Lords Sitting of 1 April 1898

ROYAL ASSENT.
THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS [The LORD CHANCELLOR (the Earl of Halsbury), the Earl of HOPETOUN, and the LORD PRIVY SEAL (Viscount Cross)] assembled at Three of the Clock, when the Royal Assent was given to the following Bills—

1. Greek Loan.

2. Public Buildings (Expenses).

THE LORD CHANCELLOR took his Seat on the Woolsack at a Quarter-past Four of the clock.

PRIVATE BILLS.
  WIRRALL RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
  A Petition of John Kennedy, of 25, Abingdon Street, Westminster, Parliamentary Agent, praying for leave to present a Petition of the Mersey Railway Company praying to be heard by counsel against the Bill, although the time limited by Standing Order No. XCII. for presenting such Petition has expired; Read, and ordered to lie on the Table; and Standing Order No. XCII. to be considered on Tuesday next in order to its being dispensed with in respect to the said Petition.
  BAKEWELL GAS BILL. [H.L.]
  Reported with Amendments.
  MORLEY CORPORATION GAS BILL. [H.L.]
  Read third time; Amendments made; Passed, and sent to Commons.
  SAINT MATTHEW, BETHNAL GREEN, BILL. [H.L.]
  Read third time; Passed, and sent to Commons.
  MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR BOARD (NEW WORKS) BILL. [H.L.]
  Read third time; Passed, and sent to Commons.
  YEOVIL CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
  Read third time; Passed, and sent to Commons.
  FOLKESTONE GAS BILL. [H.L.]
  Read third time; Passed, and sent to Commons.
  SOUTH EASTERN RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
  Read third time; Passed, and sent to Company.
  MARIANAO AND HAVANA RAILWAY COMPANY BILL. [H.L.]
  Read third time; Passed, and sent to Commons.
  LANCASHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL.
  Read third time, and passed.
  WRITERS TO THE SIGNET WIDOWS FUND BILL.
  Read third time, and passed.
  CITY AND SOUTH LONDON RAILWAY BILL.
  Brought from Commons; Read first time, and referred to Examiners.
  NORTHAM URBAN DISTRICT WATER BILL.
  Brought from Commons; Read first time, and referred to Examiners.
  NORTH WARWICKSHIRE WATER BILL.
  Brought from Commons; Read first time, and referred to Examiners.
  ST. DAVID'S RAILWAY BILL.
  Brought from Commons; Read first time, and referred to Examiners.
  SPECIAL JURIES BILL.
  Returned from Commons with Amendments agreed to.
RETURNS, ETC.
  INDIA (FAMINE).
  Further Papers regarding the famine relief operations in India in 1896–97; Presented (by command), and ordered to lie on the Table.
  AGRARIAN OFFENCES (PROVINCES) (IRELAND).
  Return for the year ended 31st December, 1897; Presented (by command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  INDIA (LOANS RAISED IN ENGLAND).
  Return of all loans raised in England under the provisions of any Acts of Parliament chargeable on the revenues of India outstanding at the commencement of the half-year ended on the 31st March, 1898, with the rates of interest and total amount payable thereon, etc.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  ALKALI, ETC., WORKS REGULATION ACTS, 1881 AND 1882.
  Thirty-fourth Annual Report on alkali, etc., works, by the Chief Inspector, during the year 1897.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  STATUTE LAW REVISION BILL. [H.L.]
  House in Committee according to order; Amendments proposed by Joint Committee made; Then Standing Orders Nos. XXXIX. and XLV. considered (according to order), and dispensed with; Amendments reported; Bill read third time; Passed, and sent to Commons.

  IRISH CHURCH ESTATE.
  THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, I beg to move for a Return, in tabular form, showing the financial position of the Irish Church Estate at 31st March 1897, in the following respects—
  (a) INCOME OR REVENUE.
  1. Nature or description of each source of income (classifying the several sources as permanent, terminable, or miscellaneous revenue);
  2. Annual income receivable therefrom (as distinguished from actual receipts);
  3. Statutory price at which same may be sold or redeemed;
  4. Estimated capital value of each source of income at 31st March, 1897, at the statutory price thereof.
  (b) LIABILITIES AND CHARGES.
  5. Nature or decription of each liability or charge created by Irish Church Act of 1869, and subsequent Statutes (specifying the Statute which created same);
  6. Original capital value of each such liability, where same consisted of a loan or advances made on the security of the estate;
  7. Rate of interest charged for same;
  8. Sinking fund for repayment of each such capital charge;
  9. Normal annuity (including interest and sinking fund) payable for same;
  10. Date when each capital charge was (or under normal conditions will be) extinguished;
  11. Amount of each capital charge outstanding at 31st March, 1897;
  12. Estimated annual amount of other or miscellaneous expenditure.
  I do not intend to trespass at any length on your Lordships' time. I hope I shall be able to prove, in the very few words which I propose to address to you, that my Motion is really of a very simple character. It is a sequel to a very

