§ THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (The Marquess of Ripon)My Lords, in order that we may proceed at once to the consideration of the Education Bill I beg to move the Motion of which I have given notice.
§ Moved, "That Standing Order No, XXI, be considered in order to its being dispensed with, and that the adjourned debate on the Bill have precedence of other notices and Orders of the Day."—(The Marquess of Ripon.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
§ Order of the Day read for resuming the adjourned debate on the Motion that the Commons' reason for disagreeing with the Lords' Amendments be now considered, and on the Amendment moved by the Marquess of Lansdowne to the foregoing Motion, viz., to leave out all the words after "That" for the purpose of inserting the following words, viz.:—
§ "This House (1) records its protest against the innovation in constitutional procedure by which the Commons have rejected the whole of the Lords' Amendments to the Education Bill, including those proposed by His Majesty's Ministers, without assigning, in any case, specific reasons for the rejection of those Amendments; and(2) adjourns the consideration of the Commons' message in order to afford His Majesty's Government an opportunity of making a definite statement to the House as to the course which His Majesty's Government are prepared to recommend to the House of Commons with regard to each material Amendment to the Bill."
§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEMy Lords, with the permission of your Lordships I should like to say two or or three words as to the procedure which might be followed this evening. I am sure we all desire that that procedure should be as simple and as easily intelligible as possible. At this moment the Amendment which I moved the night before last to the Motion of the Lord President of the Council holds the field. That Amendment had two parts. In the first place, I invited your Lordships to 1371 place on the records of this House a protest against the manner in which the Amendments made by your Lordships to the Education Bill had been dealt with by the other House of Parliament; and in the second part of my Amendment I suggested that the debate should be adjourned in order to afford His Majesty's Government an opportunity of making a definite statement to the House as to the course which His Majesty's Government might be prepared to recommend to the House of Commons with regard to each material Amendment to the Bill. That invitation was taken advantage of by the Lord President of the Council. He did not wait for the adjournment, but he at once made an important statement to the House, and since that time he has laid on the Table a series of Amendments. I therefore think that we must consider that the noble Earl, I do not say entirely to our satisfaction, but going as far as he felt himself justified in going, has complied with the terms of the second portion of my Amendment. I therefore think it would be convenient that I should withdraw that part of the Amendment; but I remain of opinion that a protest of the kind which I have invited your Lordships to make should be made, and I therefore suggest that we should add to it the Motion which the Lord President will make, and that we might say that this House, before proceeding to consider the Commons' reason for disagreeing with the Lords' Amendments to the Education Bill, "records its protest," and so on. I do not know whether that commends itself to noble Lords opposite but I suggest it is the most convenient way of disposing of the difficulties of procedure.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn; and the following Resolution moved in lieu thereof, viz., "Before considering the Commons' reason this House records its protest against the innovation in Constitutional procedure by which the Commons have rejected the whole of the Lords' Amendment to the Education Bill, including those proposed by His Majesty's Ministers, without assigning, in any case, specific reasons for the rejection of those Amendments."—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
§ THE MARQUESS OF RIPONMy Lords, as far as the matter of procedure is concerned, I think that the course 1372 proposed by my noble friend might be adopted; but there my agreement with my noble friend ceases. I cannot accept in any degree whatever the Amendment in its amended form which he proposes, and I shall feel bound to take the opinion of the House by a division on that Resolution. I do not want to raise more controversy than I can help about these matters. My desire is, as far as possible, to avoid anything that would create disagreeable feeling on either side of the House. My objection to the Amendment of my noble friend is that I believe it to be, in the first place, inaccurate. It charges the House of Commons with having taken some proceedings which are in the opinion of the noble Marquess inconsistent with constitutional practice. I deny that altogether. My noble friend might have said that the House of Commons was uncivil or uncourteous, or he might have applied to them any other unpleasant epithets; but, my Lords, unconstitutional their proceedings have not been. It is perfectly consistent with the Constitution of this country—indeed I had almost said it is part of the Constitution—that both Houses of Parliament should regulate their own proceedings. They can regulate them as they please. They may regulate them wisely or foolishly, but it is within their constitutional right to regulate them as they please; and therefore on that ground alone, if it rested only there, I should feel bound to resist the Amendment of the noble Marquess. But apart from that I confess that I am somewhat surprised that my noble friend should have persisted in his Amendment after the speech made on Monday night by my noble friend behind me, the Lord President of the Council. I should have thought that that speech, made with all the authority of my noble friend, would have been sufficient to remove from your Lordships' minds any idea that the course which the House of Commons took in this matter was intended to indicate any want of consideration or respect for your Lordships' House. Nothing could be more definite and explicit than the language of my noble friend speaking on behalf of the Government, who in the House of Commons had concurred in the step which was taken; and I confess I should have thought your Lordships might have been willing to accept a statement of that kind made in 1373 such friendly terms, and with such an obvious desire to remove from your Lordships' minds any notion that any insult or impertinence was intended to your Lordships. I should have thought that my noble friend opposite and those behind him might have accepted the authority of my noble friend, which I
§ feel sure your Lordships will agree is entitled to the respect and consideration of the House.
§ On Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Motion," their Lordships divided:—Contents, 52; Not-Contents, 138.
