have got from him only definite figures showing that 1,800 additional teachers are now in training, 1,150 of whom will be ready by the summer of 1931 and about 500 or 600 more by the summer of 1932. That does not carry us very far towards the 8,500—if that be the figure instead of the 13,000 he mentioned.
I still refuse to believe, for instance, that he will be able to pick up the 5,000 unemployed teachers whom, he told us in the summer, he would be able to find in the profession to meet normal expansion. I also hold with an hon. Member on this side that the 4,000 married women teachers he proposes to retain will not be the most suitable people to teach boys of 14, nor the 1,000 teachers of over 60 years of age whom he proposes to retain. Therefore, even this postponement of date leaves the right hon. Gentleman with a very stiff problem of training additional teachers. He gave us figures in the summer, and has not enlarged on that since. The only figures he has given us are those in training, which are considerably less than those which, he gave us to understand in the summer, would be ready. It seems to me quite impossible that by September, 1932, he will have anything like the number of teachers necessary.
Some rather hard things were said by the hon. Member for North Salford (Mr. Tillett). I do not think that his speech was made after very much reflection. He spoke, I think, on the spur of the moment. He said, for instance, that if Forster were alive, he would have been aghast at our speeches from this side. Does the hon. Gentleman remember that the Bill which Forster presented to the House was to give power to local authorities to keep children up to the age of 13, but with very liberal power of exemption, and no power for compulsory attendance? Is it not possible that Forster, if he came back, would feel that his Bill had borne even richer fruit than he had ever dared to hope?
§ Mr. WALLHEADDoes the Noble Lady think that two years in 60 years is rapid progress?
Duchess of ATHOLLThe hon. Member does not appear to realise the vast improvement in the training of teachers since then. That is a very important point. I am surprised at hon. Members on the benches opposite, a good many of whom are ex-members of the teaching profession, appearing not to realise the importance of well-trained teachers. It is the essence of education. Education is not something that you ladle out like soup. It depends far more on quality than quantity.
§ Mr. WALLHEADI appreciate to the fullest possible extent the necessity of having fully-trained teachers. I would do away with training colleges, and put them all through universities. I want the very best. I was one of the victims of the early scholastic system, and left school when 12 years of age, which was the age 50 years ago. How can the Noble Lady call it a tremendous gathering of fruit from Forster's tree to increase the age by about 12 months in 50 years?
Duchess of ATHOLLThe hon. Member is ignoring all the progress that has been made in other directions. In the early days the teachers were largely untrained and the classes were overcrowded.
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThat is getting a long way from the Amendment. The question we are considering is the postponement of the date.
Duchess of ATHOLLI am not so sure that the hon. Member for North Salford (Mr. Tillett) said very much about the Bill, but I think I have been able to show that there have been substantial advances and that education is advancing every year. What matters now is the amount of thought being given to education by the members of local education authorities, by the Board's inspectors, and by the teachers—
Duchess of ATHOLLI am very sorry that I have transgressed. Education is a very interesting subject to myself and many others, and that must be my excuse. I will only say, in conclusion, that, though I regard this amendment as part 2121 of a loaf, it is a very small part, especially in view of the difficulties with which the education authorities are faced in my own part of the country, and I regret that more consideration is not being given to the difficulties of Scottish education authorities.
§ Sir C. TREVELYANrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
§ Question put, "That the Question be now put."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 258; Noes, 180.
2123| Division No. 45.] | AYES. | [9.38 p.m. |
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Gibson, H. M. (Lancs, Mossley) | Macdonald, Sir M. (Inverness) |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Gill, T. H. | McElwee, A. |
| Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher | Glassey, A. E. | McEntee, V. L. |
| Altchison, Rt. Hon. Cralgle M. | Gossling, A. G. | McKinlay, A. |
| Alpass, J. H. | Gould, F. | MacLaren, Andrew |
| Ammon, Charles George | Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.) | Maclean, Sir Donald (Cornwall, N.) |
| Angell, Norman | Granville, E. | MacNeill-Weir, L. |
| Arnott, John | Gray, Milner | Malone, C. L'Eslrange (N'thampton) |
| Aske, Sir Robert | Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Mander, Geoffrey le M. |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro' W.) | Marcus, M. |
| Ayles, Walter | Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool) | Markham, S. F. |
| Barnes, Alfred John | Groves. Thomas E. | Marley, J. |
| Barr, James | Grundy, Thomas W. | Marshall, Fred |
| Batey, Joseph | Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvll) | Mathers, George |
| Bellamy, Albert | Hall, Capt. W. G. (Portsmouth, C) | Matters, L. W. |
| Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood | Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn) | Maxton, James |
| Bennett, William (Battersea, South) | Harbord, A. | Messer, Fred |
| Benson, G. | Hardle, George D. | Middleton, G. |
| Bentham, Dr. Ethel | Harris, Percy A. | Millar, J. D. |
| Birkett, W. Norman | Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | Montague, Frederick |
| Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret | Hastings, Dr. Somerville | Morgan, Dr. H. B. |
| Bowen, J. W. | Haycock, A. W. | Morley, Ralph |
| Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W. | Hayday, Arthur | Morris, Rhys Hopkins |
| Broad, Francis Alfred | Hayes, John Henry | Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh) |
| Brockway, A. Fenner | Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley) | Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.) |
| Bromfield, William | Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow) | Mort, D. L. |
| Bromley, J. | Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield) | Moses, J. J. H. |
| Brooke, W. | Herriotts, J. | Muff, G. |
| Brothers, M. | Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth) | Muggeridge, H. T. |
| Brown, C. W. E. (Notts. Mansfield) | Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Nathan, Major H. L. |
| Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (South Ayrshire) | Hoffman, P. C. | Naylor, T. E. |
| Brown W. J. (Wolverhampton, West) | Hopkin, Daniel | Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter) |
| Buchanan, G. | Hare-Belisha, Leslie. | Noel Baker, P. J. |
| Burgess, F. G. | Horrabin, J. F. | Noel-Buxton, Baroness (Norfolk, N.) |
| Burgin, Dr. E. L. | Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield) | Oliver, George Harold (likeston) |
| Buxton, C. R. (Yorks. W. R. Elland) | Isaacs, George | Oliver, P. M. (Man., Blackley) |
| Caine, Derwent Hall- | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Owen, Major G. (Carnarvon) |
| Cameron, A. G. | John, William (Rhondda, West) | Owen, H. F. (Hereford) |
| Cape, Thomas | Johnston, Thomas | Paling, Wilfrid |
| Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S.W.) | Jones, F. Llewellyn- (Flint) | Perry. S. F. |
| Charleton, H. C. | Jones, Henry Haydn (Merloneth) | Pethick Lawrence, F. W. |
| Chater, Daniel | Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne) | Picton-Turbervill, Edith |
| Church, Major A. G. | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Pole, Major D. G. |
| Cluse, W. S. | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Potts, John S. |
| Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R. | Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W. | Price, M. P. |
| Cocks, Frederick Seymour | Jowitt, Sir W. A. (Preston) | Pybus, Percy John |
| Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock) | Kelly, W. T. | Quibell, D. J. K. |
| Compton, Joseph | Kennedy, Thomas | Ramsay, T. B. Wilson |
| Cove, William G. | Kirkwood, D. | Rathbone, Eleanor |
| Cowan, D. M. | Knight, Holford | Raynes, W. R. |
| Daggar, George | Lang, Gordon | Richards, R. |
| Dallas, George | Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George | Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) |
| Dalton, Hugh | Lathan, G. | Riley, Ben (Dewsbury) |
| Davies, E. C. (Montgomery) | Law, Albert (Bolton) | Romeril, H. G. |
| Day, Harry | Law, A. (Rossendale) | Rosbotham, D. S. T. |
| Denman, Hon. R. D. | Lawrie, Hugh Hartley (Stalybridge) | Rowson, Guy |
| Dudgeon, Major C. R. | Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle) | Salter, Dr. Alfred |
| Dukes, C. | Leach, W. | Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen) |
| Duncan, Charles | Lee, Frank (Derby, N.E.) | Sanders, W. S. |
| Ede, James Chuter | Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern) | Sawyer, G. F. |
| Edmunds, J. E. | Lees, J. | Scurr, John |
| Edwards, E. (Morpeth) | Lewis, T. (Southampton) | Sexton, James |
| Egan, W. H. | Lindley, Fred W, | Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston) |
| Elmley, Viscount | Lloyd, C. Ellis | Sherwood, G. H. |
| Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.) | Longbottom, A. W. | Shield, George William |
| Foot, Isaac | Longden, F. | Shiels, Dr. Drummond |
| Forgan, Dr. Robert | Lovat-Fraser, J. A. | Shillaker, J. F. |
| Freeman, Peter | Lowth, Thomas | Shinwell, E. |
| Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton) | Lunn, William | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) |
| George, Major G. Lloyd(Pembroke) | Macdonald, Gordon(Ince) | Simmons, C. J. |
| Gibbins, Joseph | MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw) | Sinclair, Sir A. (Caithness) |
| Sitch, Charles H. | Tillett, Ben | Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood) |
| Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhlthe) | Townend, A. E. | Whiteley, William (Blaydon) |
| Smith, Frank (Nuneaton) | Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Williams, David (Swansea, East) |
| Smith, H. B. Lees- (Kelghley) | Vaughan, D. J. | Williams, Dr. J. H. (Lianeily) |
| Smith, Tom (Pontefract) | Viant, S. P. | Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) |
| Smith, W. R. (Norwich) | Walkden, A. G. | Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attereliffe) |
| Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip | Walker, J. | Wilson, J. (Oldham) |
| Snowden, Thomas (Accrington) | Wallace, H. W. | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Stamford, Thomas W. | Wallhead, Richard C. | Winterton, G. E.(Leicester.Loughb'gh) |
| Stephen, Campbell | Watkins, F. C. | Wise, E. F. |
| Stewart, J. (St. Rollox) | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) | Wood, Major McKenzie (Banff) |
| Strachey, E. J. St. Loe | Wellock, Wilfred | Wright, W. (Ruthergien) |
| Sutton, J. E. | Welsh, James (Paisley) | Young, R. S. (Islington, North) |
| Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S.W.) | West, F. R. | |
| Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow) | Westwood, Joseph | TELLERS FOR THE AYES. |
| Thurtle, Ernest | White, H. G. | Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. Charles Edwards |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Troyte, Lieut-Colonel | Everard, W. Lindsay | Nicholson, O. (Westminster) |
| Ainsworth, Lieut.-Col. Charles | Falle, Sir Bertram G. | Nicholson, col. Rt. Hn.W. G.(Ptrsl'ld) |
| Albery, Irving James | Ferguson, Sir John | Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert |
| Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l) | Fermoy, Lord | Oman, Sir Charles William C. |
| Allen, Sir J. Sandeman (Liverp'l., W.) | Fielden, E. B. | O'Neill. Sir H. |
| Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent. Dover) | Ford, Sir P. J. | Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William |
| Atholl, Duchess of | Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E. | Penny, Sir George |
| Balllie-Hamilton, Hon. Charles W. | Ganzoni, Sir John | Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings) |
| Baldwin, Rt. Han. Stanley (Bawdley) | Gault, Lleut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton | Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple) |
| Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Gilmour. Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John | Power, Sir John Cecil |
| Balfour, Captain H. H. (I. of Thanet) | Glyn, Major R. G. C. | Pownali, Sir Assheton |
| Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H. | Gower, Sir Robert | Ramsbotham, H. |
| Beaumont, M. W. | Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.) | Rawson, Sir Cooper |
| Bellairs, Commander Carlyon | Grattan-Doyle, Sir N. | Remer, John R. |
| Berry, Sir George | Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter | Rentoul, Sir Gervais S. |
| Betterton, Sir Henry B. | Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London) | Reynolds, Cot. Sir James |
| Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman | Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur y, Ch'te'y) |
| Boothby, R. J. G. | Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E. | Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir fames Rennell |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Gunston, Captain D. W. | Ross, Major Ronald D. |
| Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vanslttart | Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H. | Ruggles-Brise, Lleut..Colonel E. A. |
| Bowyer, Captain Sir George E. W. | Hall Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich) | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) |
| Boyce. H. L. | Hammersley, S. S. | Salmon, Major l. |
| Bracken, B. | Hanbury, C. | Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham) |
| Braithwaite, Major A. N. | Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Hartington, Marquess of | Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart |
| Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'I'd., Hexham) | Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes) | Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D. |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen.H.C.(Berks, Newb'y) | Haslam, Henry C. | Savery, S. S. |
| Burton, Colonel H. W. | Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd,Henley) | Simms, Major-General J. |
| Butler, R. A. | Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P. | Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam) |
| Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward | Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J. | Smith, R. W.(Aberd'n & Klnc'dine, C.) |
| Campbell, E. T. | Herbert, Sir Dennis (Hertford) | Smith-Carington, Neville W. |
| Carver, Major W. H. | Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller | Smithers, Waldron |
| Castle Stewart, Earl of | Hudson. Capt A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) |
| Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City) | Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer | Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East) |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R.(Prtsmth,S.) | Hurd, Percy A. | Southby, Commander A. R. J. |
| Cazalet, Captain Victor A. | Kindersiey, Major G. M. | Spender-Clay, Colonel H. |
| Chadwick, Capt. Sir Robert Burton | Knox, Sir Alfred | Stanley, Lord (Fyide) |
| Christie, J. A. | Lamb, Sir J. Q. | Stanley, Maj. Hon. O. (W'morland) |
| Clydesdale, Marquess of | Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R. | Stewart, W. J. (Belfast South) |
| Cobb, Sir Cyril | Law, Sir Alfred (Derby, High Peak) | Taylor, Vice-Admiral E. A. |
| Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George | Leighton, Major B. E. P. | Thomson, Sir F |
| Cohen, Major J. Brunel | Lewis, Oswald (Colchester) | Tinne, J. A. |
| Colman, N. C. D. | Liewellin, Major J. J. | Train, J. |
| Colville, Major D. J. | Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey | Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement |
| Courtauld, Major J. S. | Locker-Lampson, Com. O.(Handsw'th) | Tartan, Robert Hugh |
| Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L. | Long, Major Hon. Erie | Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Lymington, Viscount | Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert |
| Crichton-Stuart, Lord C. | McConnell, Sir Joseph | Wardlaw-Mline, J. S. |
| Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H. | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) | Warrender, Sir Victor |
| Crookshank, Capt. H. C. | Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham) | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Croom-Johnson, R. P. | Makins, Brigadier-General E. | Wells, Sydney R. |
| Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West) | Marjorlbanks, Edward | Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay) |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Merriman, Sir F. Boyd | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovll) | Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham) | Withers, Sir John James |
| Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.) | Mond, Hon. Henry | Wolmer, Rt. Hon, Viscount |
| Dawson, Sir Philip | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B. | Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley |
| Duckworth, G. A. V. | Moore, Sir Newton J. (Richmond) | Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L. |
| Dugdale, Capt. T. L. | Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr) | Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton |
| Eden, Captain Anthony | Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Cirencester) | |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | Muirhead, A. J. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s-M.) | Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge) | Major Sir George Hennessy and Captain Wallace. |
§ Question, "That the words April, nineteen hundred and seventeen stand 2124 part of the Clause," put accordingly, and negatived.
2125§ Question put, "That the words 'September, nineteen hundred and eighteen be there inserted."
2126§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 269; Noes, 183.