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  important Debate which took place in your Lordships' House in July last, and which, I have no doubt, is still green in the memories of those of your Lordships who take an interest in Irish affairs. The Debate to which I allude was inaugurated by Lord Belmore, who has always been identified with questions of tithe rent-charge in Ireland, and I regret that such an expert as he should not, on the present occasion, be occupying my place. But, as he is prevented from being present today, and as we consider the question of importance as being a sequel to that Debate, he has asked me to move for the Returns which I have set forth on the Paper. The Debate to which I allude was one in which Lord Belmore moved that an Address be presented to Her Majesty to appoint a Royal Commission to report to what extent the payers of the Irish tithe rent-charge were entitled to a reduction. I am sure your Lordships, from the course that Debate took, fully realised the hardships under which the land-owning class in Ireland have suffered for many years past, and which are due not to any fault of their own, but to the various Acts of Parliament which the Legislature have considered themselves justified in passing. Consequently, it was with no surprise that we who listened to that Debate heard the various notes of sympathy which were rung by the various Members of Her Majesty's Government who took part in the Debate. On that occasion the Government were represented, in the first instance, by my noble Friend, Lord Denbigh, and he, on behalf of the Government, sympathised very sincerely with the wants and requirements of those who were represented by Lord Belmore. My noble and learned Friend below me, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, speaking with all the authority due to his great position in Ireland, and also as a leading Member of Her Majesty's Government, went so far as to say that Her Majesty's Government would, during the Recess, give every consideration to the views which had been put forward; and he held out every hope that, in the coming Session, the Government would introduce a Bill dealing with this question. I think that was, more or less, the effect of the remarks he made in the course of that Debate. Well, my Lords, we therefore consider, after his remarks, that the Government are now
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  probably anxious to alleviate the hardships under which the land-owners and tithe rent-charge payers are at present suffering by introducing a Bill during the Session, but we think it is advisable that, when such a Bill is introduced, those who are interested in the question, and those who will have to carefully consider the details of such a Measure, should be in full possession of all the information in connection with the subject, and this information I have, in the absence of my noble Friend, moved for. My Lords, we think it is but fair that not only the Members of your Lordships' House who are connected with Ireland—not only the tithe rent-charge payers—but the British public should be in possession of these statistics. It may be said that a certain amount of information can be derived from the annual reports of the Irish Land Commission, but we maintain that the information is not sufficient at the present time. There has been no Parliamentary Return that has enabled the public to find out, and to judge for themselves, on three points—firstly, to what extent the Irish Church Estate is charged; secondly, how long those charges are likely to be outstanding; and, thirdly, how far the tithe rent-charge can be remitted without prejudicing the security of loans charged on that estate. We think, my Lords, that we have a right to ask for this information, and I cannot for a moment imagine that Her Majesty's Government will be reluctant to grant it. Another Member of Her Majesty's Government—no less a person than the Prime Minister himself, whom I trust we shall soon see restored to health and in his place again—speaking on a Debate which took place on the same subject, made a speech of an extremely symparthetic and friendly character. I do not wish to weary your Lordships by quoting that speech, but I think I am justified in saying that the Prime Minister sympathised very materially with the request that was put forward, and assured us that Her Majesty's Government would be very glad indeed to alleviate the sufferings of the land-owning classes, if such alleviation could be obtained without any call or any drain on the Imperial Exchequer. He added that Her Majesty's Government would be very glad to receive proposals from those who were interested in this question, and that they would