1375| CONTENTS. | ||
| Loreburn, L. (L. Chancellor.) | Selby, V. | Grimthorpe, L. |
| Hamilton of Dalzell, L. | ||
| Crewe, E. (L. President.) | Chester, L. Bp. | Haversham, L. |
| Hereford, L. Bp. | Headley, L. | |
| Ripon, M. (L. Privy Seal.) | St. Asaph, L. Bp. | Kinnaird, L. |
| Lyveden, L. | ||
| Beauchamp, E. [Teller.] | Boston, L. | Monk Bretton, L. |
| Carrington, E. | Brassey, L. | Monkswell, L. |
| Chesterfield, E. | Colebrooke, L. | O'Hagan, L. |
| Chichester, E. | Coleridge, L. | Overtoun, L. |
| De La, Warr, E. | Courtney of Penwith, L. | Pirrie, L. |
| Dundonald, E. | Davey, L. | Reay, L. |
| Kimberley, E. | Denman, L. [Teller.] | Sandhurst, L. |
| Portsmouth, E. | Dunning, L. (L. Rollo.) | Saye and Sele, L. |
| Russell, E | Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.) | Stanley of Alderley, L. |
| Stamford, E | Tenterden, L. | |
| Temple, E | Eversley, L. | Tweedmouth, L. |
| Farrer, L. | Wandsworth, L. | |
| Althorp, V. (L. Chamberlain.) | Fitzmaurice, L. | Weardale, L. |
| Glantawe, L. | Welby, L. | |
| NOT-CONTENTS. | ||
| Canterbury, L. Abp. | Lauderdale, E. | London, L. Bp. |
| Lindsey, E. | Oxford, L. Bp. | |
| Norfolk, D. (E. Marshal.) | Lonsdale, E. | Peterborough, L. Bp. |
| Bedford, D. | Lucan, E. | St. Albans, L. Bp. |
| Devonshire, D. | Malmesbury, E. | Salisbury, L. Bp. |
| Newcastle, D. | Mayo, E. | |
| Northumberland, D. | Morley, E. | Abinger, L. |
| Portland, D. | Morton, E. | Allerton, L. |
| Rutland, D. | Mount Edgcumbe, E. | Ardilaun, L. |
| Sutherland, D. | Nelson, E. | Ashbourne, L. |
| Wellington, D. | Onslow, E. | Atkinson, L. |
| Plymouth, E. | Balfour, L. | |
| Bristol, M. | Radnor, E. | Balinhard, L. (E. Southesk.) |
| Lansdowne, M. | Shaftesbury, E. | Barnard, L. |
| Salisbury, M. | Strange, E. (D. Atholl.) | Barrymore, L. |
| Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.) | Belhaven and Stenton, L. | |
| Brownlow, E. | Verulam, E. | Belper, L. |
| Camperdown, E. | Waldegrave, E. [Teller.] | Blythswood, L. |
| Carlisle, E. | Wicklow, E. | Borthwick, L. |
| Carnwath, E. | Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery.) | |
| Cathcart, E. | Bridport, V. | |
| Cawdor, E. | Churchill, V. [Teller.] | Burton, L. |
| Clarendon, E. | Cross, V. | Clifford of Chudleigh, L. |
| Darnley, E. | Falkland, V. | Clinton, L. |
| Derby, E. | Falmouth, V. | Clonbrock, L. |
| Devon, E. | Goschen, V. | Colchester, L. |
| Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.) | Halifax, V. | Dawnay, L. (V. Downe.) |
| Hardinge, V. | De Freyne, L. | |
| Essex, E. | Hill, V. | De Mauley, L. |
| Feversham, E. | Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.) | Deramore, L. |
| Fitzwilliam, E. | Digby, L. | |
| Haddington, E. | Iveagh, V. | Douglas, L. (E. Home.) |
| Hardwicke, E. | Knutsford, V. | Dunboyne, L. |
| Harewood, E. | Llandaff, V. | Faber, L. |
| Harrowby, E. | Forester, L. | |
| Jersey, E. | Chichester, L. Bp. | Gage L. (V. Gage.) |
| Grenfell, L. | Meldrum, L. (M. Huntly.) | Saltoun, L. |
| Grey de Ruthyn, L. | Michelham, L. | Sandys, L. |
| Harris, L. | Middleton, L. | Seaton, L. |
| Hastings, L. | Mowbray, L. | Shute, L. (V. Barrington.) |
| Hothfield, L. | Newlands, L. | Sinclair, L. |
| Kenry, L. (E. Dunraven and Mount-Earl.) | Newton, L. | Stalbridge, L. |
| North, L. | Stanmore, L. | |
| Kilmaine, L. | Oranmore and Browne, L. | Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.) |
| Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.) | Ramsay, L. (E. Dalhougie.) | |
| Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.) | Ranfurly, L. (E. Ranfurly.) | Talbot, de Malahide, L. |
| Lawrence, L. | Rayleigh, L. | Templemore, L. |
| Leigh, L. | Ritchie of Dundee, L. | Wolverton, L. |
| Ludlow, L. | Robertson, L. | Zouche of Haryngworth, L. |
| Macnaghten, L. | St. Oswald, L. |
§ On Question, "That the proposed words be there inserted," resolved in the affirmative.