2127| Division No. 46.] | AYES. | [9.50 p.m. |
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Granville, E. | Marcus, M. |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannoock) | Gray, Milner | Markham, S. F. |
| Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher | Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Coins) | Marley, J. |
| Altchison, Rt. Hon. Cralgie M. | Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Marshall, Free |
| Alpass, J. H. | Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro'W.) | Mothers, George |
| Ammon, Charles George | Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool) | Matters, L. W. |
| Angell, Norman | Groves, Thomas E. | Maxton, James |
| Arnott, John | Grundy, Thomas W. | Messer, Fred |
| Aske, Sir Robert | Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvll) | Middleton, G. |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Hall, Capt. W. G. (Portsmouth, C.) | Millar, J. D. |
| Ayles, Walter | Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn) | Milner, Major J. |
| Barnes, Alfred John | Harbord, A. | Montague, Frederick |
| Barr, James | Hardie, George D. | Morgan, Dr. H. B. |
| Batey, Joseph | Harris, Percy A. | Morley, Ralph |
| Bellamy, Albert | Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | Morris, Rhys Hopkins |
| Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood | Hastings, Dr. Somerville | Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh) |
| Bennett, Sir E. N. (Cardiff, Central) | Haycock, A. W. | Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.) |
| Bennett, William (Battersea, South) | Heyday, Arthur | Mort, D. L. |
| Benson, G. | Hayes, John Henry | Moses, J. J. H. |
| Bentham, Dr. Ethel | Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley) | Mosley, Lady C. (Stoke.on.Trent) |
| Birkett, W. Norman | Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow) | Muff, G. |
| Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret | Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield) | Muegeridge, H. T. |
| Bowen, J. W. | Herriotts, J. | Nathan, Major H. L |
| Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W. | Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth) | Naylor, T. E. |
| Broad, Francis Alfred | Hint, W. (Bradford, South) | Newman. Sir R. H. B. D. L. (Exeter) |
| Brockway, A. Fenner | Hoffman, P. C. | Noel Baker, P. J. |
| Bromfield, William | Hopkin, Daniel | Noel-Buxton, Baroness (Norfolk, N.) |
| Bromley, J | Hore-Belisha, Leslie | Oliver, George Harold (likeston) |
| Brooke, W | Horrabin, J. F. | Oliver, P. M. (Man., Blackiey) |
| Brothers, M. | Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield) | Owen, Major G. (Carnervon) |
| Brown, C. W. E. (Notts. Mansfield) | Isaacs, George | Owen, H. F. (Hereford) |
| Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (South Ayrshire) | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Palin, John Henry |
| Brown W. J. (Wolverhampton, West) | John. William (Rhondda, West) | Paling, Wilfrid |
| Burgess F. G. | Johnston, Thomas | Perry S. F. |
| Burgin, Dr. E. L | Jones, F. Llewellyn- (Flint) | Pethick-Lawrence, F. W. |
| Buxton, C. R. (Yorks. W. R. Elland) | Jones, Henry Haydn (Merfoneth) | Picton-Turhervill, Edith |
| Caine, Derwent Hall- | Jones, Rt. Hon Leif (Camborne) | Pole, Major D. G. |
| Cameron, A. G. | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Potts, John S. |
| Cape, Thomas | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Price, M. P. |
| Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S.W.) | Jewett, Rt. Hon. F. W. | Pybus. Percy John |
| Charleton, H. C. | Jowett, Sir W. A. (Preston) | Quibell, D. J. K. |
| Chater, Daniel | Kelly, W. T. | Ramsay, T. B. Wilson |
| Church, Major A. G. | Kennedy, Thomas | Rathbone, Eleanor |
| Cluse, W. S. | Kirkwood. D. | Raynes, W. R. |
| Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R. | Knight, Helloed | Richards, R. |
| Cocks, Frederick Seymour | Lane, Gordon. | Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) |
| Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock) | Lensbury. Rt. Hon. George | Riley, Ben (Dewsbury) |
| Compton, Joseph | Lathan, G. | Romeril, H. G. |
| Cove, William G. | Law. Albert (Bolton) | Roshotham, D. S. T. |
| Cowan, D. M. | Law, A. (Rossendale) | Rowson, Guy |
| Daggar, George | Lawrence. Susan | Salter, Dr. Alfred |
| Dallas, George | Lawrie, Hugh Hartley (Stalybridge) | Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen) |
| Dalton, Hugh | Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle) | Sanders, W. S. |
| Davies, E. C. (Montgomery) | Leach. W. | Sawyer, G. F. |
| Davies, Rhys John(Westhoughton) | Lee, Frank (Derby, N.E.) | Scum John |
| Day, Harry | Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern) | Sexton, James |
| Denman, Hon. R. D. | Lees, J. | Shaw. Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston) |
| Dudgeon, Major C. R. | Lewis, T. (Southampton) | Shepherd, Arthur Lewis |
| Dukes, C. | Lindley, Fred W. | Sherwood, G. H. |
| Duncan, Charles | Lloyd, C. Ellis | Shield, George William |
| Ede, James Chuter | Logan. David Gilbert | Shiels, Dr. Drummond |
| Edmunds, J. E. | Longbottom, A. W. | Shillaker, J, F. |
| Edwards, E. (Morpeth) | Longden. F. | Shinwell, E. |
| Egan, W. H. | Lovat-Fraser, J A. | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) |
| Elmley, Viscount | Lowth, Thomas | Simmons, C. J. |
| Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.) | Lunn, William | Sinclair, Sir A. (Caithness) |
| Foot, Isaac | Macdonald, Gordon (Ince) | Sitch, Charles H. |
| Forgan, Dr. Robert | MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw) | Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe) |
| Freeman, Peter | Macdonald, Sir M. (Inverness) | Smith, Frank (Nuneaton) |
| Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton) | McElwee, A. | Smith, H. B. Lees-(Keighley) |
| George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke) | McEntee, V. L. | smith, Tom (Pontefract) |
| Gibbins, Joseph | McKinley, A. | Smith, W. R. (Norwich) |
| Gibson, H. M. (Lance, Mossley) | MacLaren, Andrew | Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip |
| Gill, T. H. | Maclean, Sir Donald (Cornwall, N.) | Snowden, Thomas (Accrington) |
| Glassey, A. E. | MacNeill-Weir, L. | Stamford, Thomas W. |
| Gossling, A. G. | McShane, John James | Stephen, Campbell |
| Gould. F. | Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton) | Stewart, J. (St. Rollox) |
| Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.) | Mender, Geoffrey le M. | Strachey, E. J. St. Los |
| Strauss, G. R. | Wallace, H. W. | Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) |
| Sutton, J. E. | Walihead, Richard C. | Wilson C. H. (Sheffield, Atterclifle) |
| Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S.W.) | Watkins, F. C. | Wilson, J. (Oldham) |
| Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plalstow) | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Thurtle, Ernest | Wellock, Wilfred | Winterton, G. E.(Leicester, Loughb'gh) |
| Tillett, Ben | Welsh, James (Paisley) | Wise, E. F. |
| Tinker, John Joseph | West, F. R. | Wood, Major McKenzie (Banff) |
| Townend, A, E. | Westwood, Joseph | Wright, W. (Rutherglen) |
| Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | White, H. G. | Young, R. S. (Islington, North) |
| Vaughan, D. J. | Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood) | |
| Viant, S. P. | Whiteley, William (Biaydon) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Walkden, A. G. | Williams, David (Swansea, East) | Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. Charles Edwards. |
| Walker, J. | Williams, Dr. J. H. (Lianelly) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Troyte, Lieut-Colonel | Erskine, Lord (Somerset,Weston-s.-M.) | Nicholson. O. (Westminster) |
| Ainsworth, Lieut.-Col. Charles | Everard, W. Lindsay | Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G.(Ptrsr'ld) |
| Albery, Irving James | Fails, Sir Bertram G. | Niefd, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert |
| Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l) | Ferguson, Sir John | Oman, Sir Charles William C. |
| Allen, Sir J. Sandeman (Liverp'l., W.) | Fermoy, Lord | O'Neill, Sir H. |
| Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent. Dover) | Fielden, E. B. | Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William |
| Atholl, Duchess of | Ford, Sir P. J. | Penny, Sir George |
| Bailllie-Hamilton, Hon. Charles W. | Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E. | Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings) |
| Baldwin, Rt. Han. Stanley (Bawdley) | Ganzoni, Sir John | Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple) |
| Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton | Power, Sir John Cecll |
| Balfour, Captain H. H. (l. of Thanet) | Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John | Pownall, Sir Asshetoa |
| Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H. | Glyn, Major R. G. C. | Ramsbotham, H. |
| Beaumont, M. W. | Gower, Sir Robert | Rawson, Sir Cooper |
| Bellairs, Commander Carlyon | Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.) | Remer, John R. |
| Berry, Sir George | Grattan-Doyle, Sir N. | Rentoul, Sir Gervais S. |
| Betterton, Sir Henry B. | Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter | Reynolds, Col. Sir James |
| Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman | Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London) | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch't'sy) |
| Bird, Ernest Roy | Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John | Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Rennell |
| Boothby, R. J. G. | Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E | Ross, Major Ronald D. |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Gunston, Captain D. W | Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A. |
| Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vanslttart | Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) |
| Bowyer, Captain Sir George E. W. | Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich) | Salmon, Major i. |
| Boyce. H. L. | Hammersley, S. S. | Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham) |
| Bracken, B. | Hanbury, C. | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) |
| Braithwaite, Major A. N. | Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Hartington, Marquess of | Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D. |
| Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'I'd., Hexham) | Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes) | Savery, S. S. |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen.H.C.(Berks, Newb'y) | Henderson, Capt. R. R.(Oxf'd, Henley) | Simms, Major-General J. |
| Burton, Colonel H. W. | Hnonage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P. | Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam) |
| Butler, R. A. | Herbert, Sir Dennis (Hertford) | Smith, R. W.(Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.) |
| Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward | Hills. Major Rt. Hon. John Waller | Smith-Carington, Neville W. |
| Campbell, E. T. | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N) | Smithers, Waldron |
| Carver, Major W. H. | Hunter-Weston, Lt, Gen. Sir Aylmer | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) |
| Castle Stewart, Earl of | Hurd, Percy A | Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East) |
| Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City) | Kindersley, Major G. M. | Southby, Commander A. R. J. |
| Cayzer, Maj.Sir Herbt. R.(Prtsmth,S.) | Knox. Sir Alfred | Spender Clay, Colonel H. |
| Chadwick, Capt. Sir Robert Burton | Lamb, Sir J. Q. | Stanley, Lord (Fylde) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. hon. N.(Edgbaston) | Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R. | Stanley, Maj. Hon. O. (W'morland) |
| Christie, J. A. | Law, Sir Alfred (Derby, High Peak) | Stewart, W. J. (Belfast, South) |
| Clydesdale, Marquess of | Leighton, Major B. E. P. | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) |
| Cobb, Sir Cyril | Lewis, Oswald (Colchester) | Taylor, Vice-Admiral E. A. |
| Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George | Liewellin, Major J. J. | Thomson, Sir F. |
| Cohen, Major J. Brunel | Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey | Tinne, J. A. |
| Colman, N. C. D. | Locker-Lampson, Com. O.(Handsw'th) | Train, J. |
| Colville, Major D. J. | Long, Major Hon. Eric | Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement |
| Courtauld, Major J. S. | Lymington, Viscount | Turton, Robert Hugh |
| Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L. | McConnell, Sir Joseph | VaugharoMoroan, Sir Kenyon |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) | Ward. Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert |
| Crichton-Stuart, Lord C. | Maitland. A. (Kent, Faversham) | Wardiaw-Milne, J. S. |
| Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H. | Makins. Brigadier-General E. | Warrender, Sir Victor |
| Crookshank, Capt. H. C. | Margesson, Captain H. D. | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Croom-Johnson, R. P. | Marjoribanks, Edward | Wells, Sydney R. |
| Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West) | Metier, R. J. | Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay) |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Merriman, Sir F. Boyd | Windsor-Clive. Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil) | Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham) | Withers, Sir John James |
| Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.) | Mond, Hon. Henry | Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount |
| Dawson, Sir Philip | Monsen, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B. | Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley |
| Duckworth, G. A. V. | Moore, Sir Newton, J. (Richmond) | Worthington-Evans. Rt. Hon. Sir L |
| Dugdale, Capt. T. L. | Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr) | Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton |
| Eden, Captain Anthony | Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Cirencester) | |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | Muirhead, A. J. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES— |
| Eillot, Major Walter E. | Newton. Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge) | Major sir George Hennessy and Captain Wallace. |
§ Mr. RAMSBOTHAMI beg to move, in page 3, line 29, at the beginning, to insert the words: 2128
In order that children between the ages of fourteen and fifteen may receive efficient elementary instruction in public elementary schools not provided by the local education 2129 authority, this Act shall not come into operation until an Act has been passed empowering local education authorities, during such period as the Act may determine, to contribute to the cost incurred by the trustees or managers of such schools in providing adequate and suitable accommodation for the efficient elementary instruction of such children, hut, subject to this proviso.I am aware that, in dealing with the subject of voluntary schools, I am raising a matter of a considerably controversial nature, but I will treat it in as non-controversial a fashion as I can and avoid as far as possible any trace or tinge of sectarian disagreement. I should like to bear in mind the words of the President of the Board of Education last May when he said that when he was a young man education meant a religious wrangle and to-day it means the instruction of the children. I have no wish to rake over the smouldering ashes of the controversy of 1902 except to make this point, that the circumstances which made the settlement of 1902 more or less acceptable no longer exist and have very little application to our present circumstances. There has been a complete upset of money values, making salaries to-day not what they were; the cost of building has doubled, and, where the managers of a voluntary school spent £1, to-day the spend £2. The hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Scurr), in a very interesting speech last May, set oat a number of causes affecting the Roman Catholic community, in which he is interested, showing the immense increase in expenditure to which managers of voluntary schools are now put.
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI must point out that this Amendment does not raise the general question. The only question involved is the additional accommodation which will be required by reason of the raising of the school age.
§ Mr. RAMSBOTHAMI was endeavouring to make good what the Amendment desires to effect, that until an Act is passed giving the voluntary schools adequate and suitable accommodation this Bill should be suspended in its operation. I was leading up to that, perhaps at rather too great length, and explaining by way of preface the difficulties under which voluntary schools are at this moment suffering.
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI must make it perfectly clear that I was not 2130 in any way trying to prevent the hon. Member from making his case; but it is obvious that in this Amendment the only question involved is the difficulty of building and equipping the schools for the children between the ages of 14 and 15 dealt with in this Bill.
§ Sir DENNIS HERBERTWith very great respect, may I not call your attention to the fact that the main object of this Amendment is to deal with and afford a certain measure of protection to certain well-known classes of schools usually known as religious schools. [Hon. MEMBERS: "No!"] I may be mistaken in the Amendment, but I was under the impression that we were discussing the Amendment at the bottom of page 164, that is, the question of elementary schools not provided by the local education authority. I do not profess to be an expert on these matters, but I have always understood that these are what we commonly call religious schools. [Hon. MEMBERS: "Non-provided schools!"] They are non-provided by the State authorities, because they are provided by certain religious bodies— [Hon. MEMBERS: "No!"]—and it is those religious bodies which provide those schools which we desire to protect or for which we desire to obtain a certain measure of justice through this Amend-merit. Therefore, I submit to you that the general question of the share in education undertaken by the religious bodies which provide the so-called non-provided schools is of the very essence of this Amendment.
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe hon. Member will permit me to point out that this is an Amendment to a. Bill the whole purpose of which is to raise the school age from 14 to 15 and provide maintenance allowances. That is the sole purpose of the Bill. The purpose of this Amendment is to prevent the Bill coming into operation until the requisite means have been provided to enable non-provided schools to equip themselves to meet this new demand. Therefore, I must rule out of order any discussion on the general position.
§ Lord E. PERCYIf the Bill is to be postponed until these schools are able to meet the demand made on them surely some reference to the means which must be taken to equip these schools is surely in order.
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI have not ruled that out of order. All I have ruled is that you cannot discuss the settlement of 1902, or questions arising out of that settlement. The only question we can discuss is that this Bill, when it becomes law, will necessitate numbers of children between Vile ages of 14 and 15 remaining in school, and the purpose of the Amendment is to prevent this new Bill becoming operative until measures have been taken to render the non-provided schools in a position to provide suitable accommodation for such children and for them alone.
§ Lord E. PERCYFurther to that point of Order. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood), being a Scotsman, does not know our position in England, I hope he will allow me to state it.
§ Mr. KIRKWOODOn a point of Order. I want to say that we went through all this in 1918, so that we are perfectly clear, and they are only taking a lesson from us. I think that they are trying to get the better of you, Sir. Do not let them.
§ Lord E. PERCYAfter that illuminating intervention, may I point out that as it is the 1902 settlement which prevents these schools at present being put in order by the local authority or the State, I think you, Sir, will agree that some passing reference to the main obstacles is really necessary in discussing this question at all.
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI do not want too strictly to limit discussion, but I still point out that the Bill we are now discussing is not concerned with any other children except those who will be in the schools from 14 to 15. The settlement of 1902 has no direct bearing on the matter so far as this Bill is concerned. The only point I can take into account is whether, in the event of the Bill becoming law, it shall not become operative until certain steps have been taken to get these non-provided schools in proper order and guide the debate along those lines.
§ Sir D. HERBERTMay I point out that it deals with a partial exclusion from the operation of this Bill of a certain particular class of school. I 2132 respectfully submit, therefore, that it will be permissible to show why that particular class of school should receive special treatment.
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThis particular Bill does not exclude from assistance any school not excluded by the Act of 1921, and therefore I cannot allow that question to be raised. I repeat that the Bill is not concerned at all with the 1902 settlement, or the arrangement which now exists between the Government and the non-provided schools. The only question at issue to-day is what shall be the relationship, if this Bill becomes law, to those children, and only those children, who are compelled to attend non-provided schools by reason of the passing of the Bill. That is the only question that can be discussed, and not the general question.
§ Mr. RAMSBOTHAMI am very much obliged to you, Sir, if I may say so with great respect, for your elucidation of this matter, and I entirely accept your Ruling. I was only mentioning the earlier history for a brief moment, and the increase in expenditure, in order to lead up to what was the coping stone put on the expenditure of the voluntary schools by this Bill as a result of the Hadow Report. The Bill makes no provision for and no mention whatever of the non-provided schools. It leaves them completely out of account. Hon. Members are well aware that there are cases where minorities have to go to the wall. It is often impossible for any Government, however willing, to take notice of small minorities, but here is no case of a small minority. Out of 5,500,000 school children nearly 2,000,000 are in -non-provided schools. Out of the 20,000 odd schools in England, over 11,000 are non-provided schools, and most of them are in rural areas. This is no case of a recalcitrant or small minority, but of two-fifths of the school population of England
The President of the Board of Education spoke of consideration for the children. What consideration for the children is it when you leave 2,000,000 children out of account in the Bill which you have introduced, and what consideration is it of the parents of those 2,000,000 children? In the North of 2133 England and elsewhere—I know the North—the parents of children made great sacrifices for their education out of their own purses. In the Division for which I sit there is a large Roman Catholic community, who, it is no exaggeration to say, are at their wit's end to know where to find the fresh money which this Bill will involve. At this moment they have to find £13,000 for a new school. The Church of England in my constituency, in the last few years, has raised £33,000, and one church alone has raised £9,000 in the last year or two. The parents have done their utmost, and yet when they read the Bill they find that the schools in which they are interested are left completely out of account, and are to have no share in the money which is to be found for the other schools. Not only that, but they feel a sense of great injustice that they will have to pay an additional education rate.
When this Bill is put into operation, the increase in the rate in the towns of Lancaster and Morecambe, which are in my Division, will be 3d. or 4d., and a great deal more in the countryside. I remember that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Holland-with-Boston (Mr. Blindell) mentioned the figure of 1s. 3d. for his rural area. Whatever views hon. Members may hold for the necessity of a Bill of this kind, surely there cannot be two views upon the justice of a Bill which mulcts the parents of these children for these sums and deprives them of a fair share in the sums which are raised. It is a poor return for the immense work which the voluntary school system has done for this country, particularly when it has been estimated that to replace these schools would cost the State something like £33,000,000.
