§ VISCOUNT SIDMOUTHasked Her Majesty's Government, Whether they will take into consideration the existing regulations and, if necessary, the Elementary Education Act, with a view to facilitate the return to a voluntary system in rural districts which have tried the School Board system and found it to fail, and to modify the requirements as regards school accommodation in districts where it can be shown that the population has diminished since the last Census and still tends to decrease?
§ THE DUKE OF RICHMONDsaid, with regard to the first part of the Question, Her Majesty's Government were not in a position, as at present advised, to recommend an alteration of the Elementary Education Act in the manner pointed out by the noble Viscount. When a School Board was appointed it became a Corporation, and there would therefore be some difficulty in dissolving it. With regard to the second part of the Question, he had found that with respect to school accommodation, where it had been shown that the population had diminished since the last Census, and when representations to that effect were made to the Government, the practice of the Goverment from time to time had been to modify the requirements they had thought it necessary to exact, so as to meet the altered circumstances of the case.