§ Commons reason considered.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEMy Lords, I now rise to make a Motion dealing with this most important matter. I beg to move that this House do insist on its Amendments to the Education Bill. The noble Marquess who spoke just now referred to the interesting statement made on Monday evening by the Lord President of the Council, and he expressed his astonishment that we on this side of the House should not have been contented by the substance and the tone of that message. I freely admit that nothing could have been more considerate in tone than the speech of the noble Lord. I am also quite ready to admit that his statement marked a considerable advance upon any of the statements made by his colleagues in the other House. If I may be permitted to say so, however, the noble Earl in the course of his statement left untouched a great many subjects on which we on this side of the House feel most strongly.
An adjournment ensued, and I imagine that it is a matter of notoriety that advantage was taken of that adjournment in order to effect an exchange of views between the Leaders of the two Parties. I have seen references to a conference. To my mind the word conference is wholly inapplicable to such discussions as those in which we have taken part. The word has a very technical meaning. I believe it carries with it a good many somewhat obsolete incidents, such, for example, as the representatives of the House of Lords wearing their hats and meeting representatives of the House of Commons without that covering. The advantage of a discussion such as that which has taken 1376 place in the last few days is that it is of a wholly informal character, that proposals or suggestions can be made in the most confidential manner and entirely without prejudice to those who make them. I have therefore no right to refer to what took place during those conversations or to their result. I say this particularly because we are now in full possession in the most official form of the decision at which the Government have arrived in reference to this Bill.
Your Lordships have received this morning the Amendments of which notice has been given by the Lord President, and I have no doubt you have studied them. I assume that those Amendments are officially the last word which the Government have to say with regard to the Amendments which your Lordships have inserted in this Bill. I am very far from suggesting that upon some of the points at issue there has not been room for a transaction between noble Lords opposite and ourselves. Weave never excluded from our minds the idea that some arrangement of that kind might be arrived at. But I am afraid I must add that the Amendments proposed by the Lord President seem to me to leave the Bill in a shape in which this House could not possibly accept it.
It is impossible in such a statement as I now have to make to pass in review seriatim in detail the minor issues raised by these Amendments; but there are a certain number of them which by their intrinsic importance stand out in clear relief and so to speak dominate all the others. One such set of Amendments is that which has reference to the position of teachers. The teachers, if I may say so, are almost the key of the position. We have constantly demanded that full freedom should be given to the teachers. We have done that upon many grounds. 1377 We have made the request because we believe that to refuse that request is to put an affront upon the liberty of conscience of the teachers themselves. We have recommended it because we believed that in a great number of our schools it would be absolutely impossible to find volunteers who could take upon themselves the duty of the religious instruction now performed by the teachers of the schools. We have recommended it again upon the ground that to deprive the teacher of these particular functions cannot fail to be highly detrimental to the discipline and efficiency of the school itself.
The importance of this question seems to me to be enormously increased in consequence of the attitude which His Majesty's Government have taken up throughout these discussions with regard to what we speak of as Clause 4 schools. It is perfectly plain from what we have been told by the Lord President of the Council, and what we have learned from other sources, that in the view of His Majesty's Government these Clause 4 schools are to be altogether exceptional—they are intended for the Roman Catholics, the Jews, and for a small fraction only of the Church of England. Now it follows from that that all schools which do not fall within the thus limited scope of Clause 4 will have to depend entirely upon what they can get out of Clause 3.
I ask your Lordships to remember that in regard to the fourth clause a minority of parents will be able to impose upon the school and upon the people interested in the school its transformation from a school of the type which it has always represented to the new type of school created under this Bill. I will also remind your Lordships that in cases where alternative accommodation is not accessible, there an insignificant minority of the children may prevent the school from obtaining extended facilities. It follows, therefore, that in the great majority of cases these schools, no matter how denominational has been their atmosphere in the past, will find themselves compelled to fall back upon Clause 3 facilities.
Now, my Lords, what are Clause 3 facilities worth if the teachers are not permitted to give religious instruction in 1378 these schools? That brings me to the offer which his Majesty's Government have made to us in regard to the teachers. If you will turn to the Amendments on the Paper you will see these proposals. In the first place it is left open to any local authority absolutely to forbid of its own will any teacher, no matter in what school, to give religious instruction. In the next place no head teacher is ever to give religious instruction. In the third place, even where the assistants—who are the only people to whom this permission is to be given—are allowed to give religious instruction, they can give it only if and when the school numbers over 250 pupils. If your Lordships will consider the cumulative effect of these various restrictions you will see how complete is the denial of that freedom for which we ask for the teachers of this country. In our view, the insistence of His Majesty's Government upon that denial is in itself an almost insuperable obstacle in the way of such a friendly arrangement as we at one time hoped to effect.
I have examined as carefully as I have been able to do in the short time at nay disposal the other proposals put upon the Paper by the noble Earl opposite, and I find amongst them the following provisions which I will enumerate as briefly as I can. The noble Earl passes over in silence the question of the deletion of the urban area limit in the fourth clause. He also passes over in silence the most important Amendment in the second sub-section of Clause 8, which provides that the local authority is to satisfy itself of the fitness of a teacher to give Cowper-Temple teaching. The noble Earl is also silent upon the subject of the retention of the Welsh clause. But then I come to other points upon which the noble Earl is not silent, but eloquent. He proposes that we should not insist upon the important Amendment inserted by Lord St. Aldwyn in Clause 3, under which two days a week certain were secured for facilities in Clause 3 schools. He proposes, further, that we should not insist upon the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Salisbury in regard to facilities for single-school area children in council schools. In the same clause he proposes that we should not insist upon the appeal—the 1379 most important appeal—to the Board of Education in cases where facilities are not properly provided.
