HL Deb 17 April 1856 vol 141 cc1143-4
THE BISHOP OF OXFORD

begged to ask his noble Friend the Lord President of the Council whether it was the intention of her Majesty's Government to persevere with the Education Bill which had been introduced into that House? He was not present on a former evening when the Bill was discussed, but he had gathered from the ordinary channels of information that the noble Earl had stated that he should not proceed with it till he saw what was the issue of certain events in another place. There might have been some mistake in that statement, for it could hardly be supposed that a Ministerial measure could be dependent on the events in question.

EARL GRANVILLE

said, the right rev. Prelate had been correctly informed of what had passed on a former occasion, when a question was put to him with regard to this Bill, for he had stated that in consequence of the course taken by a noble Lord in the other House, he thought it right to postpone troubling their Lordships with the discussion of the much smaller Bill which he had laid on the table. The discussion in the other House had now taken place, and he was glad that he had waited for that discussion before proceeding with his Bill, for the main principle of his Bill was included in the Resolutions then discussed: but he did not think it logically followed that because those propositions had been rejected, a similar fate must necessarily attend his measure, which was wholly of a permissive character. It was, however, very undesirable, when measures were not likely to be carried, or at least when the Government did not see their way to carrying them, that they should be proceeded with at the risk of exciting any sectarian and angry feelings, and for those reasons he did not propose to press this measure on their Lordships' attention any further, at least during the present session. At the same time, he would say that, in the office he held, he should use every exertion to promote the spread of education, by the use, at once liberal and economical, of the means now placed at the disposal of the Government.

House adjourned till To-morrow.