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  carefully consider those proposals, so long as they did not involve any drain on the Imperial Exchequer. We should be very glad either to consider the Measure which we trust will be put forward, or to ourselves put forward proposals at the suggestion of the Prime Minister; but we maintain that we cannot put forward those proposals in a complete form unless we are furnished with the statistics and the Returns for which I am now moving. I will not trespass further on your time, my Lords, for it is with absolute confidence that I move the Motion which stands in my name.
  EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, in the absence of the noble Lord who generally answers for the Irish Office, I have been requested to inform the noble Marquess that the Government do not think it necessary to grant the Return, on the ground that almost all the information which he asks for will be found on page 103 of the last Annual Report of the Land Commission.
  THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, may I be allowed to again trespass on your time for a few moments? I specially laid stress, in the remarks I made, upon the fact that a certain amount of information was given in the Report of the Irish Land Commission to which my noble Friend alludes, but no Parliamentary Return was given, and therefore the information given by the Land Commission was absolutely inadequate. I confess I am rather surprised and somewhat disappointed at the reply given by my noble Friend. It seems difficult to reconcile the statement of my noble and learned Friend below me (the Lord Chancellor of Ireland), and the advice given by the Prime Minister to consider our own proposals, and then submit them to Parliament, with the action of the Government through my noble Friend who has replied on their behalf. Perhaps the fact that this is the 1st of April has something to do with it. I cannot for a moment consider that they wish to change their views, but I am bound to say that I think the reply which my noble Friend has given to-day will not give satisfaction to those who had looked upon the statements in July with gratification. Owing
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  to the adjournment of the House I shall not be in a position to raise this question again, but when the House resumes after Easter, when I hope the Prime Minister will be in his place, we shall ask him how he could imagine that we can initiate proposals on a very complicated question when the Returns, which we consider we are entitled to, and which are absolutely necessary for the formation of those proposals, are refused to us.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND (Lord ASHBOURNE): My Lords, I do not think my noble Friend who has just spoken has done justice to the reply which my noble Friend has given on behalf of the Government. My noble Friend has asked for information showing the financial position of the Irish Church Estate at 31st March, 1897, and my noble Friend who has replied on behalf of the Treasury refers him to a certain page of the last Report of the Irish Land Commission, which is accessible to the world, and which must have been laid upon the Table of both Houses of Parliament. The Government are most anxious to give all the information asked for, and if my noble Friend refers to the page to which his attention has been directed, and then is able to point out any further information for which he can legitimately ask, the matter will be fairly considered.
  THE EARL OF MAYO: My Lords, I assure your Lordships that the passage in the Report has been referred to, and that it does not contain sufficient information to enable us to frame a Bill or a demand. You must remember the former history of this matter. First of all, Lord Belmore moved for a Royal Commission, and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor of Ireland informed us that the Government would very likely bring in a Bill. The noble Lord behind me (Lord Morris) said we ought to be perfectly satisfied with the answer of the Government when we were going to get a Bill. We cannot possibly frame a Bill without knowing the state of the accounts. Surely we are moving for a very simple thing. The Church Estate has been taken away from us, and, now that it is administered by the Government, we ask for a Return of the accounts