§ *THE EARL OF CREWEYou mean in Clause 3.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEYes, that is all in Clause 3. Now I pass to Clause 4. The noble Earl asks us to abandon the Amendment in which we substituted the word "shall" for "may" at the beginning of the clause. We have to consider, with that Amendment, the most unsatisfactory state of affairs in which the Government clauses leave the condition of appeal throughout this part of the Bill. Then, again, in paragraph (b) of Clause 4 we are asked to consent to an arrangement under which the minority is to be counted by including, not only those who come forward to protest, but also those who remain silent, a point upon which many of your Lord-ships feel strongly.
Further on, the important Amendment which was inserted at my instance as to the manner in which the question of alternative accommodation should be dealt with is proposed to be got rid of; and I find, in the same clause, that we are asked not to insist upon the Amendment which we introduced with the object of making it clear that the local education authority might not in a Clause 4 school forbid the teacher to teach. That is a most important point. I confess I was under an apprehension that that permission would not be denied in those purely denominational schools. In Clause 7 we are asked to give up the effective provision which we had made for the creation of new schools with denominational facilities. I find substituted for it a provision entirely confined to Clause 4 schools, and requiring persons who wish to build a new school to build it on the mere chance that it might afterwards be taken over by the local authority. Then in Clause 8 the discretion of the authorities to permit the teacher to teach religion is extended also to the Clause 4 schools.
Those are some of the proposals which your Lordships are asked to assent to. There are one or two points upon which I would like to say a few words. In these Amendments we find reintroduced 1380 the State-aided school in its most objectionable form. It appears, not as an alternative which it would be open to the owners of the school to accept, but as a penal alternative that may be imposed upon any school which had reason to complain of the manner in which these facilities were accorded—a school which appeals for redress and which, instead of obtaining redress, is condemned to the position of a State-aided school without any support from the rates, and, by a further provision in these Amendments, becomes a school which may be established without any precautions for seeing that it has a reasonable prospect of maintaining its efficiency at a proper standard. There is something to be said on the question of State-aided schools. To a State-aided school in that form we on this side of the House have the strongest possible objection.
Then I find also amongst these new Amendments a provision I think objectionable in that part of the Bill which relates to the taking over of schools by the local authority. Unless I misunderstand the Amendment on the Paper, it is intended that it should be open to the local authority to refuse one of these schools upon the mere ground of redundancy, unless its redundancy can be shown to be of an entirely temporary nature. Therefore, however necessary the school may be from the point of view of the parents, no attention need be paid to that consideration, and it may be dealt with on the high and dry ground of redundancy alone.
Let me point out how remarkable it is that upon points of this kind His Majesty's Government deny altogether to the authority that discretion which we have so often asked for in vain in regard to other points in the Bill. As I said before, we should be perfectly ready to consider points of mere detail. I am glad to admit that in one or two points in his Amendments the noble Earl has done something to meet us; but what we feel is that the points to which I have referred are not points of detail, but vital points; and if we have, as I believe we have, reason to believe that these are points which His Majesty's Government regard as essential to a settlement, then I say with very great regret that we do not see our way to accept a settlement on those lines.
1381 We are told that the Bill as amended by us is a Bill entirely without value in the eyes of noble Lords opposite and their friends. Let me remind your Lordships that in the Bill as amended by the House of Lords we find a full admission of the principle of popular control. We find provisions which make it impossible for any denominational religious instruction to be given at the public expense. We find provisions which render Cowper-Temple teaching accessible to every child in all schools, and we find an arrangement with regard to what is commonly spoken of as "tests for teachers" which I do not gather is seriously objected to even by noble Lords opposite. I ask noble Lords opposite, are they justified in saying that a Bill containing all these provisions is a Bill which they cannot venture to recommend to the people of this country?
We have now to consider what procedure should be followed in dealing with these Amendments. It is impossible for us to accept the greater part of the Amendments proposed by the noble Earl; and at this period of the session, and with the knowledge that there is no prospect of an agreement upon this great number of points, I venture to suggest to the House that we shall not gain anything by an attempt to go through these Amendments seriatim. I see, therefore, no alternative but that we should respectfully intimate our desire to insist upon our Amendments. I say again, such a Motion carried by this House must not be taken as implying that there are no points upon which it is impossible for us to come to an agreement; but I do say it must be taken as implying that, taking the Government Amendments as a whole, we cannot accept their proposals, or anything like their proposals, as the basis of a settlement. I confess that the argument of time has some weight with me, as it no doubt has with many of your Lordships; but I, for one, say that if I saw the slightest prospect of arriving at an amicable solution of this question I would gladly prolong the session into the next year, and far into the next year. But I can see no reason for taking that step unless we have in sight the possibility of coming to terms. These 1382 Amendments, I fear, hopelessly bar the way to such an arrangement; and therefore, with the most profound regret, I stand here to move the resolution the terms of which I have already mentioned—namely, "That this House do insist upon its Amendments."