The Bill cannot fail to create a preferential class of child. It is a lop-sided Bill. It is a Bill which, whatever else may be said for will disfigure our Statute Book, especially when it is found possible deliberately to omit provision for 2,000,000 children. The strongest condemnation I can find for this Bill is in the speech of the Minister of Education which he made upon the occasion of the Second Reading of the Bill of last May. His words commanded universal 2134 approval at the time they were uttered, and I should like to trouble the House by reading them:
What is the origin of the necessity which I am trying to meet by these proposals? There are large areas of our country districts, and there are many parts of our cities where reorganisation can only be really effective if the voluntary schools can be properly utilised. For instance, there are many parts of rural districts where there are groups of four or five voluntary schools waiting for an appropriate reorganisation. One of these must become a senior school. The voluntary managers are totally unable to find the necessary funds to build a new classroom, to provide a new playground, or to add a new science-room. Either the local authority must build them, or the children must go without. In many cases the local authority, humanly, cannot be expected to erect a big new school at the public expense, when at one-third of the cost a voluntary school could be easily reconditionsed. Therefore, it comes to this that we have this alternative, that we must in some way enable the voluntary schools to be reconditioned in a good many cases, or in many parts of the country thousands of children will be left without the proper chance which we are trying to give to all." [OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th May, 1930; cols. 1525–6, Vol. 239.]The House, no doubt, will entirely agree with those words, and yet we have a Bill brought forward making no provision whatever in order to secure the results which the Minister of Education properly desired to secure when he spoke last May. What is his defence? He will say, "I cannot allow the interests of 2,000,000 children to stand in the way of 3,500,000 children?" Is that a good defence? Is not that equivalent to saying, "Rather than produce no Bill at all, I will produce a bad Bill. I will produce a Bill which is only three-fifths good and is two-fifths bad."? Is that the kind of legislation of which this House can properly be proud? He might say again that he had to get the legislation through quickly, and could not wait for negotiations. Negotiations broke down last July, and he was unable, apparently, even with the best of intentions, to get them going before the House re-assembled three or four months later. That is not a very long time for negotiations. He was in an immense hurry. Spurred on by forces he could not control, desirous of improving employment, and possibly for a hundred and one reasons, very few of them educational reasons, and none of them reasons which would appeal to parents of voluntary 2135 schools, he had to produce his new Bill. It is true that to-night we have rendered the danger which threatens these schools, a little more remote. The sword of Damocles which was hanging over them will not fall quite so soon. When I heard the President of the Board of Education introduce this Bill this Session I could not help being reminded of a description of a personality in the Book of Revelation, who was described as:Unchained, but in great wrath, knowing that he had but a short time.The President of the Board of Education is still unchained and I think his wrath is abating, but he has a little longer time. I ask him to accept this Amendment because he has the time now to negotiate. By accepting the Amendment and placing the Bill upon the Statute Book so amended, either he or his successor will be forced to take into account the needs of the voluntary schools and their claims for fair treatment before putting into operation an Act for raising the school age.
§ Mr. SCURRMy position on this question is well known to the Committee. I am a supporter of the system of religious education. I am anxious to do everything that I possibly can to get help for the non-provided schools, and no party ties, under any consideration, will have any effect on me in a question involving justice being rendered to the schools on whose behalf I am speaking. I take it that the Amendment is not in the ordinary sense of the word a party Amendment. It has been moved by the hon. Member as representing a group of hon. Members on the opposite side of the House who hold views similar to the views held by a group of hon. Members on this side, concerning the non-provided schools. To-night, it has been ruled that we cannot refer to the 1902 Settlement, a settlement which was not an agreed settlement but one which was imposed by a powerful Government. The carrying out of that settlement has raised many problems. Since that time the development of our educational system and the new requirements put forward by the Board of Education and the public have enormously increased the expenditure which falls upon the trustees of these schools.
2136 During the debate on the Second Reading of the Bill I declared my intention of supporting it because I believe that the raising of the school age is a good thing from the educational point of view. The Catholic community to which I belong have always been anxious to have the very best education for the children with whose welfare they are concerned. I have received a letter from a distinguished member of the hierarchy of my Church in which he says that he hopes a settlement will be brought about now in order that we may devote ourselves to assisting the Government in the education of our children. When I supported the Second Reading of the Bill, and I took a great risk in doing so, I suggested to the President of the Board of Education that the door should be kept open for possible negotiations. The Parliamentary Secretary, replying at the close of the debate, indicated on behalf of the President that the door was open for negotiations, and on that assurance I and those who think with me went into the Division Lobby in support of the Second Reading.
The acceptance of my offer by the President of the Board of Education imposed, I thought, a certain responsibility upon myself, and I had to explore possible suggestions which might deal with the narrow question which is covered by this Amendment, the extra cost of the children from 14 to 15 years of age, those who will be affected by the Hadow reconstruction. I took some care and put forward certain suggestions, and I say with a full sense of responsibility that those in authority in the church to which I belong were perfectly cognisant of those proposals and gave their general approval to them. In putting them forward to the President of the Board of Education, I was not merely speaking as a Member of this House and the representative of a constituency, but with full authority as the representative of the whole Catholic community. I make that statement with a full sense of the responsibility which it carries.
The President of the Board of Education acknowledged those proposals, and said that he would give them his careful consideration. He has entered into conversations with various interests on this matter. Those conversations are going on, and I am very hopeful that the 2137 result will be comething which will be satisfactory to all the parties concerned. I and my friends had prepared an Amendment on somewhat similar lines to the present Amendment, and in the ordinary way we were going to put it down for the Committee stage, but having entered into conversations with the President of the Board of Education, and as those conversations are still going on, I must not, so to speak, present a pistol at his head. I must give the right hon. Gentleman an opportunity and, therefore, I do not put down the Amendment I had prepared. I am sure the President of the Board of Education will not mistake me when I say that if it is found, as a result of the conversations, that the Government are not in a position to make any grant at all to the non-provided schools, I shall certainly put that Amendment down for the Report stage of this Bill and I shall be prepared to go into the Lobby in support of it. I think that hon. Members opposite will agree that, as the conversations are still going on, the right hon. Gentleman must be given an opportunity for consideration of the position. If nothing is done for the non-provided schools, I shall cheerfully vote for the postponement of this Bill to the Greek Kalends. I am not concerned with any question of party advantage; I am concerned for the children of the community to which I belong, a community the vast majority of whose members do sincerely believe in the religious education of their children.
There is one point on which, I think this Amendment ought not to be supported as it stands, although I agree with the principle of postponement. The hon. Member for Lancaster (Mr. Ramsbotham) told us something of the burdens which will be thrown on the rates of his locality and other localities by the coming into operation of the Bill as it stands. Yet in the Amendment he suggests that we should empower local education authorities to contribute. We do not remedy one injustice by substituting for it another injustice, and, as far as the hierarchy of my church are concerned, they declared in 1929 quite clearly that what they desired was a national contribution and not these local contributions. If this Amendment were carried, we would have a revival in the localities of the old religious controversy. 2138 Those of us who took part in the old school-board elections, know that very often those elections were, in no sense, good for any religion. We do not want a revival of that controversy and a good many people accepted the settlement in 1902 because it took us very largely out of the old religious controversy. That is the first point. Secondly, the Amendment would make two classes of schools, getting two different kinds of grants—the provided schools getting their grants from the State, and the non-provided schools getting their grants from the localities. Therefore, from the practical point of view I submit that we could not adopt this Amendment as it stands.
I hope I have made my position clear. We are continuing the conversations, We are most hopeful that they will result in something of benefit to the schools which the hon. Member for Lancaster and myself represent, and which, I think, the hon. Member for Watford (Sir D. Herbert) correctly named the religious schools. We hope that those schools may receive that which is due to them if the Bill becomes law, but I wish to give the right hon. Gentleman an opportunity to consider the representations which have been made to him, the various ideas which have been placed before him, the proposals submitted to him by myself and by other people, in order that he may be able to come to the House later on and say to us, "Let this Bill go through because I pledge the Government to introduce the other Measure which will give those schools the assistance which they need." If that does not come at a later stage, and if no provision is made for the non-provided schools I am prepared to vote against the Bill. Perhaps, with this explanation, the hon. Member for Lancaster will take the same view as myself. Discussion may be valuable, but do not let us have a Division merely for the sake of a Division upon this matter. Do not let us divide merely for the sake of going into one Lobby or the other on this question, as if we had reached the last stage of the proceedings on the Bill.
I believe that the feeling of this Committee is that there ought to be a settlement of this question. I sometimes think that He Whom we all profess to serve, if we call ourselves Christians, He Who looks on the world with such divine com- 2139 passion and charity, Who all the time said, "Let us forgive unto seventy times seven," must has His heart torn very often when we enter into these stupid controversies, while we bow the knee before Him. It is because I so sincerely believe in the religious education of our children, because I so sincerely believe that this Committee wants to do justice to the people who feel this need, that I ask hon. Members not merely to have a Division but to give the President his opportunity, and if that opportunity is taken advantage of, all of us, I think, would be pleased with the success which would have attended our efforts.
§ Sir C. TREVELYANI am very anxious that in this matter that we are discussing to-night we should keep the temper with which this discussion has been begun by the two hon. Members who have so far addressed us and that we should maintain the general desire which was shown in the summer to arrive somehow at an understanding and a settlement of this exceedingly difficult question. I shall therefore say very little to-night.
I want first of all, however, to say that I think it is exceedingly important that we should not exaggerate. The hon. Member for Lancaster (Mr. Ramsbotham) talked about 2,000,000 children left out of account, but that is putting it a little too high, because the case with regard to the mere raising of the school age is that most schools, including non-provided schools, can cope with the increased numbers. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I am talking about what I know. There are certainly cities where they cannot do it and where the difficulty will be great, but generally speaking throughout the country they can cope with the numbers. I have told the House over and over again that were the school age to be raised most of the children could get at least as effective an education as those between 13 and 14 are getting now.
But this is where the disadvantage begins to come in. What I said in the summer, which was quoted by the hon. Member for Lancaster, was perfectly true, namely, that the reorganisation could only be really effective, that is to say, the full measure of improved education which we want to get for all the 2140 children will not be obtained by large numbers of the children in voluntary schools, unless we can get some means by which they are enabled to improve their schools in many cases. In many parts of the country the Church voluntary schools, at any rate, have fallen in with the plans of the local education authorities and have got a large and even in many cases a full share of the reorganisation. There are a good many counties where that is so. On the other hand, there are a great many schools where the managers allege that they cannot provide the money and where they do not see their way to co-operate completely with the local education authority.
I say again, as I said in the summer, that there are large numbers of children who may be prejudiced by no substantial improvement being made in the character of the teaching which can be obtained for them, at any rate for a time. That is a national disadvantage. I do not want to exaggerate it, but we all admit it and know it, and we have to deal with it. The whole Committee is anxious for a settlement, if it can be obtained, and the atmosphere is definitely favourable. If it remain so, I am perfectly certain that the main body of the Church of England is very anxious to find some kind of settlement. I believe that with rather greater anxiety there are also large numbers of Free Churchmen who are increasingly uneasy about the continual persistence of the dual system in a form which they do not like and with no real appearance of modification. They are just as anxious about education as any other part of the country. They know the disadvantage under which many children labour, and they do not like the system. We none of us think that the dual system, as it exists, is satisfactory.
The only possible solution of this problem is of the nature of compromise. I do not mean that everybody has to agree, for in a question like this, that is an impossibility. Everybody cannot agree, and I want the Committee to recollect that irreconcilable factors exist, and if the belief is encouraged that they can hold up national advance in education, they may become more and not less irreconcilable. That is why I should oppose under any circumstances an Amendment of this sort, or a proposal to hold up the 2141 raising of the school age until a settlement of the voluntary schools is arrived at. I do not think that we have any right to arrest the general progress of the country for a limited, even though important, number of children. I cannot, as a matter of fact, imagine a more effective way of preventing a settlement than the passing of a proviso of this kind, because we should put it in the power of any party or any section of people, by obstinacy and by the exorbitance of their demands, to make the raising of the school age inoperative. You would create an atmosphere of suspicion, and there would be a feeling in the minds of a large number of people that a kind of blackmail is possible. [HON. MEMBERS: "No !"] I am not saying that it is correct; I am only saying that a feeling of that kind would be liable to arise.
I am, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mile End (Mr. Scurr) has said, very fully exploring the basis of new proposals, and I am still very hopeful of a settlement. I see no reason why we should not be able to secure the necessary amount of agreement. I hold that it will be a disgrace to our national powers of arrangement and compromise if we cannot obtain it. I believe we can. Difficult as I think it to be, I say so. I say finally to-night that I do not think it will be wise to say that the larger national advance is to be made dependent upon the reasonableness of every religious organisation or of every secular interest. I believe it ought to be an entirely separate act of this Parliament. It is true that I had hoped in the summer to do the two things together. I hoped it could be done, and I believe we came very near to doing both together. But they are separate things and they must be kept separate; they must not be mixed up together; because it is a very big and a very difficult thing to get the 1902 settlement rearranged.
§ Sir C. TREVELYANThe 1902 arrangement, then. I am certain it would be far better to leave that to a separate act.
§ Mr. HANNONThe right hon. Gentleman challenged my hon. Friend below the Gangway with regard to the 2,000,000 children. Will he say, from his knowledge 2142 as President of the Board of Education, how many children are really affected by this Amendment?
§ Sir C. TREVELYANIt is quite impossible to say, because it is impossible to say how many of the voluntary schools need reorganisation and how many of the voluntary schools have been reorganised.
§ Mr. HANNONThen why did the right hon. Gentleman challenge my hon. Friend's figure, if he is not prepared to give an alternative figure?
§ Lord E. PERCYThe right hon. Gentleman has opposed this Amendment on one main ground, and that is that it is not right to make what he considers to be educational progress dependent upon the reasonableness of a number of religious denominations; but this Amendment does not do that. It makes the raising of the school age dependent upon the reasonableness and statesmanship of His Majesty's Government and Parliament, and I want to drive home that point of view. I think it distinguishes my attitude from that of the right hon. Gentleman opposite and of the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Scurr). I would say that in this matter we here speak only for ourselves. It is not a party question and I have always refused to speak as representing in this matter either any political party or any religious denomination. I represent myself and my own judgment and my own knowledge of the circumstances. The hon. Member for Mile End has spoken a great deal about negotiations which he has been conducting outside this House. I have no objection to that. As he knows, and as the right hon. Gentleman knows, on one occasion I took part in consultations of that kind with the right hon. Gentleman, and I placed before him, purely personally, my solution of the difficulty. I do not know what has happened to it since then. I do not object to any of these negotiations outside the House, but I do, I think, object to negotiations of this kind being used as an argument that this House shall not do a thing which is inherently reasonable and right in itself.
The real reason why I think an Amendment on these lines ought to be passed is this: The right hon. Gentleman, from the beginning, has tended to make a mistake. He has said he will not move 2143 in this matter unless he gets agreement between all the parties concerned, namely, all religious denominations. I hope that no hon. Member will misunderstand me when I say that we who believe most firmly that the Church represents the Kingdom which is not of this world, realise, what I am sure many hon. Members on both sides must realise, that no part of the Christian Church is a very good bargaining and negotiating body on a secular matter such as the bricks and mortar of schools. For the Government to make their political action dependent on the securing of agreement between a number of religious bodies on matters which are predominantly secular, is to put the greatest possible obstacle in the way of a settlement. Agreement by all means in the sense of finding by negotiation the line of least resistance which is at the same time just and fair, but to say that you will not move until you have got every religious denomination to say "I am in agreement" is a very different thing. I do not mean to say that the right hon. Gentleman has taken this line now, though I thought he was very much inclined to take it a year ago.
I am anxious not to exaggerate at all. Let us consider for a moment what the Amendment actually says. Let me take the first point of the hon. Member fort Mile End about the local authorities. At one moment in his speech he said that if he could not get some satisfaction before the Report stage, he would put down an Amendment. As he knows, no private Member can put down an Amendment which involves an increased public charge on the Exchequer. The only course open to him will be, as was open to my hon. Friend, to put down an Amendment giving a local authority the power, and not excluding the possibility, and on the assumption, that any expenditure of local education authorities will be aided in the ordinary way by grants from the Board of Education.
§ Lord E. PERCYHowever long I wait and see, I do not think the hon. Member will get over that particular snag if he is to put down an Amendment. At the time of the last General Election my own submission was for grants wholly from the 2144 Exchequer without any burden on local rates at all. I think that I have dealt sufficiently with that point to show that there is no inconsistency in hon. Members of this House voting for an Amendment in this form. There is nothing to prevent the Government giving a 100 per cent grant on the expenditure incurred by those local authorities. Beyond that what does the Amendment say? It does not say that the Government shall, or that Parliament shall, do anything in particular for the non-provided schools. It does not, therefore, cut across any negotiations. It simply says that this Act shall not come into force, and the school-leaving age shall not be raised until there is a settlement of this question; and that, whether the number of children is 2,000,000, 1,000,000 or 500,000, we know that a very large section of children in this country cannot conceivably get the education which they ought to get between the ages of 14 and 15, not only in 1932 and 1933, but at any time after the passing of this Act, unless a settlement of this kind, within the next 10 or 20 years, is arrived at.