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  of that estate. That is not very much to ask, but yet it is absolutely refused by Her Majesty's Government. We have referred to the Return of the Irish Land Commission and have gone most carefully into it, but we find in Dublin that it does not give the required information. That is why we move for this Return. As Her Majesty's Government have refused the Return, I quite agree with the noble Marquess behind me [the Marquess of Londonderry] that we shall raise the question again after Easter, and I hope the Prime Minister will then be in his place, and that he will afford us that sympathy which we evidently do not find on the Front Bench to-day.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: There is no desire to withhold sympathy or information. It is all a question of figures. It has not been suggested that the information in the Report of the Land Commission, to which my noble Friends have been referred, is in the slightest degree defective. If my noble Friend who has just spoken will point out any particulars in which the information is defective I will see if the proper information can be supplied to him.
  LORD MORRIS: My Lords, my noble Friend [the Marquess of Londonderry] has moved for certain Returns. As a general rule Returns are given upon the Motion of a noble Lord who, on his own responsibility, applies for them, unless there is some good reason to the contrary either that they are very expensive, or very difficult to obtain. As I understand it, the answer of my noble Friend who represents the Government is that the information can be got from a page of the Return of the Irish Land Commission. Well, my noble Friend below me [the Earl of Mayo] says the page referred to does not contain the information. I fail to see that there would be any difficulty in affording the information sought, because it appears substantially in the Report of the Land Commission. To refuse this Return leads one to think there must be an
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  object in refusing it. Some of the Treasury authorities think the information is contained in another Report, but other people seem to hold a different opinion. That being so, why not grant the Return?
  *THE EARL OF ERNE: My Lords, it is very difficult for a layman to extract from the Report of the Land Commission the information required. I am informed that a man accustomed to collate these Returns could get the information in a short space of time. I am sure it would give satisfaction to many who are interested in this question, if the Government will reconsider their decision and grant the return asked for.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (The Earl of HALSBURY): Does the noble Marquess persist in his Motion?
  THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: I certainly do not propose to go to a Division, but I think I am justified in saying that when the Prime Minister returns we shall take another opportunity of calling attention to the matter. And then, if the Return be refused, much as we shall be sorry to vote against the Government, we shall certainly take the opinion of the House on the question.
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): It will be easy to inquire from the Treasury and the Irish Office whether there really is any necessity for an additional Return. I do not think the noble Earl [the Earl of Erne] improved the case for the granting of this Return. He said that anybody accustomed to collate these Returns could easily obtain from the Return referred to the information asked for. I suppose such assistance is within the reach of the noble Earl, and therefore there is no great necessity for incurring the expense of granting a Parliamentary Return.
  Motion withdrawn.

  PUPIL TEACHER SYSTEM.
  *LORD NORTON: My Lords, I beg most earnestly to call your Lordships' attention to the Departmental Report just published on the pupil teacher system. On the eve of Legislation promised by the noble Duke (the Lord President of the Council) after Easter on the subject of secondary education we find a Departmental Report issued from the Education Department, which clearly tends to promote the very thing which we all understand, and hope the noble Duke's Measure will counteract. The proposal of the Report to which I call attention is, in effect, to load elementary education more and more with secondary subjects. The proposal is to make secondary subjects, a part of elementary education, and to raise elementary to the standard of secondary instruction. There is a clear distinction between elementary education and secondary instruction, and the confusion which now exists is disastrous to both. It is very desirable that the one should be more distinguished from the other. Elementary education is the training, morally and intellectually, of children for all positions in life. Secondary instruction is required as apprenticeship by that portion of the working class who are going into higher kinds of employment. For instance, Manchester and a Wiltshire village do not require the same educational curriculum. They both require elementary education, but they do not both require the same kind of scientific and technical instruction; yet the recommendations of the Departmental Committee tend to make all education adopt a secondary nature. It is proposed by the Committee that the standard of age, qualification, and pay of all pupil teachers shall be raised to the secondary standard, and that they shall only be taken from secondary schools. As a matter of fact the best pupil teachers we have had have been trained in primary schools. This proposal actually puts pupil teachers out of the reach of the greater number of schools throughout the kingdom. If the age, qualification, and pay of pupil teachers are raised, as this Report proposes, the majority of schools will be unable to use them. The second proposal of the Committee is that no school is to have any pupil teacher which
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  has less than two adult teachers in it. Well, that at once excludes from the employment of pupil teachers almost all the rural schools in the kingdom, and, lest those rural schools deprived of pupil teachers should make use of the cheaper kind of assistance provided for poor schools by Article LXVIII of the Code, the Report proposes to abolish Article LXVIII, so as to deprive them altogether of any kind of primary teaching. Most of our pupil teachers come from the artisan class, but under this Report poor parents will not be able to bring their children up as pupil teachers. If they are not to commence teaching until they are 18 years of age, few parents will be able to wait until then before their children become remunerative. Therefore pupil teachers will have to come from a higher class. That may be very desirable, but you must bear in mind that if the Report is carried out it will prevent poor parents bringing up their children as pupil teachers. The Report is most inconsistent on this subject. The Committee say that early training has made the best pupil teachers, and that early training is of great value in cultivating teaching power. The exact words of the Report are—
  "Some of the best materials for the teaching profession have been drawn from rural schools. It is of the highest importance to keep up the number of pupil teachers whose associations and interests attach them to rural life."
  That is a statement with which I entirely agree, but it is most inconsistent with the recommendations of the Committee. They say they want teachers of elementary schools to have a broader literary and a higher technical training. That is all very well for the higher schools, but not for the majority of primary schools. They say elsewhere—
  "The time has come when the original idea of training pupil teachers must give way to a higher standard."
  It was only the other day that Mr. Lyulph Stanley made a similar remark. He said that pupil teachers are an unworthy supply for the higher education now wanted. In fact the pupil teachers are intended to be thrown over altogether, and the teaching proposed is only applicable to the higher schools. Foreign countries are often held up for