§ Moved, 'That this House do insist upon its Amendments to which the Commons have disagreed."—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.
*THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The Earl of CREWE)My Lords, the House has listened to a very clear statement of the views of the noble Marquess and of the conclusion at which he has arrived—that it is necessary to remit the Bill to the House of Commons once more in the form in which your Lordships originally sent it down. I am in complete agreement with the noble Marquess as to everything he said about the private communications which have been passing between the different sides of the House during the last day or two. Neither he nor I need have alluded to them at all, but for the fact that they have become public property through what are known as "the usual channels of communication"; and although the statements which we have seen of the course of what I must not call a conference are not strictly accurate, yet they are sufficiently public property for us to have no hesitation in alluding to them here. The only inference that the public is entitled to draw is that the Amendments which I have placed upon the Paper do not satisfy noble Lords opposite, and from that fact it is not difficult to conclude what is actually required by them.
These Amendments are to be rejected in globo, and the Bill is to be sent back to the House of Commons. I deliberately refrain from indulging in the rather obvious tu quoque that you are doing to the House of Commons what the House of Commons did to you. I think the noble Marquess made out, in the circumstances, a reasonable case for doing what he proposes to do. The alternative would be to take the Amendments seriatim; and there is no doubt, in view of the fact 1383 that it has been found impossible to come, I am afraid, even near to an agreement on more than one matter in the Bill, that course would involve a waste of time from which at this season of the year the mind naturally recoils. Therefore I am perfectly willing to believe that it is in an entirely businesslike spirit that your Lordships send the Bill back in this way, and although I admit that the circumstances were not identical, yet I assert that it was in a businesslike spirit that the House of Commons sent back the Amendments to your Lordships in globo.
It is too much to expect that the Paper circulated in my name this morning can have been carefully studied by all of your Lordships. The form in which the Amendments are treated is difficult to follow for those who have not a perfect acquaintance with the Bill; and probably it will be in conformity with the wishes of the House if I state the general effect of the Amendments. But I desire to correct at once an error into which the noble Marquess seems to have fallen. He spoke of my "passing over" certain Amendments "in silence." It must be assumed that we concur in the retention of every Amendment as to which I do not move that your Lordships shall not insist upon it. I am sure the noble Marquess will not wish to misrepresent our attitude, but it obviously would not be fair to draw no distinction between Amendments of that kind and Amendments upon which we actually move the non-insistence. I am not going to run through the whole of the Bill, but there are one or two important subjects, rather than clauses, to which I desire to draw the attention of the House. As regards the Amendment of Clause 1, on the subject of religious instruction, it is perfectly true that we move to disagree with that Amendment. But at the same time I am bound to say that I do not think that the Amendment of itself would have offered an insuperable obstacle to an agreement between the two parties, or that it was impossible to find a form of words which in some degree might have met the wishes of noble Lords opposite without dictating to the local education authorities upon a matter in which, it is only right to remember, they have exercised an absolute discretion for the past thirty-six years.
1384 I pass to the facilities under Clause 3 I desire to deal with the points raised by the noble Marquess. It must always be remembered that we have never attempted to conceal the fact that one of the main principles of our Bill is that these schools should be undenominational schools as compared with Clause 4 schools. One difficulty that was raised is the difficulty attempted to be met by the Duke of Devonshire's Amendment. That Amendment, with regard to the taking over of schools for the purpose of Clause 3, left to the Commissioners complete discretion in saying that those schools must be taken over; but they were to be guided by the wishes of the parents with regard to the religious education of the children. In our opinion that went too far. We could not help seeing that, if the wishes of the parents were to be taken as paramount in this matter, there would in practically every case be a certain number of parents who would express a wish with regard to the religious education of their children, with the ultimate result that a very large number of schools which could just scrape through the ordeal of being pronounced structurally suitable would be forcibly taken over, although it could not be said that they were needed for the education of the district, in any other sense except that they supplied a denominational want.
Consequently we proposed an alternative method for dealing with the matter. What we proposed was this—that where an order is made requiring the local education authority to give facilities, and the Commissioners are satisfield that the school is structurally suitable and is required or is likely to be required for providing a sufficient number of school places, then an order may be made. I draw particular attention to the words "is required or likely to be required." They are intended to meet a difficulty raised by the most rev. Primate. He said that there are towns in which there are a number of Church schools but also a number of council schools with a large proportion of vacant places. The school authorities, foreseeing the probability of the growth of their towns, built at one time schools with more places than were at the moment required; and if the local authority wanted to prevent these Church 1385 schools from being taken over as facility schools they might fill up the council schools with the children from the Church schools. That is a point which we felt might in fairness be met, and we thought that it would be reasonable on the part of the Commission to say to the local authority, "It is true you have these vacant places, but you have deliberately provided them with the idea of gradually filling them up as your town increases; it is not reasonable to extinguish these Church schools in order, so to speak, that you should fill your own up by a large windfall of children who only come on your hands through the operation of this Act; so we take into account your original purpose in making this excessive number of places, but we do not treat these places as being accommodation in the sense in which accommodation is ordinarily described; therefore these being good schools, we oblige you to take them over." In our opinion that was a substantial concession, and would have met a large proportion of those cases of denominational schools which did not come under Clause 4. Whether that would have met the views of the noble Duke I cannot say; but it is evident that it is one of the things which noble Lords opposite did not consider to be a sufficient concession, though in our opinion it was a very real one.