The only answer, the only objection to making an Amendment of this kind has been given by the right hon. Gentleman, who says that it is unfair to enable any religious denomination to stop the coach and prevent the raising of the school age. I have dealt with that objection already. I am not seeking to bind the right hon. Gentleman or Parliament to introduce a scheme which will be satisfactory to any religious denomination or to all of them. I am only trying to pledge Parliament, and the right hon. Gentleman to produce a scheme which will enable these schools to be put right, even though the scheme has to go through against the protests of every religious denomination in this country. We are trying to get some scheme which will work, and that is our only object. We have been told a lot in the last few days about it being absolutely essential to pass legislation raising the school age as from a particular date, and that unless you put pressure upon the local education authorities you will not get any progress. What about this House putting pressure upon His Majesty's Government to do something in the matter. I do not think that any Government is worse for being told by the House of Commons 2145
if you want to carry out the policy you wish to carry out you must go through the motions and effect the physical changes which are necessary to carry out that policy, and if you do not do that your policy cannot be carried out.11.0 p.m.I know the difficulties of the President of the Board of Education, and I do not want to add to them, but I do feel that it is necessary that this House should put the right hon. Gentleman in a position to say—there are some sections of opinion which may be recalcitrant—if you are going to get what you want in the raising of the school-leaving age, you must take the measures necessary to prepare for that. I cannot agree with the right hon. Gentleman that he will be weakened by an Amendment of this kind but still—I am speaking my own mind—I can only say that I have done my best for the last few years to get a settlement, to get it without any party advantage or party kudos of any kind, and that I will continue to do, and I will give the right hon. Gentleman all the reputation and honour and the glory of getting a settlement if he can get it. I did, however, make certain promises at the last Election as to what I would do if I had the power. I have not the power, and the only way in which I can show to-day that I really meant those promises is to vote for this Amendment.
§ Sir D. MACLEANNo one can object to the tone of the speeches which have been delivered on this most important Amendment. One comment, however, I permit myself, and that is that I am quite sure that the Noble Lord and the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Scurr) realise that the denominations with which they are associated have not a monopoly of religious conviction or appeal—
§ Lord E. PERCYAfter I have said that I have never spoken in this House on behalf of any religious denomination, may I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman not to start his speech by saying that I speak for a denomination?
§ Sir D. MACLEANI was giving the Noble Lord credit for the tone of his speech, and was only reminding him and the Committee, and anyone else whom it 2146 may concern, that there are others, not associated with those great Christian communities, who hold very deep religious convictions with regard to this matter. That is a matter of common knowledge, and my right hon. Friend knows, and the Noble Lord also knows, that, very much to their personal inconvenience and discomfort, there are great religious communities who have to be considered in this matter, and that there are also millions of citizens in this country who do not attach themselves to any religious community at all. This is a matter for the community as a whole, and I join most heartily, on behalf of my hon. Friends who sit with me here, in expressing the hope that in discussing this most important and difficult subject we shall keep as clear as is humanly possible from religious difficulties and shall discuss it on a broad, general citizen basis.
I am convinced, however, that, if the Amendment which has been moved be passed, it will seriously hinder the settlement which I hope, and we all hope, may be achieved. Undoubtedly, its effect will be to postpone indefinitely the raising of the school age. We want to avoid that, and we want, if possible, to facilitate in every way a settlement of this great religious difference. That is the desire, I think, of the whole Committee. The great point is that we have failed hitherto—not only has the right hon. Gentleman who is in charge of this Bill failed, but the Noble Lord also has failed—to achieve a settlement along with a Bill such as we have now before us. I believe that my right hon. Friend is quite right in saying that the next approach to the problem must be a separate approach, and I want, as far as possible, to assure him, and the Noble Lord and his party, that we shall not be lacking in making our contribution to assist a settlement of this important question.
§ Commander SOUTHBYIn supporting the Amendment which has been so ably moved by my hon. Friend, I should like to make it clear that I do so in neither a party, a partisan, nor any sectarian spirit whatever. I deplore the speech made by the President of the Board of Education. I do not believe that it can possibly help the settlement which he has said he is so anxious to achieve. The use of words such as "exorbitancy" 2147 and "blackmail" can hardly be a help to any negotiations in which he is at present engaged. I cannot understand why he should say that the estimate of 2,000,000 children is putting it too high nor why he should call the 2,000,000 children referred to by my hon. Friend a limited number. I do not agree with the statement that the non-provided schools can possibly cope with the increases that they are bound to incur if they are to get themselves in a condition to carry out the provisions of this Bill. I do not believe the hon. Member for Mile End concurs in that statement. Every word the right hon. Baronet has said has made it obvious that he has been putting forward arguments which, if they were read aright, would cause him to delay the coming into force of the Bill until this settlement has been arrived at with the non-provided schools. He says a solution must be accomplished. Surely that is an added reason why there should be delay in the provisions of the Bill being forced upon school authorities.
The Bill imposes a compulsion on the school-leaving age being raised to 15. Nowhere in the Act is there the slightest reference to non-provided schools. My hon. Friend below the Gangway did not put it too high when he said 2,000,000 children go through the church schools. The community owes a very deep debt of gratitude to them for the wonderful work they have done and are doing. He well referred to the Bill as lop-sided. It is a lop-sided and ill-timed Bill, since it leaves the children in the non-provided schools at a serious disadvantage, which the right hon. Baronet himself does not deny, as compared with children in the State-provided schools. The children at the church schools will have to remain for another year at schools which are catering for children from 5 up to 14 where it will be impossible for them to obtain the type of more advanced education which this Bill envisages. Surely the Government cannot shirk this issue. They have to come to a settlement of the non-provided school question before the Bill can possibly be operative, and it is the plain duty of the Government to come to that settlement before they attempt to put into force a Bill which is totally incapable of being 2148 really successful. It is not less of religious teaching that we want in our schools but more. These schools must have a square deal and no alteration in the educational system can ever be equitable nor successful unless it includes in it a just and fair settlement of the non-provided school question. The arguments brought forward by the right hon. Baronet were really arguments in favour of the postponement of the raising of the school age.
I believe the acceptance of the Amendment would not be a hindrance to any settlement he is endeavouring to negotiate but would greatly strengthen the hands of the right hon. Baronet in those negotiations which I, in common with every other Member, hope will come to a successful conclusion. We believe that no settlement of the educational question can be satisfactory unless there is a square and reasonable deal with the non-provided schools, no matter to what denomination they belong, and therefore I support the Amendment. No one would doubt the sincerity of the hon. Member for Mile End; but I suggest that he would be better advised to go into the Lobby to-night for the principle which he so ably expressed than to wait until a later stage when it may he too late for him to act effectively.
§ Mr. GRAYI hope the Committee will not accept the Amendment. I have no desire to enter into discussion of the 1903 settlement, but it created a great sense of injustice in a large section of the people under which they still labour. Hon. Members who support this Amendment are saying that the raising of the school age is not to come into force unless they get what they want, and no consideration is to he given to those who hold a different point of view. So I may illustrate it by supposing that we on our side put down an Amendment to say that the raising of the school age cannot take place unless teachers of all denominations are given a chance of reaching headmasterships in schools provided out of public funds. If hon. Members supporting the Amendment have no desire to reach a settlement—[HON. MEMBERS "No"]—then their Amendment is reasonable; but if it is not their attitude, and they say it is not, then their Amendment is utterly unreasonable. They ask, 2149 even before the matter is discussed, that the whole situation shall be held up until they and their friends get practically all they want. Speaking as a member of the Free Churches, I consider, and I think the great bulk of our friends consider, that a great injustice is done to all of us by the present condition of affairs. You have at the present moment a large number of schools, the entire cost of the teaching staff of which is provided out of public funds, and everything else is provided except the bare maintenance of the building, where no person who is not a member of the particular denomination concerned can have the headmastership.
§ Mr. McSHANEOn a point of Order. With great respect, Mr. Young, your predecessor, Mr. Dunnico, has ruled that a wider discussion of the conditions resulting from the 1902 settlement was to be strictly precluded. I think the hon. Member must be forgetting that ruling.
§ The CHAIRMANI was not aware of that ruling. If such a ruling were given I trust the hon. Member will keep to the point.
§ Mr. FOOTDoes not the Amendment suggest that the 1902 arrangement is to be disturbed, and if that is so cannot the arrangement be discussed?
§ Mr. BEAUMONTIs it not a fact that the question was raised very thoroughly to your predecessor and that he ruled quite definitely that the conditions of the 1902 settlement could be discussed on this Amendment?
§ The CHAIRMANMy hon. Friend, no doubt, forgot to tell me. I trust that the hon. Member will keep to the Ruling which has been given.
§ Mr. GRAYI have refrained from intervening on the point of Order, because I wanted to hear your Ruling. I frankly admit that I have not contravened the Ruling of your predecessor. I have not the slightest intention of discussing the 1902 settlement. If I wished to do so, I should want to speak for a very much longer period than I propose to do now. I am merely pointing out that this Amendment which has been put upon the Order Paper, which is to hold up the whole raising of the school age, does raise the question of the claims of the denominational schools for further assistance in the maintenance of their buildings. I am 2150 not discussing the 1902 settlement, but taking the Amendment as it is. This Amendment against the raising of the school age shall not be made until an Act has been passed empowering the local authorities to make contributions towards developing those schools. What my hon. Friends are asking is that the raising of the school age shall be stopped until their demands are satisfied. Obviously, if that decision is taken, the demands of those who speak for Roman Catholic schools must also be satisfied and the demands of those who speak for the Free Churches must be satisfied. The point I am stressing upon this Committee without raising the religious controversy—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I am not raising it, the Amendment raises it. What I am pointing out to the Committee is that this Amendment raises it in one of the most objectionable forms in which it could be raised. It demands that a particular section shall be satisfied, and that the raising of the school age shall be stopped until they are satisfied. The only possibility of our getting a satisfactory solution of this great problem is that we shall lay down, first and foremost, which I do, that the first thing we have to bear in mind is the real education of the children to the largest and fullest extent, and that we shall—speaking for my own Church, we shall—make every possible concession to obtain an agreed system of education which will provide a great broad highway for our children from elementary school to the University. In the raising of the school age what we should seek is to provide a very much better form of education for the great mass of our children. If that is to be secured, some satisfactory solution must be arrived at in regard to the religious difficulties that separate us in the claims that we as religious people make for the education of our children.
My complaint is that this Amendment does not ask that the raising of the school age shall be delayed until a settlement is reached, but it makes a deliberate demand that it shall not be raised until these concessions are made to the voluntary schools. The conditions on which they should be made may or may not be such that Free Churchmen will readily accept—I cannot say—but if we do want a solution, we must leave it so 2151 that the President of the Board of Education can see whether some satisfactory arrangement could be made, and, if not, then the responsibility will rest upon the Government to put forward the solution that they think is the right one. It will then be for this House to decide on the merits of the proposed solution. The plea that I make for the withdrawal of this Amendment is that, in my judgment, an Amendment of this sort, if accepted, must inevitably arouse the fierce opposition of many people, because it does prejudice the whole situation. We have heard the remark from the opposite side, "How these Christians love one another!" In reply to that, I might say that in my own county we have arrived at a solution to the extent of having an agreed syllabus, which has been agreed upon between the Church authorities and the Free Churches, and we are reorganising our schools on that basis. If we really want to arrive at a solution it must be in the broad spirit of Christian, charity, not stressing entirely our own point of view, but in that broader spirit which is the teaching of our Master:
Suffer little children to come unto Me for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.If we can only interpret our views in the light of that teaching, it ought to be possible for us to arrive at a solution that will be satisfactory to all sections of the Christian Church. It is in that hope that I ask hon. Members to withdraw the Amendment.
§ Mr. LOGANI had not intended to intervene in the debate, but certain remarks of the hon. Member who has just resumed his seat make it impossible for me to remain silent. I have tried to restrain myself. I know how delicate this subject is, not only in this House, but also outside. It is one of the most difficult questions which confronts the House of Commons, but in my humble opinion, some solution for this pressing problem will have to be found. As the representative of my constituency, I should be wanting in my duty if I did not speak honestly and sincerely on this matter, but I hope that nothing I may say will hurt the deep religious sentiments of any other hon. Member. I hope the hon. Member will not press the Amendment. I believe that we have reached a most critical stage. I am the 2152 last man in this House who would be influenced by any party pressure on this particular matter. Delicate negotiations have been going on, and the Amendment might injure those negotiations if it is pressed. It may be reasonable to ask the President of the Board of Education to make a pronouncement which will be satisfactory to the opinions which have been expressed during this debate and settle once and for all on statesmanlike terms a problem which has confronted many governments and which has so far never been settled.
I appeal to all parties in the Committee. I ask that the Amendment shall not be pressed. To some of us all other issues go to the wall before this vital question, but at the same time it does not follow that we should destroy all the attempts of the right hon. Gentleman to bring the negotiations to a successful issue. It is no use fiddling while Rome is burning. We must express our honest convictions and allow the President of the Board of Education to state what in the opinion of the Government are reasonable proposals which might satisfy all parties. If that could be done, I feel that a great degree of satisfaction would be reached. In passing, may I say that I am as loyal as any man to my party, but I am more loyal to principles. [HON. MEMBERS: "So are we."] I know that, and, because I know it, I appeal to the sense of justice of hon. Members and ask them to allow the Minister the opportunity of coming forward to the House of Commons with a proposition to meet this difficulty.
§ Sir J. SANDEMAN ALLENI very much regret, and I am sure that everyone in the Committee regrets, the tone of the speech of the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Gray). We have been listening to speeches of the most solemn and moderate character, which have shown a realisation of the very grave difficulties involved in this question. The Mover of the Amendment spoke in reasoned terms, and the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Scurr), in a speech which must have touched every right-feeling man in this Committee, gave utterance to sentiments which came out of the fulness of his heart and the firmness of his faith. We are not here dealing with contentious matters in the ordinary sense of the term, but with matters which affect the most vital thing 2153 in our lives, and, therefore, I feel that the Committee ought to address itself to this question, with calmness, with moderation and with consideration for the feelings of everybody. The Minister did not import into his speech anything which would arouse controversial fires and, on the other hand, the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) stated his side of the case quite fairly and clearly. But whatever may be felt by strong political partisans, those of us who have convictions on this subject are speaking irrespective of party feeling. On that point, I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Mile End. I am perfectly prepared to vote against my party on a matter of this kind, if my party take up any line which is contrary to my convictions.
I feel that we ought to discuss this question in that high spirit to which the House of Commons rises from time to time, the spirit which has made this country what it is, the spirit of men whose first principle in life is to fear God and to do right. We may be mistaken in what we think to be right, but the first thing that we want is the fear of God and then we want the sense of right and wrong and the determination, cost what it may, to do what we believe to be right. It is on these lines that we ought to approach this question. Many difficulties arise when we come to deal with such controversial matters, but one thing is clear to some of us at all events. We may be mistaken in the view which we take, but there is such a thing as justice. We are asked in the Bill to do certain things and to change the whole condition of the country in reference to this subject. It may be for the good to do so, but the argument that education is more important than anything else must be qualified by the question "What is education?" The very first principle of education, as I and, I believe, many of us see it, is the fear of God. Somebody has said that you might call this a question of religious education, but religion lies deeper than mere Bible teaching. It has to do with the principles of your life, and your whole faith, and therefore it is much deeper than a mere question of an hour of religious teaching; it is a question of being taught by those who believe themselves in those great truths which they have to teach. I am not saying which contentions on mere 2154 details of religion are right or wrong. I want to bring the Committee up to the point that what we have to deal with is the most vital question in our lives. Therefore, I am sure we are all thankful that the President himself, although we did not quite agree with his conclusions, approached this great problem in a serious manner. I speak as the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings spoke, purely as an individual and as the question strikes me. I may be, and probably am, very inconsistent and very failing, but I desire to stand for the faith of my fathers, which I believe to be the only real living power, and I speak as one who firmly believes what he is saying.
It is impossible under the Rules of this House to bring out what we really want, and that is that the State should come into this matter. Therefore, it has to be brought out in this particular form, but here are certain special terms being imposed for special purposes, and we have one particular class of the community who, we know, are not only paying their rates for the ordinary education, but putting their hands into their pockets to instruct their children in what they 'believe to be the most vital things of life. The State comes in and says that from the State point of view it wants this, that, and the other. Surely it is reasonable to suggest that there should be a contribution from the State for something which the State demands solely for its own reasons. Therefore, when we ask that the working of the Bill should be postponed until this matter is settled, we are not interfering with a settlement.
My hon. Friend and colleague the Member for the Scotland division of Liverpool (Mr. Logan) seemed to think that by this Amendment we were disturbing the conversations that are going on, but he is quite mistaken. We are not disturbing any conversations; we are merely putting on record what we firmly believe to be the right and proper thing to do. It will not disturb the Minister, I know, whether or not we pass this Amendment. I am not quite sure if we shall, in view of certain conversations in the House already, but I do not think it will disturb anything. I appeal to the Committee to put on record our sense of the right and justice of this matter, without importing any other question into it. We are not discussing what the hon. 2155 Member below the gangway brought up. That does not come in at all, because it is not involved in these arrangements. We are merely discussing this simple issue, which involves no acrimonious discussion, and merely leaves the question open so that a settlement may be arrived at; and now that the Bill has been postponed for 18 months, there will be plenty of opportunity for a settlement to be arrived at in one way or another. I make an earnest appeal to the Committee to deal with a question which hon. Members realise is not a party question, but one of supporting what we believe to be right, and even if the Amendment be defeated, it ought not to make any difference to the sense of this Committee that we want to do what is right. I think very little of those who are out merely for a party score or merely for a religious party score. We should stand as Englishmen in the Faith for which we are working.
§ Mr. LOVAT-FRASERI should like to intervene in the Debate as a Churchman, and I speak on behalf of certain Churchmen on this side of the Committee. Fortunately the great religious bodies do not follow party lines; we have members of all Churches in all political parties. I am going to vote against the Amendment and I appeal to Churchmen in the Labour party to do likewise. At the same time, I urge the Minister of Education to make every effort that he can towards bringing about a settlement of this long-standing trouble. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mr. Ranasbotham) expressed concern for the Church schools. We of the Church of England in the Labour party are also concerned about the Church schools. We owe the Church schools an immense debt of gratitude for what they have done in this country. It is about 120 years since Andrew Bell brought about the establishment of the National Society, and that Society has saved the nation millions of pounds in educating the children. The Church schools have therefore a claim to be treated with every consideration. We want a settlement.