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  our imitation. I believe there is no argument so persuasive in either House as "see how much better foreign countries are doing than we are." It is an argument by which I am never attracted. I say that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and I would much prefer an English lad turned out on our system, bad as it is, than a German or a French lad. But I am sure we shall not be able to compete better with the schools of foreign countries by introducing confusion between elementary and technical instruction. There was a very valuable Yellow Book issued not long ago from the Education Department, called "A Special Report on Subjects of Education," in which the various systems in different countries are more or less described, and I observe that, in France the principle is laid down much more clearly than we have ever laid it down in this country with regard to elementary training. The object of elementary training is said to be to cultivate the heart, the intelligence, and the conscience; and I do not think that that has been borne in mind in the Report. I wish to call attention to another point in the Report with regard to training colleges. It is said that the training colleges are deficient in accommodation. By way of increasing the accommodation it was proposed that there should be a special set of training colleges for rural districts. I think that was a very sensible suggestion, but it was dropped in deference to certain witnesses, who said that these special training colleges would produce an inferior class of teachers. Contempt of manual labour is at the bottom of many of the suggestions in the Report. The object of the Report is to turn labourers into clerks, as if the main purpose for which we were sent into the world were to get into a higher social position. It is suggested by the Commissioners that the training colleges should be part of the University colleges. One would have thought that that was a very great step in advance, and the Commissioners themselves seem to be a little staggered in coming to that conclusion, but they state that at least they think the curriculum of the University colleges is not too high for the training of these teachers. They prefer day training colleges, but they allow that the want of supervision
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  and discipline is a real objection, and they make a half-way-proposal that hostels should be attached to the University colleges, where the discipline of residential colleges might be united with the superior scientific lectures of day colleges. I would implore your Lordships to consider whether this is the line in which we hope the noble Duke (the Lord President of the Council) is going to carry out the proposals which we expect from him after Easter. I cannot help thinking myself, from the remarks he made the other day in the House, that this is not his view; on the contrary, that he would rather simplify, and make more adapted to its special purpose, the elementary education of the country, which would continue to be at the public expense; and that the secondary instruction which his Measure is intended to promote would not, as I understood him to say, be a national system undertaken by the State, but be in the nature of better organisation and aid to secondary and technical institutions, established all over the country by municipalities, private munificence, and in other ways, to meet the wants of different localities. In this the noble Duke showed the good sense which he always shows on every matter with which he deals. I trust that that will be the line, the noble Duke's Measure will take. I do not think I need trouble your Lordships further than to express the hope that before the Government scheme is brought on after Easter your Lordships will look carefully at this Report, which, though it appears to be connected only with the subject of the pupil teachers' system, involves a very great principle in the conduct of the whole system of national education in this country.
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL: My Lords, I am afraid it is quite impossible for me to undertake to follow my noble Friend in the criticisms which he has made on the Report of the Departmental Committee on the pupil teacher system, for the reason that it has not been in my power to give, up to the present, the full attention and consideration to that Report which evidently my noble Friend has given to it. I may say that it