Now I come to the vexed question of the teacher. I will read you the clause we propose about the teacher in these ordinary facility schools—
(2) The local education authority may, if they think fit, permit an assistant teacher to give any religious instruction of a special character not permitted under Section 14 of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, in any school in which facilities for that instruction (although not extended facilities) are afforded under this Act, provided that the authority shall not give that permission in any school in a parish in a rural district which is the only public elementary school in the parish, except in cases where such a school provides accommodation for more than 250 children, and the authority think that the circumstances of the school justify the permission.Your Lordships will observe that the whole matter was left absolutely, as we were bound to leave it, to the discretion of the local authority, that only the assistant teacher could give the teaching, and that the smaller rural schools were to be ex- 1386 cluded. We did not, and do not, say that there is any magic about the number 250. We find that if the number 250 were left there are in England and Wales 410 large country schools that would get the benefit of the teaching of these assistant teachers. If 200 were taken as the limit—and I suppose we should not have lost the Bill for 200—altogether 765 schools would obtain the advantage of that teaching. If that is not a substantial concession, and one which we gave, I confess, with great searchings of heart, it seems to me to be very difficult to say what can be called a concession at all. Noble Lords opposite demand this privilege for all schools, of whatever size, both in town and country—that every teacher should be allowed to give the instruction, if he is willing, and that it should be a statutory obligation on the authority to allow it to be given. We thought that what the most rev. Primate and noble Lords asked for was that the facilities should be real in the sense that it should not be possible to say, "Here is a large urban school in which it is really a mockery to offer these facilities, because we cannot find volunteers to give it."The noble Marquess opposite said that the teachers demanded this permission. I think the noble Marquess is going far beyond the mark in making that assertion. No doubt a certain number of teachers demand it; but the statement has not been contradicted that among the whole body of teachers there is a majority who would prefer not to receive the privilege. The interest of the whole of this business to me consists in this fact: taken in conjunction with the previous Amendment it practically means that any Church school could demand to be taken over; it simply means that the majority of this House mean these Clause 3 schools to be absolutely denominational schools. You cannot get away from that fact; that is the absolutely unbridgable gulf that lies between noble Lords and ourselves, and it is one over which we have been, as is clear, unable to find any passage. After all the sole difference between these schools as noble Lords want to make them in the Bill and the schools as they are now, consists, on the one hand, that rent is paid for them by the authority and the 1387 authority undertakes the repairs, and on the other hand, they have to run the risk of not getting a Church teacher. If they do, there is apparently to be no difference in future in the conduct of the schools. All I can say is that this only shows how perfectly hopeless it was from the first to attempt to come to any agreement on this subject. To vote money for such a purpose as that is a deliberate mockery. To ask the local authority possibly to increase their rates, to ask the Exchequer for a grant of £1,000,000 in order to carry out a transaction of that kind, is nothing lesthan a farce.
I come now to Clause 4. The noble Marquess spoke of the small number of schools under Clause 4 as we intended to leave them; but noble Lords opposite made them anything but exceptions. They made them almost the rule, and I think it cannot be disputed that even the Amendments I have placed on the Paper, some of which, in my opinion, go very far indeed, add largely to the number of these schools. What is the effect of these Amendments? We have altogether given up the restriction of the urban area, to say nothing about the 5,000 limit. We have tried as far as we could to meet the point about the small number of recalcitrant parents who could prevent a school from being made a Clause 4 school at all. On that point I should like to say a word. I am not sure that the noble Marquess did not himself fall into the error of saying that these parents could prevent the school from becoming a Clause 4 school. Ten parents could not demand to be accommodated in that particular school. Not only would the parents have to object to the teaching, but the local authority would have, even though accommodation existed elsewhere, deliberately to keep them there. That, of course, is a very different matter from saying that ten parents could spoil a Clause 4 school.
Then we gave a prior right of admission to children belonging to the denomination—in my opinion a very real concession indeed. We gave the parents' committee, and as regards that committee we gave a concession of the most far-reaching character, and one which I am bound to say we should have found, in my belief, considerable difficulty in getting our 1388 supporters to accept. The provision to be inserted would read—
In every public elementary school in which extended facilities are afforded under this Act the local education authority shall appoint persons acceptable to the parents' committee to be teachers in the school, and for that purpose shall consult with the committee as to such appointment.If I am asked exactly how we reconcile the words of that clause with the general rule of "no tests for teachers," I confess that I am in a difficulty. I am bound to admit that it must be, owing to the very special circumstances, treated as an exception to that excellent rule. We gave an appeal to the parents against the refusal to institute a Clause 4 school or against a refusal to continue it. That, I think, disposes of the argument of the noble Marquess that we leave the word "may" instead of inserting the word "shall." If you give an appeal in each case it does not appear to be very important whether the word "may" or "shall" stands part of the Bill.We gave way on the number of four-fifths. I have placed the number three-fourths on the Paper, but I do not know that we would have lost the Bill over the question of three-fourths. But we did stand out, and we should stand out to the last, for the necessity that it should be a proportion of the whole number of parents, and not merely of those who go to the poll. The noble Marquess, owing to the point which I mentioned earlier, fell into an error as to the teacher being compelled to give religious teaching. He did not see the Amendment on the Paper. As a matter of fact it is not one of those Amendments with which I would ask your Lordships to disagree; and therefore I assume that the House will insist upon it, and therefore we must be taken as agreeing to the Amendment that the local education authority must permit the teachers employed in the school to give the teaching. In addition to that we gave the possibility of what I hope would be a complete system of inspection in all transferred schools, and we gave up, some of us unwillingly, the clause which made it not necessary for children to attend school during the hours of religious instruction.