The voice of Nonconformity was heard for the Front bench below the Gangway. The Churchmen in the Labour party recognise to the full the claims of Non- 2156 conformity, and the enormous debt that we owe to it for the services it has rendered to religious life. John Wesley has no greater admirers in any religious Community than he has among many of us in the Labour party. We earnestly hope that in any settlement the claims of Nonconformity may be met. I believe that such a settlement could be made, and I urge upon the President to make his best endeavours in that direction. The temper of the Churches is favourable and I believe that the Church of England would welcome a settlement. It will be a feather in the President's cap if he brings to an end this long wrangle about religious education.
Sir HILTON YOUNGI am surprised at the heat of some of the speeches upon the Amendment. I do not refer to the last speech. One feels a certain sense of uneasiness in looking forward to the final settlement and all the difficulties that lie ahead of the President of the Board of Education. If these things be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? If these speeches are made upon an Amendment to which they are strictly irrelevant, what sort of speeches will be made when we come to discuss the religious settlement? I have not ventured to use the word "irrelevant" in-advisedly. No doubt the speeches are all in order, or they would have been ruled out of Order, but really the question of the relative merits of the various denominations which run non-provided schools, and what terms they are entitled to in a final settlement, does not arise upon this Amendment, which covers such a very important matter from the educational point of view that it would be a matter of great regret if it should pass without having had its merits considered by the Committee. I think I can point out the real point of view from which this Amendment is advanced by referring to the observation made by the President of the Board of Education and supported by the right hon. Member for North Cornwall (Sir D. Maclean). They said we should treat the question of the non-provided schools and the raising of the school age as separate matters and deal with them separately. That shows a failure to bring their minds to the point of the contention from these benches, which is that you cannot consider them as separate matters. They are one in the 2157 nature of the case in the educational world.
Let me recall the facts which were so ably presented by the Mover of the Amendment. We are dealing here with more than half the schools of the country and two-fifths of the children. What is more important, we are dealing with the vast majority of the schools in the single-school areas, and it is just there that the problem is most difficult. We are not dealing with a little unimportant corner of the educational world, but with a very substantial part of it. Just a word on the speech of the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Scurr), who advanced his case in a manner which secured the attention and the sympathy of the House. Of course, it is the desire of all who wish for a settlement of this long-vexed question that the negotiations to which he has referred should succeed, but they are negotiations which affect only one of the parties interested in this matter. [HON MEMBERS: "No!"] If I am wrong, let me withdraw that statement. If it affects all the parties concerned then the position is better, but the community for which the hon. Member speaks is only one portion of the community concerned. In any case, however, I was not referring to that in order to draw any distinction between the claims of the various parties interested in the non-provided schools, but to show that there is a very big interest involved, and that I am afraid that in this mechanism of Parliament through which we work there is only one wisdom, and that is to make sure of your Amendment while you have the chance.
I will not repeat the contention of the noble Lord that, as a matter of fact, the passing of this Amendment will strengthen the hands of the President of the Board of Education just as much as it will strengthen that of the denominations in their negotiations, but in a few words I would like to show how the issue raised by this Amendment looks from an educational point of view, an issue which you cannot separate from the final settlement of the question of the non-provided schools. In order to get any real educational good out of raising the school age, you must have a reorganization of the schools, particularly in the rural areas, and in order to provide for the reorganization of the schools in any methodical and organised way you 2158 must bring in the non-provided schools. The real point of the Amendment is that you cannot bring the non-provided schools into the reorganization scheme until you settle the whole question of their finance, because reorganization means for these non-provided schools in rural areas the provision of fresh accommodation. It means money which they have not got and cannot provide, and, in order to get it, you must settle the great question involved. As a matter of the realities of the educational situation, it follows as night follows the day, that, if you hurry this through before you solve the bigger question, you are leaving a very big part of the problem unsolved. The President may be inclined to say that it is doing something if you solve part of the problem, but the problem cannot be solved in parts. It must be solved altogether or not at all. If you try to carry out the scheme as regards a part only leaving so big a part unaffected, is it not known to every practical administrator that you will have two bad results. First of all, you will have the minor bad result that, as a matter of fact, the children in the non-provided schools will derive no benefit. Having been left out, we know from the way in which legislation is passed and from the practical difficulties that they are likely to be left out for a very long time.
Secondly, if you leave them out, you will run the risk of reducing the scheme to chaos. I should not have ventured to advance this last argument on my own authority, but it is the argument of the President himself which he put in some very powerful passages which have been quoted by the Mover of the Amendment. This argument, quoted from the President's speech, represented his first thoughts, which might be supposed not to be careful thoughts, though he is always such a careful thinker. He has had second thoughts in spite of the arguments which he advanced on the Money Resolution. He told us then that the circumstances I have alluded to would make it only too likely that the local authority, if it was going to be able to deal with the question of reorganisation, would have to build absolutely new schools of its own, which, as he pointed out, would be an extremely clumsy suggestion in many parts of the country—first of all clumsy, and, secondly, expensive, and very likely 2159 the local authority simply would not do it because of its clumsiness and expense.
To-day, the right hon. Gentleman has had to adopt another attitude, and he has minimised the consequences of the results which he then described, but there they are, and I say again that it is known to every practical administrator that, if you carry the Bill through without first dealing with the question of accommodation in the voluntary schools, there will be two necessary consequences. Either the children in those schools, particularly in the rural areas, will derive no positive benefit at all or, as the President himself pointed out, it will lead to what he described as clumsy and extravagant waste of money through the local education authorities building wholly new schools in areas where they are not wanted. There we have the alternatives of waste on the one hand and inefficiency on the other. It is from finding himself impaled on the horns of that dilemma that we desire to rescue the President by this Amendment, and I would fain commend it to the more reasonable attention of hon. Members opposite. I consider that that is the acid test in regard to the sincerity of the desire for education.
§ Sir ROBERT NEWMANThe question which I ask myself is whether it is wise or not to dispose of the Amendment at this stage or whether it would not be wiser to postpone its further consideration until the Report stage. If I am spared to see the Report stage and I am not satisfied, I can then vote against this proposal. We are all well aware that there is a considerable difference of opinion on this question, and the Government is being forced by some of their friends to reconsider their position. It is frequently found that on the Report stage we get a more satisfactory position, and we must look at this problem in that light. I feel sure that if a vote is taken tonight the Amendment will not be carried, and I am afraid that, if the Amendment is defeated, instead of strengthening the denominational side of the question, it will weaken the negotiations at a later stage. The hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Scurr) told the Committee that he and many of his friends are desirous of seeing that justice is done to the denominational schools, and he said that, as 2160 far as Roman Catholics are concerned, they are prepared to agree that the question should be postponed and considered later stage. Our Roman Catholic friends are very determined about matters of faith, and they are not likely to shrink from their responsibility, and we know that the hon. Member for Mile End has their authority for stating that they are anxious to have this question further considered.
There are many difficulties in all educational criticisms. There is a large body of Nonconformists who are anxious to further religious teaching and who look at this subject from a totally different standpoint. All these matters have to be considered, and for these reasons I would like to see this Amendment withdrawn with the intention of reviewing it again on the Report stage. I am not very much in love with the Amendment itself, and I do not think there is much chance of its being carried. Personally, I do not think it goes far enough; it is merely optional; it only allows local authorities to take action if they think proper to give a vote in favour of doing so. If it were carried, what would happen We know as well as possible, or, at any rate, my experience has been that in all these controversies some local authorities are sympathetic and some are quite the reverse.
I do not pretend to be a lawyer, but it seems to me that this Amendment does not go very far. It leaves to the local authorities the option to do something if they wish, and does not even lay down what the help given is to be. It might be a merely nominal grant of £2 or £3, to each school; nothing definite is laid down. I go further, and say that, even if the Government had brought forward this Amendment as their own proposal, I should consider that it was not good enough, because I do not believe it would give to the denominational schools the security of which they stand in need. Even if it had been proposed by the Government, I do not think it would be really worth having.
I quite agree with the Mover that it would be a good gesture if we could get a unanimous vote on the Amendment, but that is absolutely impossible. The Minister has assured us that he wishes very much to come to terms, our Roman 2161 Catholic friends are anxious for a postponement, and, although I admit I have not been consulted on this matter, I imagine that a large number of staunch Churchmen and Roman Catholics on this side of the House would be most anxious to meet their friends on the opposite side, not in any party spirit, but in order that they might, come together and try to formulate some principle and system which, while doing justice to the denominational schools, would also, I hope, receive the support of our Nonconformist friends; and I cannot help thinking that we should do well to leave the matter there for the present.
§ Sir C. TREVELYANI would appeal to the Committee to come to a decision, largely because I should like the Committee to leave this question in the spirit of good temper which, on the whole, has been exhibited all along. Most of the speeches have been helpful rather than otherwise, and I think that, from that point of view, the sooner we can come to a decision on the matter the better.
§ Mr. HORE-BELISHAMay I say just two or three words on this Amendment, I hope in the spirit for which the right hon. Gentleman has just appealed? I hope it will not be thought that the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Gray) represents the views of all who sit on these benches. [HON. MEMBERS: "Most of them!"] There are others who take an opposite view, and believe that the cause of liberty, as of education, is not well served by perpetuating the disabilities under which certain religious communities now suffer, and particularly a community which has rendered great service to education in the past. We should like to see those disabilities removed. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire said that this Amendment would, if carried, have the effect of making the acceptance of the Bill which we are now discussing dependent upon the concurrence of all the religions denominations. It would do nothing of the kind.
§ Mr. GRAYI am sure my hon. Friend does not wish to misrepresent me. I do not think that is borne out by what I said. My point was that, if that Amendment was not accepted, it was accepting the point of view of one section, and 2162 therefore, prejudicing that of other sections.
§ Mr. HORE-BELISHAThe last thing I would wish to do is to misrepresent my hon. Friend, and, if I misunderstood him, I can only apologise most sincerely. I hope the point of view which has been expressed will not be encouraged. This Amendment goes a very little way indeed and imposes no compulsion upon anyone. It simply calls for a measure to enable local authorities to give certain assistance in the way of buildings, and so forth to non-provided schools.
§ The CHAIRMANI hope that question will not be pursued. The terms of any arrangement must not now be argued.
§ Mr. HORE-BELISHAIt has rightly been said that this is not a party question and I am entitled, therefore, to represent my own point of view, I hope without any offence, and that of two of my hon. Friends who have asked me to associate their views with mine. The last thing I should like to do is to offend my hon. Friends below me. However, this is a matter of great importance upon which everyone who has spoken feels very sincerely. The Amendment does not go very far. It imposes a settlement upon no one. If it were carried, it would merely express the view of the House that a settlement is desirable and I hope it will be carried.
§ Sir D. HERBERTThe right hon. Gentleman gave us distinct hope in his speech at the beginning of the debate that there were good reasons to think a settlement might be brought about on the matter before the Bill came into operation. The general tone of the speeches from all sides of the Committee has been in the direction of a, hope that something would be done to meet the claims of the non-provided schools. I want to make this our appeal to the right hon. Gentleman. He has asked that we may come to a decision, and many hon. Members have asked that we might withdraw the Amendment, relying on the Minister's willingness to continue conversations. I am afraid that the experience of many of us in this House shows that, however much we trust—and I entirely trust—the right 2163 hon. Gentleman's good fauth in this matter, we cannot rely too much upon good will and upon pleasant words which are spoken on these occasions. I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will give us a perfectly definite pledge that he will endeavour to arrange some form of Amendment to protect the non-provided schools which may be introduced on the Report stage. If we can get a definite undertaking that something will be done, I think, speaking for! myself, that we may be prepared to withdraw the Amendment. Failing something of the kind, we shall be bound to vote for the Amendment to show our determination to do what we can to see that the non-provided schools are fairly and properly treated.
§ Mr. FOOTI have no desire to say one word which would cause any feeling between those hon. Members who represent one Church and those who represent another. I was a little astonished to hear the hon. Member for West Derby (Sir J. Sandeman Allen) speak as if that was not a common feeling throughout the country. After all, the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Gray), who spoke amid a great deal of interruption, represented a great many people who have been associated with religious life in this country for many generations. A very foolish interruption was made by an hon. Member behind me; it would be better if he spared some of his time in the House of Commons for studying the elementary history of his own country. An interruption of that kind does no credit to his courtesy or his intelligence. Although there have been differences of expression between those who sit on the second bench on the other side of the Committee who have taken part in the Debate and those for whom I speak, I hope that there will he no bitterness between us. They stand for one school of thought, and some of us stand for another. Some of those for whom I speak appreciate the serious disabilities under which we suffer in the single-school areas. There are thousands of children belonging to Free Church homes who have no opportunity of going to any school except a school of a denomination other than their own. They are compelled by law to go, and yet they have to go into a school where the claim is made that there 2164 has to be a religious atmosphere. That is a penalty which I thought all fair men had recognised, and it must be remembered before the educational system can be put on a fair basis.
The right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir. H. Young) urged that we should pass the Amendment because, he said, we could not carry through this scheme of school reorganization unless provision was made for public grants to the voluntary schools. I should have understood the Amendment if it had said that the right hon. Gentleman should not proceed with the Bill, or that the Bill should not come into operation until some arrangement was arrived at. I should not even then support the Amendment myself, but I think it would be a reasonable Amendment that, until this vexed denominational question was settled, the Bill should not come into operation. But the Amendment asks for a great deal more than that; it asks that the Bill shall not come into operation until grants are made to the denominational schools. If grants are to be made out of public funds—and it raises the whole issue—on what terms are they to be made? A suggestion was made when the previous Education Bill was brought before the House that one of the conditions of a public grant was that there was to be a larger measure of public control. Does the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sevenoaks concede that fact? Does he suggest that there is to be a large payment made out of public funds and that still you are to have in every denominational school in the country a complete mastery on the part of the denominational management over the derisory minority representing those who provide money in this respect? Surely, if money is to he paid out of public funds there must be a larger measure of public control. If money is paid out of public funds, we have a right to ask that the question which played such a great part in the discussions of 1902 and in 1906, should be faced, and whether in the new arrangements which are to be made you are going to enlarge or lessen the tests for teachers. These are questions which must be faced before a settlement can be reached.
2165 While I appreciate the fervour with which the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. Logan) spoke, surely he cannot expect the right hon. Gentleman to-night—in the dead vast and middle of the night—to get up and from the Front Bench opposite announce a settlement upon a matter which has troubled serious men ever since the discussions of 1902. This settlement has not been delayed because of malice or because there is bitterness between one communion and another. I heard one hon. Member say: "See how these Christians love one another." I do not think that the difficulty is prompted by hatred on the part of one Englishman towards another. It is because there are opinions held going back to the roots of history dependent upon traditions and upon our upbringing. The outlook of every Member of this House very largely depends upon the home in which he or she was brought up, and we must realise in all our difficulties, and however sincerely we hold our opinions, that the first and main consideration should be the good of the child. That is why the right hon. Gentleman is entitled to say:
"As far as you can, abate your denominational claim, and, if possible, arrive at a settlement which will give the child the best chance." Those conversations are still continuing. They would be made impossible, I think, by the passing of the Amendment. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] If an Amendment were passed in those terms, this House would for the time commit itself to a solution which would settle only one part of the problem, but I give this warning, that if you settled the claims of one party and ignored the rest you would raise such criticisms that the whole of the Bill would become derelict and fall to pieces.
§ Major LLEWELLINI want to bow to the appeal which has been made by the President of the Board of Education, but, as one of those in whose name the Amendment stands, I want to say why it does not seem good to us to withdraw it. We all very much appreciate the spirit in which, for instance, the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Scurr) spoke. We understand that at the moment there were two loyalties—the loyalty to his religion and the loyalty to his party—and we appreciate very much his position in this matter.
2166 Unless we make some provision in the Bill for the non-provided schools, we are going, in the words of the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Foot), to deal with one part only of the population and to leave the other part unprovided for. If we look at the Bill as an Education Bill, it is fair that in this Bill, as in the Bill introduced by the President of the Board of Education last summer, there must be some provision for these schools. I regret the attitude taken up by one or two members of the Liberal party, because it seems to me that they are stirring up the dust of the religious controversies of their fathers, rather than looking to the future of the children of this country. [HON. MEMBERS: "You are stirring up the dust!"] If it was right to make provision for the non-provided schools in the Bill of last summer, why has it ceased to be right to provide it now? If it was necessary for the President of the Board of Education to bring in a Financial Resolution making that provision on the last occasion, why is that provision unnecessary now? We have not been given a single answer to that question.
We did expect that the Minister would have been in a more conciliatory mood. He accepted the Amendment moved by the Liberals, because he said that it would be difficult to find time for fresh legislation to deal with the non-provided schools by the 31st April. I thought that gave some indication that he was inclined to bring in the fresh legislation before September, 1932. Our Amendment asks, not for any agreement, but that power should be given by the Government to the local education authorities to provide some schools for the new children who will come in. If I may say so without offence, if we pass the Bill with our Amendment in it, the position will become more and not less reconcilable, but if we pass the Bill without the Amendment, the President of the Board of Education will become less and not more reconcilable. Those of us who stand for the non-provided schools have not been given any undertaking to-night that either at this stage or on the Report stage anything will be done to meet our position. Had we been given some undertaking, we might not have pressed the Amendment to a Division, but, as things are, those of us who believe in helping the schools which have been the real 2167 pioneers of education in this country to carry on with their good work, have no other course than to go into the Lobby in support of the Amendment.
§ Mr. ERNEST EVANSI must register my protest against the statement of the hon. and gallant Member for Uxbridge (Major Llewellin) when he accused Members of the Liberal party of "stirring up the dust." We have stirred up no dust. It is the members of his own party who are responsible by putting on the Order Paper an Amendment which is not really essential to the consideration of the Bill—[Interruption]—not essential to the principle of raising the school age. And they have put down the Amendment for the very purpose of raising the religious controversy. [Interruption.] Not only does this Amendment raise the religious controversy but it prescribes a remedy—grants to denominational schools. The suggestion that we are responsible for stirring up the dust is
§ wholly unjustifiable and one which the Liberal party resent.