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  has not been necessary, up to the present time, that I should have given it that consideration. It was thought desirable that the Report of the Committee should be published without any delay, in order that it might be considered by the managers of schools, Board and Voluntary; by the teachers, and by the public generally, but there was no intention whatever of taking any action upon that Report until it had had that consideration. It would, I may point out to my noble Friend, be impossible to take any action upon it until the Code of 1899 is in course of preparation, and certainly no steps will be taken to carry out the recommendations in this Report until the opinions which may be expressed upon it by managers and others have been fully obtained and fully considered. Under these circumstances, and, as I have stated, having up to the present had no opportunity of making myself fully acquainted with the contents of the Report or the views upon it of the Vice-President of the Council, or any other advisers in the Education Department, I think I should be very unwilling either to express my assent or dissent to the criticisms which have fallen from my noble Friend, and to anticipate the decision which may be come to upon it by the Department, and ultimately by the Government. I must, however, say that I should be very sorry indeed to be supposed to accept, in whole or in part, the criticisms of my noble Friend. But, however much he may desire—and I have no doubt many of your Lordships desire—that an extremely hard and fast line should be drawn between elementary and secondary education, and that the line should be drawn at a somewhat low level, nevertheless, the fact remains that the training of the teachers is at the present time, and always must be, to a considerable extent, of a secondary character. It is essential to any efficient system of education that the teachers should possess a somewhat more advanced knowledge, even in the elementary subjects which they teach, than that which they are expected to impart. Therefore, I cannot admit that the recommendations of the Committee for enabling pupil teachers and the candidates for teacherships to obtain something in the nature of secondary education would necessarily tend to raise the standard of elementary teaching in
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  general beyond that level which it ought to attain. With this protest and this explanation, and for the reason that I do not propose, on the present occasion, to follow my noble Friend in his criticism of the Report, I must add that I do not think that this would be a convenient opportunity for anticipating any statement which I may have to make at a later period of the Session in regard to the subject of secondary education.
  *EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, I hope the deep interest which, for more than 50 years I have taken in elementary, and for more than 40 years in secondary, education, and the time and labour I have bestowed upon them, may plead my excuse in detaining your Lordships with a very few words on the present occasion. The noble Duke, the Lord President of the Council, said he contemplated that the publication of the Departmental Committee's Report would be the means of eliciting the opinions of managers of Board and Voluntary schools on the subject. The Committee seems to me to have been of a rather one-sided character. There were plenty of inspectors and headmasters and mistresses of training colleges upon it, but there was not a single manager to represent either the interests of Board or Voluntary schools and to give the benefit of practical experience of the working of these schools. One thing this Committee's Report has done—namely, to confirm and corroborate the evidence previously abundantly existing as to the chaotic state into which the question of education has been drifting. We find that algebra, physiology, botany, chemistry—not astronomy, though that may be taught with the sanction of the Department—French and German, Latin, and even Hebrew in various cases, are taught in what are called elementary schools. The line drawn is not between elementary and secondary schools, but between the latter and the great Universities of the country. It is that utter absence of any division between elementary and secondary education which has been stigmatised over and over again by those who are most conversant with, and are the best authorities on, education as most disastrous to both. It truly seems a mystery,

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  now that education is State und rate-paid, that well-to-do parents should, at the expense of the ratepayers and taxpayers, get instruction in these really advanced subjects imparted to their children gratuitously, instead of access being given freely to secondary schools by scholarships to those poor children who are capable of turning the instruction to good account. I am glad the noble Duke has not committed himself to introduce all the recommendations contained in the Report of the Departmental Committee, and that he wishes to collect the opinions of those best qualified to give opinions on the subject. More than 30 years ago I referred to the great advantage of those wishing to become pupil teachers and schoolmasters mixing, up to a certain degree, with other students destined for different callings, and I am glad to see that this Report takes a similar view. It seems to me that this recommendation is one which may be very advantageously adapted. The Report says—
  "The intellectual horizon of the pupil teachers now in the training colleges is contracted by associating in their studies exclusively with those who are preparing for the same calling."
  That is very much what I advocated 30 years ago. Then I cannot see why pupil teachers, the great majority of whom are drawn from the wage-earning class, should cost, in the training colleges, £10 to £20 a year more than is paid by independent persons of the middle-classes for their children, in schools where they get, as tested by the local examinations of the Universities, a first-class education. I have again and again protested against the needless expensiveness of the training colleges, and their exclusive devotion to those who are destined for one particular calling. I apologise for troubling your Lordships, and I conclude by expressing my satisfaction that the Government is not committed to the recommendations of the Departmental Committee.
  The subject then dropped.

  RUSSIA AND THE FAR EAST.
  THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (Viscount CROSS): My Lords, I rise to move that this House, at its rising, do adjourn till Tuesday, at Three o'clock. I understand
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  that it is the desire of both Houses that some statement should be made as to affairs in the Far East by the Government about the same time. In the other House there are some preliminary matters to be gone through before the statement can be made, and it is thought that Three o'clock will be a better hour for your Lordships to meet than Two o'clock, as previously arranged.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I do not think there can be any objection to the time being altered to Three o'clock.
  Motion agreed to.
  House adjourned at 5.30.