1389 It is perfectly true we did not give way, and we never should have given way under any circumstances, on the absolute right to be taken over claimed by any structurally efficient voluntary school. We never could have given way to the demand of noble Lords opposite about the teachers. We could not give way—having made these denominational schools, as we think, so numerous and so liberally provided for—to any invasion of the council schools by denominational education. We were not prepared, and certainly never should have been prepared under any circumstances, to give way to what the noble Marquess (Lord Lansdowne) proposed—the absolutely indefinite multiplication of Clause 4 schools, including possibly some the smallest village schools in the country.
And on the question of Wales, I can only say that noble Lords opposite treated our proposition with mere contempt. They altogether refused our invitation to make some counter-proposition with regard to what we did and do consider to be the fair claims of Wales to some separate sort of treatment in this matter; and consequently I am unable to agree with the insistence of the omission of the Welsh clause.
This is how the matter stands. I have gone through all the principal Amendments, and I am content to leave it to the judgment of all moderate and reasonable people whether they do not represent a very large scale of concession indeed. There are, no doubt, a certain number of blind partisans and a certain number of amiable zealots who would accept nothing except that which appeared to them not merely reasonable but satisfying their own peculiar wishes. To such I make no kind of appeal. But I do appeal to the common sense of moderate people, both inside and outside this House, as to whether the concessions which I have indicated would not have formed a compromise acceptable to the vast majority of the people of this country. All I know is that in attempting to arrive at this conclusion we have strained the loyalty of many of our most valued supporters almost to the point of snapping. For all I know it has 1390 absolutely snapped in more than one case; I only hope it will be restored.
I frankly confess that there is more concession in these Amendments than personally I like; but as a member of the Government I of course not merely accept but advance them, and I believe that is in the main the attitude of the Members of our Party. Many of them think we have gone too far in conceding so much, but they are prepared to accept it. But only on one condition—the only condition on which we could have gone so far as we have, and that is that it should be as part of a definite settlement and accepted as such by the Party opposite. I hope no noble Lord or right rev. Prelate is under the illusion that these concessions are, so to speak, thrown down on the floor of this House, to be picked up whenever the Party opposite may condescend to stoop for them. That, my Lords, would be a most serious illusion.
One of the reasons why I specially regret the failure of this Bill is this. After all, my Lords, there is a tide in the affairs of Bills which, if you take it, may lead you into the habour, but if you do not take it the tide does not always recur. I am unwilling to prophesy in political matters, because there is nothing so dangerous; but I should be very much surprised if the time ever comes when either I myself or anybody else is found urging the claims of this identical Bill, including these Amendments of mine, in this place. I should be very sorry to prophesy that anybody in the immediate future would be found urging any Bill on this subject. All one can say is that these special proposals are gone and cleared away. As to the reappearance of any of them we can say nothing.
It only remains for me to thank the House as a whole for the remarkable consideration which has been extended to me personally all through these debates and to thank my noble friends behind me, both official and unofficial, for the admirable measure of support which they gave me during the progress of the Bill. Noble Lords and right rev. Prelates have chosen war in this matter rather than peace. Your Lordships have chosen to open the sluice-gates and to 1391 let free the flood of sectarian unrest and religious passion. What that flood may destroy and sweep away in its course I am not going to attempt to predict. But I think it exceedingly likely that during the coming months a great many very harsh things will be said on both sides, and I am afraid some harsh things may be done. Our task is simply to administer as we may the existing law. But this I do say in conclusion, that we on this side of the House, and His Majesty's Government, whatever the consequences may be, deliberately refuse to accept one ounce of the burden of responsibility for the rejection of this measure. We leave the whole of it on the shoulders of noble Lords opposite and the right reverend Bench, who have chosen to wreck the Bill.
*THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYMy Lords, I am not going to follow the two eminent speakers who have addressed us into the particulars of the Amendments which now stand upon the Paper in connection with this Bill. Their speeches have been most lucid and have brought out the points upon which, to my great disappointment, agreement has been found impossible. Still less, of course, do I feel it to be appropriate to enter into the constitutional questions, if we may call them so, which have arisen as regards the relations of the two Houses and the action of each in this matter. I desire rather to say a few words about the general situation which has been brought about. Perhaps your Lordships will the more readily pardon me for doing so, as I was prevented, owing to circumstances over which I had no control, from being in your Lordships' House either on the Report stage or on the Third Reading of the Bill.