§ Brigadier-General Sir HENRY PAGE CROFTThe Bill raises the question.
§ Mr. EVANSThe Bill does not raise the question at all. It is raised by this Amendment alone. The whole of the discussion has been most lamentable. The Bill is presented to secure something which we are anxious to secure—the raising of the school age, and if the President of the Board of Education is going to he seduced by arguments of this character he is running the risk of imperilling the future of the whole of the Bill.
§ Sir C. TREVELYANrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put"?
§ Question put, "That the Question be now put."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 213; Noes, 140.
2169| Division No. 47.] | AYES | [12.28 a.m. |
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Edge, Sir William | Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth) |
| Adamson, W.M.(Staff., Cannock) | Edmunds, J. E. | Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne) |
| Altchison, Rt. Hon. Cragle M. | Edwards, C. (Monmouth. Bedwellty) | Jones. Morgan (Caerphilly) |
| Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro') | Edwards, E. (Morpeth) | Jones, T.L. Mardy (Pontypridd) |
| Alpass, J. H. | Egan. W.H. | Jowett, Rt. Hon. F.W. |
| Ammon, Charles George | Elmley, Viscount | Jowitt, Sir W. A. (Preston) |
| Arnott, John | Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Unlver.) | Kedward, R. M. (Kent, Ashford) |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Foot, Isaac. | Kelly, W. T. |
| Barr, James | Freeman, Peter | Kennedy, Thomas |
| Batey, Joseph | Gardner, E. W. (West Ham, Upton) | Kirkwood, D. |
| Bellamy, Albert | George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke) | Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George |
| Bennett, William (Battersea, South) | George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesa) | Lathan, G. |
| Benson, G. | Gibbins, Joseph | Law, Albert (Bolton) |
| Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vate) | Gill, T.H. | Law, A. (Rossendale) |
| Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret | Glassey, A. E. | Lawrence, Susan |
| Bowen, J.W. | Gossling, A. G. | Lawson, John James |
| Broad, Francis Alfred | Gould, F. | Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle) |
| Brockway, A. Fenner | Gray, Milner | Leach, W. |
| Brooke, W. | Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Coine) | Lee, Frank (Derby, N.E.) |
| Brothers, M. | Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro' W.) | Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern) |
| Brown, C. W. E. (Notts Mansfield) | Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool) | Lees, J. |
| Brown, Ernest (Leith) | Groves, Thomas E | Lewis, T. (Southampton) |
| Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (South Ayshire) | Grundy, Thomas W. | Lindley, Fred W. |
| Brown, W.J. (Wolverhampton, West) | Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Longbottom, A. W. |
| Buchanan, G. | Hall, Capt. W. G. (Portsmouth. C.) | Longden, F. |
| Burgess, F.G. | Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn | Lovat-Fraser. J. A. |
| Burgin, Dr. E. L. | Hardie, George D. | Lunn, William |
| Cameron, A.G. | Harris, Percy A. | Macdonald, Gordon (Ince) |
| Cater, W. (St. Pancras, S.W. | Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw) |
| Charleton, H.C. | Haycock, A.W. | McElwee, A. |
| Church, Major A. G. | Hayday, Arthur | McEntee, V. L, |
| Clarke, J. S. | Hayes, John Henry | Mac Laren, Andrew |
| Cluse. W. S | Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield) | Maclean, Sir Donald (Cornwall, N.) |
| Cocks, Frederick, Seymour | Herrlotts, J | Malone, C. L'Entrange (N'thampton) |
| Compton, Joseph | Hirst, G. H. (York W.R. Wentworth) | Mander, Geoffrey le M. |
| Cove, William G. | Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Marcus, M. |
| Cowan, D.M. | Hoffman, P. C. | Markham, S. F. |
| Daggar, George | Hoffman, P. C. | Marshall, Fred |
| Dalton, Hugh | Hopkin, Daniel | Mathers, George |
| Davies, E. C. (Montogomery | Horrabin, J.F. | Matters, L. W |
| Denman, Hon. R. D. | Hudson, James H (Huddersfield) | Maxton, James. |
| Dudgeon, Major C. R. | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Middleton. G. |
| Dukes, C. | John, William (Rhondda, West) | Milner, Major J. |
| Duncan, Charles | Johnston, Thomas | Montague. Frederick |
| Ede, James Chuter | Jones, F. Llewellyn-(Flint) | |
| Morley, Ralph | Riley, Ben (Dewsbury) | Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S.W.) |
| Morris, Rhys Hopkins | Romeril, H. G. | Thurtle, Ernest |
| Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South) | Rosbotham, D. S. T. | Tinker, John Joseph |
| Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, | Rowson, Guy | Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles |
| Mort, D. L. | Sanders, W. S. | Vaughan, D.J. |
| Moses, J. J H. | Sawyer, G. F. | Viant, S. P. |
| Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick) | Scott, James | Walker, J. |
| Muff, G. | Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston) | Wallace, H. W. |
| Muggeridge, H. T. | Shepherd, Arthur Lewis | Watkins, F. C. |
| Nathan, Major H. L. | Sherwood, G. H. | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) |
| Naylor, T. E. | Shield, George William | Wellock, Wilfred |
| Noel Baker, P. J. | Shitlaker, J. F. | Welsh, James (Paisley) |
| Oliver, George Harold (Ilkeston) | Simmons, C. J. | Westwood, Joseph |
| Owen, Major G. (Carnarvon) | Sinclair, Sir A. (Caithness) | Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood) |
| Owen, H. F. (Hereford) | Sinkinson, George | Whiteley, William (Blaydon) |
| Palin, John Henry | Sitch, Charles H. | Williams, David (Swansea, East) |
| Paling, Wilfrid | Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe) | Williams Dr. J. H. (Lianelly) |
| Perry. S. F. | Smith, Frank (Nuneaton) | Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) |
| Pethick-Lawrence, F. W. | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) | Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe) |
| Phillips, Dr. Marion | Smith, Tom (Pontefract,) | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Potts, John S. | Smith, W. R. (Norwich) | Winterton, G. E. (Leicester.Loughb'gh) |
| Price, M. P. | Snowden, Rt. Hon. Phlilp | Wise, E. F. |
| Pybus, Percy John | Snowden, Thomas (Accrington) | Wood, Major McKenzie (Banff) |
| Quibell, D. J. K. | Sorensen, R. | Young, R. S. (Islington, North) |
| Ramsey, T. B. Wilson | Stephen. Campbell | |
| Rathbone, Eleanor | Strachey, E. J. St. Loe | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Raynes, W. R. | Strauss, G. R. | Mr. Parkinson and Mr. Thomas Henderson. |
| Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) | Taylor, R. A. (Lincoln) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel | Everard, W. Lindsay | Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings) |
| Ainsworth, Lieut.-Col. Charles | Falle, Sir Bertram G. | Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple) |
| Albery, Irving James | Ferguson, Sir John | Power, Sir John Cecil |
| Allen, Sir J. Sandeman (Liverp'L., W.) | Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E. | Ramsbotham, H. |
| Aske, Sir Robert | Ganzoni, Sir John | Remer, John R. |
| Atholl, Duchess of | Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton | Reynolds, Col. Sir James |
| Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley) | Gilmour, Lt -Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) |
| Balfour, Captain H. H. (L. of Thanet) | Glyn, Major R. G. C. | Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Rennell |
| Beaumont, M. W. | Gower, Sir Robert | Ross, Major Ronald D. |
| Betterton, Sir Henry B. | Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.) | Ruggles-Smite, Lieut.-Colonel E. A. |
| Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman | Greaves- Lord, Sir Walter | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) |
| Bird, Ernest Roy | Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John | Salmon, Major I. |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H. | Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham) |
| Boyce, H. L. | Hanbury, C. | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) |
| Bracken, B. | Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Harbord, A. | Samson, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D. |
| Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'I'd., Hexham) | Harlington, Marquess of | Savery, S. S. |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen. H.C. (Berks, Newb'y) | Heneage, Lieut -Colonel Arthur P | Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam) |
| Butler, R. A. | Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J. | Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dlne, C.) |
| Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward | Herbert, Sir Dennis (Hertford) | Smithers, Waldron |
| Campbell, E. T. | Hore-Belisha, Leslie | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) |
| Carver, Major W. H. | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) | Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East) |
| Castle Stewart, Earl of | Hurd, Percy A. | Southby, Commander A. R. J. |
| Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City) | Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton) | Spender-Clay, Colonel H. |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth,S.) | Knox, Sir Alfred | Stanley, Lord (Fylde) |
| Cazalet, Captain Victor A. | Lamb, Sir J. Q. | Stanley, Maj. Hon. O. (W'morland) |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer | Lane Fox, Cot. Rt. Hon. George R. | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) |
| Clydesdale, Marquess of | Leighton, Major B. E. P. | Thomson, Sir F. |
| Cobb, Sir Cyril | Llewellin, Major J. J. | Train, J. |
| Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George | Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey | Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement. |
| Colman, N. C. D. | Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (Handsw'th) | Turton, Robert Hugh |
| Courtauld, Major J. S. | Long, Major Hon. Erie | Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon |
| Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L. | McConnell, Sir Joseph | Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (L. of W.) | Wardlaw-Milne, J. S. |
| Crichton-Stuart, Lord C. | Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham) | Warrender, Sir Victor |
| Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H. | Makins, Brigadier-General E. | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Crookshank, Capt. H. C. | Marjoribanks, Edward | Wells, Sydney R. |
| Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West) | Meller, R. J | White, H. G. |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Merriman, Sir F. Boyd | Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay) |
| Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Samerset, Yeovil) | Monsell, Eyres, Corn. Rt. Hon. Sir B. | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.) | Moore, Sir Newton J. (Richmond) | Withers, Sir John James |
| Dawson, Sir Philip | Moore, Lieut,-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr) | Weimer. Rt. Hon. Viscount |
| Duckworth. G. A. V. | Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Cirencester) | Womersley, W. J. |
| Dugdale, Capt. T. L. | Muirhead, A. J. | Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton |
| Eden, Captain Anthony | Nicholson, O. (Westminster) | |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | Nicholson, Cal. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Elliot, Major Walter E. | Oliver, P. M. (Man., Blackley) | Sir George Penny and Captain Euan Wallace. |
| Erskine, Lord (Somerset,Weston-s.-M.) | Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William |
§ Question put accordingly, "That those words be there inserted."
2170§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 142; Noes, 198
2173| Division No. 48.] | AYES. | [12.38 a.m. |
| Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel | Everard, W. Lindsay | Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings) |
| Ainsworth, Lieut.-Col. Charles | Falle, Sir Bertram G. | Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple) |
| Albery, Irving James | Ferguson, Sir John | Power, Sir John Cecil |
| Allen, Sir J. Sandeman (Liverp'L., W.) | Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E. | Ramsbotham, H. |
| Aske, Sir Robert | Ganzoni, Sir John | Remer, John R. |
| Atholl, Duchess of | Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton | Reynolds, Col. Sir James |
| Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley) | Gilmour, Lt -Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) |
| Balfour, Captain H. H. (L. of Thanet) | Glyn, Major R. G. C. | Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Rennell |
| Beaumont, M. W. | Gower, Sir Robert | Ross, Major Ronald D. |
| Betterton, Sir Henry B. | Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.) | Ruggles-Smite, Lieut.-Colonel E. A. |
| Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman | Greaves- Lord, Sir Walter | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) |
| Bird, Ernest Roy | Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John | Salmon, Major I. |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H. | Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham) |
| Boyce, H. L. | Hanbury, C. | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) |
| Bracken, B. | Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Harbord, A. | Samson, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D. |
| Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'I'd., Hexham) | Harlington, Marquess of | Savery, S. S. |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen. H.C. (Berks, Newb'y) | Heneage, Lieut -Colonel Arthur P | Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam) |
| Butler, R. A. | Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J. | Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dlne, C.) |
| Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward | Herbert, Sir Dennis (Hertford) | Smithers, Waldron |
| Campbell, E. T. | Hore-Belisha, Leslie | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) |
| Carver, Major W. H. | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) | Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East) |
| Castle Stewart, Earl of | Hurd, Percy A. | Southby, Commander A. R. J. |
| Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City) | Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton) | Spender-Clay, Colonel H. |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth,S.) | Knox, Sir Alfred | Stanley, Lord (Fylde) |
| Cazalet, Captain Victor A. | Lamb, Sir J. Q. | Stanley, Maj. Hon. O. (W'morland) |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer | Lane Fox, Cot. Rt. Hon. George R. | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) |
| Clydesdale, Marquess of | Leighton, Major B. E. P. | Thomson, Sir F. |
| Cobb, Sir Cyril | Liewellin, Major J. J. | Train, J. |
| Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George | Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey | Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement. |
| Colman, N. C. D. | Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (Handsw'th) | Turton, Robert Hugh |
| Courtauld, Major J. S. | Long, Major Hon. Erie | Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon |
| Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L. | McConnell, Sir Joseph | Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (L. of W.) | Wardlaw-Milne, J. S. |
| Crichton-Stuart, Lord C. | Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham) | Warrender, Sir Victor |
| Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H. | Makins, Brigadier-General E. | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Crookshank, Capt. H. C. | Marjoribanks, Edward | Wells, Sydney R. |
| Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West) | Meller, R. J[...] | White, H. G. |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Merriman, Sir F. Boyd | Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay) |
| Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Samerset, Yeovil) | Monsell, Eyres, Corn. Rt. Hon. Sir B. | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.) | Moore, Sir Newton J. (Richmond) | Withers, Sir John James |
| Dawson, Sir Philip | Moore, Lieut,-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr) | Weimer. Rt. Hon. Viscount |
| Duckworth. G. A. V. | Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Cirencester) | Womersley, W. J. |
| Dugdale, Capt. T. L. | Muirhead, A. J. | Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton |
| Eden, Captain Anthony | Nicholson, O. (Westminster) | |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | Nicholson, Cal. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Elliot, Major Walter E. | Oliver, P. M. (Man., Blackley) | Sir George Penny and Captain Euan Wallace. |
| Erskine, Lord (Somerset,Weston-s.-M.) | Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William |
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Cocks, Frederick Seymour | Hall, Capt. W. G. (Portsmouth, C.) |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Compton, Joseph | Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn) |
| Altchison, Rt. Hon. Craigle M. | Cove, William G. | Hardie, George D. |
| Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro') | Cowan, D. M. | Harris, Percy A. |
| Alpass, J. H. | Daggar, George | Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon |
| Ammon, Charles George | Dalton, Hugh | Hayday, Arthur |
| Arnott, John | Davies, E. C. (Montgomery) | Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield) |
| Aske, Sir Robert | Denman, Hon. R. D. | Herriotts, J. |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Duncan, Charles | Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth) |
| Barr, James | Ede, James Chuter | Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) |
| Batey, Joseph | Edge, Sir William | Hoffman. P. C. |
| Bellamy, Albert | Edmunds, J. E. | Hopkin, Daniel |
| Bennett. William (Battersea, South) | Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty) | Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield) |
| Benson, G. | Edwards, E. (Morpeth) | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) |
| Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale) | Elmley, Viscount | John, William (Rhondda, West) |
| Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret | Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.) | Johnston, Thomas |
| Bowen, J. W. | Foot, Isaac, | Jones, F. Llewellyn. (Flint) |
| Broad, Francis Alfred | Freeman, Peter | Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth) |
| Brooke, W. | Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton) | Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne) |
| Brothers, M. | George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke) | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) |
| Brown, C. W. E. (Notts, Mansfield) | George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesea) | Jowitt, Sir W. A. (Preston) |
| Brown. Ernest (Leith) | Glassey, A. E. | Kedward, R. M. (Kent, Ashford) |
| Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (South Ayrshire) | Gossling, A. G. | Kelly, W. T. |
| Brown, W. J. (Wolverhampton, West) | Gould. F. | Kennedy, Thomas |
| Burgess, F. G. | Gray, Milner | Kirkwood, D. |
| Burgin, Dr. E. L. | Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Coine) | Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George |
| Cameron, A. G. | Grenfell, D.R.(Glamorgan) | Lathan, G. |
| Carter. W. (St. Pancras, S.W.) | Giffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro'W.) | Law, Albert (Bolton) |
| Charleton, H C. | Giffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool) | Law, A. (Rossendale) |
| Church, Major A. G. | Groves, Thomas E | Lawrence, Susan |
| Clarke, J. S. | Grundy, Thomas W. | Lawson, John James |
| Cluse, W. S. | Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvill) | Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle) |
| Leach, W. | Naylor, T. E. | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) |
| Lee, Frank (Derby, N.E.) | Noel Baker, P. J. | Smith, Tom (Pontefract) |
| Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern) | Oliver, George Harold (likeston) | Smith, W. R. (Norwich) |
| Lees, J. | Owen, Major G. (Carnarvon) | Snowden, Thomas (Accrington) |
| Lewis, T. (Southampton) | Owen, H. F. (Hereford) | Sorensen, R. |
| Lindley, Fred W. | Palin, John Henry. | Strachey, E. J. St. Loe |
| Longbottom, A. W. | Paling, Wilfrid | Strauss, G. R. |
| Lovat-Fraser. J. A. | Perry, S. F. | Taylor, R. A. (Lincoln) |
| Lunn, William | Pethick-Lawrence, F. W. | Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S.W.) |
| Macdonald, Gordon (Ince) | Phillips, Dr. Marlon | Thurtle, Ernest |
| MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw) | Potts, John S. | Tinker, John Joseph |
| McElwee, A. | Pybus, Percy John | Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles |
| McEntee, V. L, | Qulbell, D. J. K. | Vaughan, D. J. |
| MacLaren, Andrew | Ramsay, T. B. Wilson | Viant, S. P. |
| Maclean, Sir Donald (Cornwall, N.) | Rathbone, Eleanor | Walker, J. |
| Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton) | Raynes, W. R. | Wallace, H. W. |
| Mander, Geoffrey le M. | Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) | Watkins, F. C. |
| Marcus, M. | Riley, Ben (Dewsbury) | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) |
| Markham, S. F. | Romeril, H. G. | Wellock, Wilfred |
| Marshall, Fred | Rosbotham, D. S. T. | Welsh, James (Paisley) |
| Mathers, George | Rowson, Guy | Westwood, Joseph |
| Matters, L. W. | Sanders, W. S | Whiteley, Wilfrid (Birm., Ladywood) |
| Maxton, James | Sawyer, G. F. | Whiteley, William (Blaydon) |
| Middleton, G. | Scott, James | Williams, David (Swansea, East) |
| Milner, Major J. | Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston) | Williams, Dr. J. H. (Lianelly) |
| Montague, Frederick | Shepherd, Arthur Lewis | Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) |
| Morley, Ralph | Sherwood, G. H. | Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercilffe) |
| Morris, Rhys Hopkins | Shield, George William | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South) | Shillaker, J. F. | Winterton, G. E.(Leicester, Loughb'gh) |
| Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.) | Simmons, C. J. | Wise, E. F. |
| Mort, D. L. | Sinclair, Sir A. (Caithness) | Wood, Major McKenzie (Banff) |
| Moses, J. J. H. | Sinkinson George | Young, R. S. (Islington, North) |
| Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick) | Sitch, Charles H. | |
| Muff, G. | Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Muggeridge, H. T. | Smith, Frank (Nuneaton) | Mr. Parkinson and Mr. Thomas Henderson. |
§ Mr. STANLEY BALDWINI beg to move, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."
I do so that I may put one or two questions to the Minister. We have had a long and very interesting Debate, conducted, I think, on the whole, with good temper; and we have made a certain amount of progress. It is now getting late, and I want to know the intention of the Government. We have three Cabinet Ministers, and the House is left to discuss a Bill at this time the urgency for which has disappeared with the postponement of the date. After all, I have had a good deal of experience of the House of Commons, and it has never seemed to me that the unnecessary forcing of the pace really helps, in the long run, the progress of a Bill. We have to-night had perfectly good temper, and progress has been made. I do hope that, having regard to the progress made and the hour it is now—and considering the pressure put on the House with the Committee sitting overtime upstairs—the Minister of Education will see his way to tell us that it is not proposed to keep the House sitting up to any later hour than we have already reached.
§ Sir C. TREVELYANI do not deny that a certain amount of progress has been made. That progress has, as a 2174 matter of fact, covered practically all the important points in the Bill. The remaining subjects which stand to be discussed look, I agree, numerous on the Order Paper, but the actual variety of them is not very great, and the importance of them is not very great. There is pressure for this Bill to be passed. It is quite true that part of the excessive urgency to which the right hon. Member for Bewdley (Mr. S. Baldwin) has alluded has disappeared with the change of date, but there remains an urgency of which the House is perfectly well aware. The local authorities have the right to know whether or not this Parliament is going to put the Bill into force. They have a right to know that, in order to make their plans and preparations, and the Bill ought to be passed this year. Therefore, it is essential that it should be pressed on. I very much hope that, as the House has sat up to this hour, it will be content to sit somewhat later and get on a great deal further.
§ Lord E. PERCYThe President of the Board of Education led off his reply by saying that the subsequent Amendments were unimportant. [Interruption.] I hope the President of the Board of Education observes among his followers the Hampstead Heath atmosphere. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw!"] Does the 2175 President of the Board of Education really think his followers are in a fit condition to discuss any question? These unimportant questions which his followers are setting themselves to discuss so seriously and with such a sense of responsibility include the whole question of the supply of teachers, and I would remind the President of the Board of Education that several times in the course of the past two days hon. Members on this side of the House have been stopped by the Chair and told that there would be a fuller opportunity to discuss the question of the supply of teachers on a later Amendment. The same applies to various other questions.
§ The CHAIRMANHow is this relevant?
§ Lord E. PERCYWell, perhaps I may recall your attention to the fact—
§ Mr. KIRKWOODDo not let him bully you, whatever you do.
§ Lord E. PERCYPerhaps I may recall your attention to the fact that the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross (Duchess of Atholl) on 20th November was arguing as follows:
The President has been exerting himself, with all the authority of his high office and with all the enthusiasm which we know he brings to this subject, to get the training colleges to train as many additional teachers as possible, but so far he has only succeeded in getting some 1,800 additional students into the training colleges,Then the Deputy-Chairman intervened and said:The Noble Lady must not continue on that line. The general question of the advisability or otherwise of raising the school age will doubtless be discussed on specific Amendments later, and the Chair is placed in a position of great difficulty if, on every Amendment, we are to have a repetition of the same arguments"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th November, 1930; col. 727, Vol. 245.]Again, I may refer you to the fact that you yourself intervened on 24th November, when one of my hon. Friends was speaking. He said:Except in a few isolated cases it has not been done up to the present; and there is no immediate prospect, as far as I can see, of it being done.That was with reference to agricultural reorganisation, and the hon. Member proceeded: 2176There were not enough teachers—The Chairman: The hon. Member is getting far away from the Amendment, which is to allow children under 15 years of age to work on the land."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th November, 1930; col. 1027, Vol. 245.]So again we were pulled up.
§ The CHAIRMANWill the Noble Lord tell me? Is that my Ruling?
§ Lord E. PERCYThat was on 24th November. [Interruption.] If hon. Members will allow me, I am replying to the Chair. It was when we were in Committee on this Bill. Do not think I am attempting to establish a claim on the Chair in any improper way. I am trying to point out to the President of the Board of Education that there are, on these immediately succeeding questions, many points of great substance. Then we come to a whole series of points which have not been discussed at all. There is the question of the exemption of individual children, which we on this side regard as one of the greatest blots on the Bill. Then we come to a variety of drafting Amendments on the Schedule, and we all know from our previous discussions how very faulty is the drafting of this Bill, and what careful scrutiny it requires. I have left out many other points, especially that of part-time education courses. When I fast came into this House, I heard hon. Members opposite, from the Prime Minister downwards, constantly denouncing—
§ Mr. MAXTONSay from the Prime Minister upwards.
§ 1.0 a.m.
§ Lord E. PERCYFrom the Prime Minister upwards, until you reach the exalted heights in which the company from Clydeside sit—I heard then denouncing the absurd unbusiness-likeness of sitting at these hours of the night to discuss important subjects. No one has claimed that this Debate has been characterised by time wasted by the Opposition. A great deal of the time of the Committee to-day has been taken up by speeches from hon. Members opposite and from hon. Members below the Gangway. A complaint was made to me informally that we have taken a long time on the discussion that Clause I stand part. I think we took one hour and ten minutes, and about twenty minutes of that time was consumed by the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Hore- 2177 Belisha) for whom I really cannot be expected to be responsible. What is the real fact about the President's reply? It is, that the Labour party have long ago abandoned their opposition in principle to discussing important questions in the middle of the night and have adopted another principle, that it is important that this House should sit up from one o'clock to five o'clock in order that hon. Members might have some place to sleep in or otherwise to disport themselves in. Some hon. Members propose to use this Chamber as a night club and some as [Interruption]—
§ Mr. COCKSOn a point of Order. Is the Noble Lord in order to describe the House of Commons as a night club?
§ The CHAIRMANI think it is a remark I cannot rule out.
§ Lord E. PERCYSome hon. Members like to use this Chamber in one way and some in another [Interruption]—
§ The CHAIRMANIt is utterly impossible for me to hear what the Noble Lord is saying.
§ Lord E. PERCYrose—
§ Mr. LOGANOn a point of Order. Will the Noble Lord explain what he means by the use of the Chamber?
§ The CHAIRMANThe Question before us is that I report Progress and ask leave to sit again, and I trust the right hon. Gentleman will be permitted to proceed.
§ Lord E. PERCYNo one who has listened to the Debate up to now would believe for a moment that members of the Labour party are prepared to sit here for four hours to discuss business.
§ The CHAIRMANThe Noble Lord must give reasons for reporting Progress.
§ Mr. WESTWOODOn a point of Order. Is it in order for the Noble Lord to suggest that members of any party do not wish to sit here to carry out business?
§ The CHAIRMANIt is a statement I cannot prevent.
§ Lord E. PERCYI think, with all due submission to you, Mr. Young, that the strongest reason for reporting pro- 2178 gress is that hon. Members of this House are not at the present moment in a state to discuss. [Interruption.] I have heard hon. Members opposite use that argument in a moving to report Progress. May I point out, Mr. Young, that we are asked to sit up as late as this, after a discussion, the length of which has been largely due to the fact that the Government have changed their minds radically about the Bill. It is a fact that the Government have changed the Bill after they introduced it into the House.
§ Mr. McGOVERNOn a point of Order. Is it in order to suggest that our Government is Radical?
§ Lord E. PERCYThe only principle upon which business of this House can be conducted is that after the House has had a business-like discussion, say up to midnight, it should adjourn. The idea that the House or the Committee should get through allotted sections of a Bill, no matter what is the character of the discussion, is absurd, and this Committee should oppose any suggestion of the kind. The final reason for reporting Progress is that a proposition put before us on a Bill like this, on which the Government have changed their mind, should be put before the House of Commons by the Leader of the House. [Interruption.] We have at the present moment only two members of the Cabinet on the Front Bench.
§ Lord E. PERCYI should like some members of the Cabinet to show some interest in the question of education.
§ The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Lansbury)There are three.
§ Lord E. PERCYI beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. It is only his coyness he has to thank for the fact that I did not see him. The extraordinary sparseness of the Government Front Bench and the fact that immediately after—[Interruption]
§ The CHAIRMANThe Noble Lord will save the interruption if he addresses me.
§ Lord E. PERCYIt is customary, Mr. Young, for a Member of the House while 2179 speaking to turn towards those behind him, but in order to save—[Interruption]
§ The CHAIRMANI hope hon. Members will allow the right hon. Gentleman to continue.
§ Lord E. PERCYImmediately after the complete change of policy on the part of the Government we are asked to stay here all night because of that change of policy, and neither the head nor any really responsible Member of the Government is present. [Interruption.] My final argument is—
§ The CHAIRMANThe hon. Member who calls "Order" is out of order himself.
§ Lord E. PERCYMy final argument in support of the Motion to report progress is supplied by behaviour of hon. Members opposite.
§ Mr. BRACKENWhen the President of the Board of Education asked the House to hurry up the discussion of this Bill he apparently forgot the language he used when resisting the last Amendment. He then said that certain negotiations were going on outside which prohibited him from informing the managers of non-provided schools of such decisions as he must arrive at. Now we are asked to deal with an entirely contradictory argument.
§ The CHAIRMANThe discussion of non-provided schools has nothing to do with the question before the Committee.
§ Mr. BRACKENYes, but, whatever red herring was dragged across the trail, was entirely due to the argument of the President of the Board of Education on the previous Amendment. It is impossible to support the President of the Board of Education in asking us to burke discussion of this Bill. On the previous Amendment we were told that no discussion should take place on the floor of the House until certain parties outside had come to an agreement. If justice is to be done to the municipalities, justice should also be done—
§ The CHAIRMANThe hon. Member must confine himself to reasons for reporting Progress.
§ Mr. BRACKENI maintain that it is improper for the Government to come to the House and on one Amendment take one argument and on another another argument. I hope, therefore, that hon. Members on this side will do all in their power to continue this discussion until justice is done.
§ Mr. SMITHERSI do not agree with the remark of the President of the Board of Education when he was speaking on this Motion that all the important points of this Bill have been discussed, and that nothing much of any importance remains. I have been informed by courtesy of the Chairman that an Amendment which stands in my name is to be called, and I would like to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that his statement that there are no more important points to be discussed is not correct. The point that I have to raise has not, I believe, been discussed before in these debates. I have not taken part in these debates before, and I should not have stopped to-night had not I sincerely believed that a point of great importance was raised by my Amendment. One further point. I think we should stop this discussion because of the behaviour of the party opposite, which is a disgrace to the House of Commons. If only there could be some mechanical television device by which the whole country could see their faces to-night there would be no doubt whatever that they would be out of office for ever.
§ Sir C. TREVELYANrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but the CHAIRMAN withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
§ Mr. CHURCHILLI heard the chief Whip shouting to terminate this discussion, but I should like for a very few moments to draw the attention of the Committee to the somewhat awkward and serious character of the issue which has now been raised, which perhaps has been less raised than broken upon us. My right hon Friend the Leader of the Opposition has asked leave to move that we report Progress and ask leave to sit again, and he has appealed to the responsible Minister in charge of our 2181 debate that he should accede to that request made in full formality. That is a matter of considerable consequence and should not be dismissed in idle levity or in rollicking and boisterous good humour or ill-humour. I do not think that the Leader of the Opposition has, in the course of the present Session at any rate, made such a Motion before. I think in all the circumstances, a minority Government in office, and the instabilities of the political situation being what they are, that a request of that kind seriously made ought not to be brushed aside or sullenly dismissed. I do not know whether it is the intention of hon. Gentlemen gathered upon the opposite benches to treat those who sit in this part of the House in a rough and bullying manner, but I am bound to say that during the time I have been sitting here I have hardly heard a single speech from this side that was not violently interrupted. It is in the interests of Parliamentary tradition that arbitrary action should be resisted by every measure at the command of an Opposition.
It is not my intention, however, to raise the temperature of the debate. On the contrary, it seems to me that the Government would be unwise not to consider the fact that the Leader of the Opposition has himself moved to report Progress and wise to give that respect to a party, which numbers almost as many members in this House as their own, and to their wishes in the conduct of the debate, which is customary. As has been referred to by my hon. Friend, the Government bench is ill-garnished with persons of responsibility. In the broad courtesies and decorum of the House of Commons a Motion to report Progress made by the Leader of the Opposition ought to be answered either by the Prime Minister or by a deputy-Leader of the House. Not one of those high officers is here. I hope the Minister of Education and the Chief Whip will not press this matter now. I do not believe it will facilitate their business. It is quite true we may have a very uncomfortable night. We may go on trapesing through the Lobbies and cheering our passage through them with laughter and with song, but it will not be a help to the administration at the present time nor to the progress of their business. There has not been much 2182 ill-feeling or ill-temper during the present Session.
§ Mr. CHURCHILLI am all the more an impartial judge. Not only do I appeal to the Government, but I request them not to ignore the serious consequences of neglecting the Motion which has been made. After all, we are not without resources, and, if ill-treatment is meted out, I for my part would gladly join with those who would carry their resistance to it to all lengths.
§ Mr. MAXTONI am very interested in this discussion, and I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman opposite that the speech of the Leader of the Opposition moving to report Progress had been prepared in advance of the situation on the assumption that the Amendment of his supporters was going to be carried and that he was going to adopt the usual attitude when a Government defeat has taken place. He was disappointed in that, but he proceeded with his speech. The very bad temper of the Noble Lord, his very offensive remarks and the bad taste displayed by him, I excuse from the bottom of my heart on the ground that he was disagreeably surprised that his Party's vote was not so good as he anticipated. Apart from these little things, the Opposition leaders are doing the recognised thing, going through the Motions the official Opposition is expected to go through on these occasions. There is, however, a serious case to be put by the supporters of the Government for a release—
§ Mr. MAXTONThose who gave them the majority over the Amendment which was proposed by the party opposite. There is a serious case which we can put up for the House going home now. I put up this plea. To-morrow is a private Members' day. I have noticed it was quite frequently the case, when right hon. Gentlemen opposite were in office, that they chose these late sittings and the suspension of the Eleven o'clock Rule on days when the next day was going to be a private Members' day. It is not true, as has been suggested, that a late sitting in this House is an ineffective sitting. 2183 The late Government carried an Unemployment Insurance Bill with the guillotine by repeated late sittings. It was a rotten Bill, but it did get through. It is not that the business at a late sitting is badly done, but that the next day's sitting is farcical. I am therefore putting up this plea for private Members. Their opportunities are not great or frequent. To-morrow we are going to discuss the woollen industry and accidents in mines, subjects which to my mind are of much greater importance to the working-classes of this country than this Bill in its now emaciated form.
I also learn from the newspapers that we are going to have an extended Christmas Recess. Many right hon. Gentlemen opposite are more in the confidence of the Government than I am, but that is the report, that we are going to have an extended Christmas Recess. I cannot see the urgency—[Interruption,] One of my hon. Friends behind
| Division No. 49.] | AYES | [1.29 a.m. |
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Edge, Sir William | Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne) |
| Adamson. W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Edmunds, J. E. | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) |
| Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro') | Egan, W. H. | Jewett, Rt. Hon. F. W. |
| Alpass, J. H. | Elmley, Viscount | Jowitt, Sir W. A. (Preston) |
| Ammon, Charles George | Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer-) | Kedward, R. M. (Kent, Ashford) |
| Arnott, John | Foot, Isaac | Kelly, W. T. |
| Aske, Sir Robert | Freeman, Peter | Kennedy, Thomas |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Gardner, B. W. (West Ham. Upton) | Kirkwood, D. |
| Barr, James | George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke) | Lang, Gordon |
| Batey, Joseph | George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesea) | Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George |
| Bellamy, Albert | Gibbins, Joseph | Lathan, G. |
| Bennett, William (Battersea, South) | Gibson, H. M. (Lancs. Mossley) | Law, Albert (Bolton) |
| Benson, G. | Gill, T. H. | Law, A. (Rossefifiaie) |
| Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale) | Glassey, A. E. | Lawrence, Susan |
| Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret | Gossling, A. G. | Lawson, John James |
| Bowen, J. W. | Gould, F. | Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle) |
| Broad, Francis Alfred | Gray, Milner | Leach, W. |
| Brockway, A. Fenner | Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Colne) | Lee, Frank (Derby, N.E.) |
| Brooke, W. | Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern) |
| Brothers, M. | Griffith. F. Kingsley (Middlesbro' W.) | Lees, J. |
| Brown, C. W. E. (Notts, Mansfield) | Groves, Thomas E | Lewis, T. (Southampton) |
| Brown, Ernest (Leith) | Grundy, Thomas W. | Lindley, Fred W. Lloyd, C. Ellis |
| Brown. Rt. Hon. J. (South Ayrshire) | Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Logan, David Gilbert |
| Brown, W. J. (Wolverhampton, West) | Hall, Capt. W. G. (Portsmouth, C) | Longbottom, A. W. |
| Burgess, F. G. | Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn) | Longden, F. |
| Burgin, Dr. E. L. | Harbord, A. | Lovat-Fraser, J. A. |
| Calne, Derwent Hall. | Hardie, George D. | Lunn. William |
| Cameron, A. G. | Harris, Percy A. | Macdonald, Gordon (Ince) |
| Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S.W.) | Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw) |
| Charleton, H. C. | Haycock, A. W. | McElwee, A. |
| Church, Major A. G. | Hayday, Arthur | McEntee, V. L. |
| Clarke. J. S. | Hayes, John Henry | Maclean, Sir Donald (Cornwall, N.) |
| Cluse, W. S. | Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow) | McShane. John James |
| Cocks, Frederick Seymour | Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield) | Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton) |
| Compton, Joseph | Herriotts, J. | Marcus, M. |
| Cove, William G. | Hirst, G. H. (York, W.R.,Wentworth) | Marley, J. |
| Cowan, D. M. | Hoffman. P. C. | Marshall, Fred |
| Daggar, George | Hopkin, Daniel | Mathers, George |
| Dalton, Hugh | Hore-Belisha, Leslie | Matters, L. W. |
| Davies, E. C. (Montgomery) | Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield) | Matters, L. W. |
| Denman, Hon. R. D. | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Mliner, Major J. |
| Dudgeon. Major C. R. | John, William (Rhondda, West) | Montague, Frederick |
| Duncan, Charles | John, William (Rhondda, West) | Morgan, Dr. H. B. |
| Dukes, C. | Johnston, Thomas | Morley, Raiph |
| Duncan, Charles | Jones, F. Llewellyn-(Flint) | Morris, Rhys Hopkins |
| Ede, James Chuter | Jones,Henry Haydn (Merloneth) |
§ me realises that I am not putting the case quite so succinctly as he would have done and is encouraging me to do it more quickly. I shall endeavour to do so. With the possibilities of an extended Christmas Recess, with the progress my right hon. Friend has made, there is absolutely no reason why this House should be kept at this unnatural time to do work which can be done perfectly well in the months that lie in front of us, and I urge the right hon. Gentleman, not because the Members opposite have raised this question, but out of consideration for the back benchers on this side of the House and for private Members generally, to accept the Motion.
§ Sir C. TREVELYANrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
Question put, "That the Question be now put"
The Committee divided: Ayes, 211; Noes, 99
| Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South) | Rosbotham, D. S. T. | Tinker, John Joseph |
| Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.) | Rowson, Guy | Toole, Joseph |
| Mort, D. L. | Sanders, W. S. | Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles |
| Moses, J. J. H. | Sawyer, G. F. | Vaughan, D. J. |
| Mosley, Lady C. (Stoke-on-Trent) | Scott, James | Viant, S. P. |
| Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick) | Scurr, John | Wallace, H. W. |
| Muff, G. | Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston) | Watkins, F. C. |
| Nathan, Major H.L. | Shepherd. Arthur Lewis | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermllne) |
| Noel Baker, P. J. | Sherwood, G. H. | Wellock, Wilfred |
| Oldfield, J. R. | Shield, George William | Westwood, Joseph |
| Oliver, George Harold (Likeston) | Shillaker, J. F. | White H. G. |
| Oliver, P. M. (Man., Blackley) | Simmons, C. J. | Whiteley, Wilfried (Birm., Ladywood |
| Owen, Major G. (Carnarvon) | Sinclair, Sir. A. (Calthness) | Williams, David (Swansea, East) |
| Palin, John Henry | Sitch, Charles H. | Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly) |
| Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan) | Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe) | Williams, T. (York, Don Valley |
| Perry, S. F. | Smith, Frank (Nuneaton) | Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe) |
| Phillips, Dr. Marion | Smith, Rennle (Penistone) | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Potts, John S. | Smith, Tom (Pontefract) | Winterton, G. e. (Lelcester, Loughb'gh) |
| Price, M. P. | Smith, W. R. (Norwich) | Wise, E. F. |
| Pybus. Percy John | Snowden, Thomas (Accrington) | Wood, Major Mckenzie (Banff) |
| Aulbell, D. J. K. | Sorensen, R. | Young, R. S.(lslington, North) |
| Ramsay, T. B. Wilson | Strachey, E. J. St. Loe | |
| Raynes, W. R. | Strauss, G. R. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) | Taylor, R. A. (Lincoln) | Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr. Paling. |
| Rlley, Ben (Dewsbury) | Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S.W.) | |
| Romeril, H. G. | Thurtle, Ernest |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel | Elliot, Major Walter E. | Remer, John R. |
| Ainsworth, Lieut.-Col. Charles | Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s-M.) | Reynolds, Col. Sir James |
| Albery, Irving James | Everard, W. Lindsay | Richardson, Sir P. w. (Sur'y, Ch't'sy, |
| Atholl, Duchess of | Ferguson, Sir John | Rodd, Rt. Hon, Sir James Rennell |
| Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley (Bewdley) | Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E. | Ross, Major Ronald D. |
| Balfour, Captain H, H.(I. of Thanet) | Ganzoni, Sir John | Salmon, Major l. |
| Beaumont, M, W. | Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John | Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham) |
| Betterton, Sir Henry B. | Glyn, Major R. G C. | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) |
| Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman | Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.) | Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart |
| Bird, Ernest Roy | Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter | Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Phillip A. G. D. |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H. | Savery, S. S. |
| Boyce, H. L. | Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | Smith, Louls W. (Sheffield, Hallam) |
| Bracken, B. | Hartington, Marquess of | Smithers, Waldron |
| Briscoe, Richard George | Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J. | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) |
| Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'I'd., Hexham) | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) | Southby, Commander A. R. J. |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen.H.C.(Berks, Newb'y) | Knox, Sir Alfred | Spender-Clay, Colonel H. |
| Buller, R. A. | Lamb, Sir J. O. | Stanley, Lord (Fylde) |
| Cadogan. Major Hon. Edward | Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R. | Stanley, Maj. Hon. O. (W'morland) |
| Campbell, E. T. | Leighton, Major B. E. P. | Thomson, Sir F. |
| Castle Stewart, Earl of | Llewellin, Major J. J. | Train, J. |
| Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City) | Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey | Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement. |
| Cazalet, Captain Victor A. | Long, Major Hon. Eric | Turton, Robert Hugh |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer | McConnell, Sir Joseph | Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir a. Lambert |
| Clydesdale, Marquess of | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Colville, Major D. J. | Makins, Brigadier-General E. | Wells, Sydney R. |
| Courtauld, Major J. 8. | Marjoribanks, Edward | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Crookshank, Capt. H. C. | Merriman, Sir F. Boyd | Withers, sir John James |
| Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West) | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B. | Womersley, W. J. |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Moore, Sir Newton J. (Richmond) | Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton |
| Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil) | Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Cirencester) | |
| Dawson, Sir Philip | Muirhead, A. J. | |
| Duckworth, G. A. V. | Nicholson, Col, Rt. Hn. W. G.(Ptraf'id) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Dugdale, Capt. T. L. | Ormsby-Gore. Rt. Hon. William | Sir George Penny and Captain |
| Eden, Captain Anthony | Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings) | Wallace. |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | Ramsbotham, H. |
§ Question put accordingly, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again,"
2186§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 99; Noes, 208.
| Eden, Captain Anthony | Long, Major Hon. Eric | Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D. |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | McConnell, Sir Joseph | Savery, S. S. |
| Elliot, Major Walter E. | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (1. of W.) | Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Halfam) |
| Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.M.) | Makins, Brigadier-General E. | Smithers, Waldron |
| Everard, W. Lindsay | Marjoribanks, Edward | Somerville, A. A. (Windsor) |
| Ferguson, Sir John | Merriman, Sir F. Boyd | Southby, Commander A. R. J. |
| Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E. | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. Sir B. | Spender-Clay, Colonel H. |
| Ganzoni, Sir John | Moore, Sir Newton J. (Richmond) | Stanley, Lord (Fylde) |
| Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John | Morrison, W. S. (Glos., Cirencester) | Stanley, Maj. Hon. O (W'morland) |
| Glyn, Major R. G. C. | Muirhead, A. J. | Thomson, Sir F. |
| Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.) | Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G.(Ptrisf'ld) | Train, J. |
| Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter | Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William | Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement |
| Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H. | Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings) | Turton, Robert Hugh |
| Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry | Ramsbotham, H. | Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Lambert |
| Hartington, Marquess of | Remer, John R. | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J. | Reynolds. Col. Sir James | Wells. Sydney R. |
| Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Knox, Sir Alfred | Rodd, Rt. Hon. Sir James Rennell | Withers, Sir John James |
| Lamb, Sir J. Q. | Ross, Major Ronald D. | Womersley, W. J. |
| Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R. | Salmon, Major I. | Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton |
| Leighton, Major B. E. P. | Samuel, A, M. (Surrey, Farnham) | |
| Liewellin, Major.J. J. | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey | Sandeman, Sir N. Stewart | Sir George Penny and Captain Wallace. |
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Gray, Milner | MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw) |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Colne) | McElwee, A. |
| Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (Hillsbro') | Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | McEntee, V. L. |
| Alpass, J. H. | Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro' W.) | Maclean, Sir Donald (Cornwall, N.) |
| Ammon, Charles George | Groves, Thomas E. | McShane, John James |
| Arnott, John | Grundy, Thomas W. | Malone, C. L'Estrange (N'thampton) |
| Aske, Sir Robert | Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Marcus, M. |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Hall, Capt. W. G. (Portsmouth, C.) | Marley, J. |
| Barr, James | Hamilton, Mary Agnes (Blackburn) | Marshall, Fred |
| Batey, Joseph | Harbord, A. | Mothers, George |
| Bellamy, Albert | Hardie, George D | Matters, L. W. |
| Bennett, William (Battersea, South) | Harris, Percy A. | Milner, Major J. |
| Benson, G. | Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | Montague, Frederick |
| Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale) | Haycock, A. W. | Morgan, Dr. H. B. |
| Bondfield, Rt. Hon. Margaret | Hayday, Arthur | Marley, Ralph |
| Bowen, J. W. | Hayes, John Henry | Morris, Rhys Hopkins |
| Broad, Francis Alfred | Henderson, Thomas (Glasgow) | Morrison Herbert (Hackney, South) |
| Brooke, W. | Henderson, W. W. (Middx., Enfield) | Morrison, Robert C. (Tottenham, N.) |
| Brothers, M. | Herriotts, J. | Mort, D. L. |
| Brown, C. W. E. (Notts, Mansfield) | Hirst, G. H. (York W. R. Wentworth) | Moses,.J. J. H. |
| Brown. Ernest (Leith) | Hoffman. P. C. | Mosley, Lady C. (Stoke-on-Trent) |
| Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (South Ayrshire) | Hopkin, Daniel | Mosley, Sir Oswald (Smethwick) |
| Burgess, F. G. | Hore-Belisha, Leslie | Muff, G. |
| Burgin, Dr. E. L. | Hudson, James H. (Huddersfield) | Nathan, Major H. L. |
| Caine, Derwent Hall- | Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath) | Noel Baker, P. J. |
| Cameron, A. G. | John, William (Rhondda, West) | Oldfield. J. R. |
| Carter, W. (St. Pancras, S.W.) | Johnston, Thomas | Oliver, George Harold (likeston) |
| Charleton, H. C. | Jones, F. Llewellyn- (Flint) | Oliver, P. M. (Man., Blackley) |
| Church, Major A. G. | Jones, Henry Hayda (Merioneth) | Owen, Major G. (Carnaryon) |
| Clarke, J. S. | Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne) | Owen, H. F. (Hereford) |
| Cluse, W. S. | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Palin, John Henry |
| Cocks, Frederick Seymour | Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W. | Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan) |
| Compton, Joseph | Jowitt, Sir W. A. (Preston) | Perry, S. F. |
| Cove, William G. | Kedward, R. M. (Kent, Ashford) | Phillips, Dr. Marlon |
| Cowan, D. M. | Kelly, W. T. | Potts, John S. |
| Daggar, George | Kennedy, Thomas | Price, M. P. |
| Dalton, Hugh | Kirkwood, D. | Pybus, Percy John |
| Denman, Hon. R. O. | Lang, Gordon | Quibell, D. J. K. |
| Dudgeon, Major C. R. | Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George | Ramsay, T. B. Wilson |
| Dukes, C. | Lathan, G. | Rathbone, Eleanor |
| Duncan, Charles | Law, Albert (Bolton) | Haynes, W. R. |
| Ede, James Chuter | Law, A. (Rossendale) | Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) |
| Edge, Sir William | Lawrence, Susan | Riley, Ben (Dewsbury) |
| Edmunds, J. E. | Lawson, John James | Romeril, H. G. |
| Egan, W. H. | Lawther, W. (Barnard Castle) | Rosbotham, D. S. T. |
| Elmley, Viscount | Leach, W. | Rowson, Guy |
| Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.) | Lee, Frank (Derby, N.E.) | Sanders, W. S. |
| Foot, Isaac, | Lee, Jennie (Lanark, Northern) | Sawyer, G. F. |
| Freeman, Peter | Lees, J. | Scott, James |
| Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton) | Lewis, T. (Southampton) | Scurr, John |
| George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke) | Lindley, Fred W. | Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston) |
| George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesea) | Lloyd, C. Ellis | Shepherd, Arthur Lewis |
| Gibbins, Joseph | Logan, David Gilbert | Sherwood, G. H. |
| Gibson, H. M. (Lancs, Mossley) | Longbottom, A. W. | Shield, George William |
| Gill, T. H. | Longden, F | Shillaker, J. F. |
| Glassey, A. E. | Lovat-Fraser, J. A. | Simmons, C. J. |
| Gossling, A. G. | Lunn, William | Sinclair, Sir A. (Calthness) |
| Gould, F. | Macdonald, Gordon (Ince) | Sinkinson, George |
| Sitch, Charles H. | Tinker, John Joseph | Williams, David (Swansea, East) |
| Smith, Ben (NBermondsey, Rotherhitho) | Toole, Joseph | Williams, Dr. J. H. (Lianelly) |
| Smith, Frank (Nuneaton) | Trevelyan, R. Hon. Sir Charles | Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) |
| Smith, Rennie (Penistone) | Vaughan, D. J. | Wilson, C. h. (Sheffield, Attercliffe) |
| Smith, Tom (Pontefract) | Viant, S. P. | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Smith, W. R. (Norwich) | Wallace, H. W. | Winterton, G.E.(Leicester, Loughb'gh) |
| Snowden, Thomas (Accrington) | Watkins, F. C. | Wood, Major McKenzle(Banff) |
| Sorenson, R. | Walson, W. M. (Dunfermline). | Young, R. S. (Islington, North) |
| Strachey, E. J. St. Loe | Wellock, Wilfred | |
| Strauss, G. R. | Westwood, Joseph | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Taylor, R. A. (Lincoln) | White, H. G. | Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr. Paling |
| Taylor, W. B. (Norfolk, S.W.) | Whiteley, Wilfris (Birm., Ladywood) | |
| Thurtle, Ernest | Whiteley, William (Blaydon |
§ Sir D. MACLEANBefore the House proceeds any further I want, if I may, to make a suggestion. Of course, I must move to report Progress in order to put myself in order. I have noticed that, notwithstanding the boisterousness and the vigour with which the debate has been conducted, there has been an underlying feeling of good humour. I venture to make a suggestion to the Government that they might be content with one more Amendment on this Clause, and I would suggest to the Opposition that, as no doubt they attach importance to some of the other Amendments, some agreement might be come to between the two Front Benches through the usual channels that the debate, when it is resumed, may be kept within reasonable limits.
§ Sir D. MACLEANI beg to move, "That the Chairman do leave the Chair"
§ Sir C. TREVELYANI agree with my right hon. Friend that it is important in this House that, as far as possible, you should have debates carried on in a good temper. I am prepared to be content with the next very important Amendment, on the general understanding, however, that we get through the rest of the Amendments on this Clause very rapidly when we meet again. [Interruption.] I understand from the Opposition that they are willing to agree to that. If I get the assurance that we can make very rapid progress with the rest of this Clause, then I shall be prepared to report Progress after the next Amendment.
§ Mr. S. BALDWINI welcome the suggestion that has been made. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Sir D. Maclean) is an old Parliamentary hand and most of us are grateful 2190 to him for the suggestion which he has made. I am obliged to the President of the Board of Education, and, if I understand him aright, his proposal is that we take the next Amendment and that we adjourn, and on our part we undertake, that there will be no unnecessary delay, and in fact we will get through the rest of the Amendments at a very reasonable rate.
§ Mr. BALDWINOn Clause 2, that is the suggestion.
§ Sir D. MACLEANI beg to ask leave to withdraw my Motion.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Mr. GRAYI beg to move, in page 3, line 30, to leave out the words "April, nineteen hundred and thirty-one," and to insert thereof the words "September, nineteen hundred and thirty-two."
I do not propose to take any time in moving this Amendment. It is consequential on the Amendment already passed.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Resolved, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—[Sir C. Trevelyan.]
§ Committee report Progress: to sit again upon Thursday.
§ The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
§ It being after half-past Eleven, of the Clock upon Tuesday evening, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
§ Adjourned at Two o'clock.