I speak to-night with an intense feeling of disappointment. I had, I own, looked forward, I will not say confidently, but at least hopefully, to a different conclusion of our long discussions, a conclusion or settlement which must in any case have been a very hard one for the Church of England and for the workers in her schools, but which still, I trusted, might take such a form that we could accept it rather than let the intolerable, hateful strife go on. 1392 For such a solution, my Lords, I hoped against hope; and I have, in so far as in me lay, striven even to the point of putting to a test the confidence of some of my best friends, and this because I was, and am, profoundly convinced that, in view of the largest issues in English, life, it was desirable to secure such a settlement if only the conditions attainable should be such as to satisfy the principles of fairness and justice.
Nothing can, my Lords, in the long run be gained by the removal of one grievance, great or small, merely to establish another, both greater in its range, and, as I think, heavier in its incidence. When this Bill was before us last August I was one of those who urged, contrary again, to the advice of not a few friends, that we ought to read it a second time, with the view of subsequently amending it, and that its ultimate fate ought to depend upon the acceptance by the Government, substantially and after joint discussion, of such Amendments as this House should deem to be essential. I did that in the interest of a possible settlement, notwithstanding that I deplored very much both details and principles that underlay the measure. From that time onwards, if I may refer to myself, I have striven, so far as I was concerned, to bring about some arrangement which would be honourable or, at least, tolerable, to all parties concerned.
Until within these last few hours I was hopeful; but it has proved to be in vain; for unless the Government could have seen its way to meet us in what I am convinced are reasonable demands, on certain large and important questions, and, above all, on the question of teachers, we had better—I say it reluctantly—we had better, whatever the risks and disadvantages, have no Bill. A Bill, my Lords, marred by blemishes so grave could be no real settlement, and, therefore, ought not, as it seems to me, to have been in that form even desired by His Majesty's Government themselves. You cannot conduce to a settlement by removing grievances and disadvantages, acutely felt—whether reasonable or not is a matter of comparative indifference—but acutely felt by one section of the nation, on to the shoulders 1393 of another section of the nation which must feel and resent them not less acutely. That is one thing which, speaking for myself, though I am sure I may associate others with me, I have borne in mind throughout the whole of our debates and proposals. But that is not all.
Quite apart from questions of grievance to teachers or contributors and donors, or to the denominations who have such large interests in the highest and deepest part of the work of our elementary schools, quite apart from all that, we have tried to keep before our eyes a clear vision of the purpose and aim of it all—the best upbringing of little children, the best upbuilding of their | character, the best furnishing, of them to be useful Christian citizens of a Christian land. To that result we have looked throughout, and to that practical end we have striven, in the proposals we have made and in the Amendments, which we have supported. We ask for no privilege or advantage for one section, or one denomination, over another. We want, and have pressed for, absolutely equal opportunities—subject, of course, to the ordinary conditions of our common life—to be open to all.
What has the House of Lords done or tried to do by its Amendments? Never, it seems to me, was there a case in which wider misconception prevailed. I do no think the reason is very far to seek. The complexity, the technicality, the difficulty of this whole subject have daunted most people from even trying to follow in detail what has been done, More than nine men out of ten are at the mercy of the partisan speaker or writer who summarizes for them in his own airy way what he calls the gist or substance of what has happened. Something has been done during the last few days to diminish that difficulty, but the difficulty is there still. A prominent speaker in the House of Commons a few days ago began his speech, I think, somewhat as follows—
The Archbishop of Canterbury, in speaking at an earlier stage of this Bill, said that he and his friends did not propose to make or to support wrecking Amendments,and he went on—Now everybody knows what has happened since.1394 My Lords, that is exactly what I think is not the case. Everybody does not know what has happened since; because it is exceedingly difficult to arrive at it without a far more prolonged and careful study than, I will not say one man out of ten, but one man out of a hundred will give to a matter so intricate as this is. I ask your Lordships to judge by your own experience of intercourse with friends in Parliament or out of it, and to say whether you have not found that a very large proportion of these people honestly confess that they have not been able to follow the matter in detail. That is the case; and I have looked back—on the suggestion of the speech, perhaps to which I have referred—to my own words on the Second Reading of this Bill in order to see whether during these long discussions one has inadvertently, in the course of the controversy, drifted away from the position one originally held and has become either stiffer or less reasonable than one tried to be at the outset. I have found nothing of the sort.I apologise for referring to a speech of my own, but it was a speech to which a great deal of friendly reference was made by supporters of the Bill at the time it was delivered. At that time I endeavoured to say quite frankly what were the large lines upon which, as it seemed to me, it would be necessary to amend this Bill if it were ultimately to prove a measure, I will not say acceptable, but even tolerable to those whom it affected. I asked that we should have some security that every Christian parent sending his child to an elementary school might count upon—not hope for it, but count upon it—that in the school curriculum some opportunity would be given for religious teaching. That has not been acceded to by his Majesty's Government, although we have heard words to-night which tell us that it might not have been impossible to have gained that point.
Then—perhaps the most important point of all—I pressed that if those facilities in transferred schools on which rightly so much stress was laid by the Government were to be a reality, at all events in our larger schools, it was essential that the teacher who should volunteer to do so should be allowed to give the teaching where it could be 1395 done consistently with the general working and management of the school. Were that not done, I said then, and I feel it as strongly still, that the offer of facilities for denominational teaching would, in our larger schools at least, become almost a matter of empty form.
In the speech of the noble Earl to which we have just listened I was surprised to hear him say that, if the teachers had been allowed thus to volunteer, the transferred schools would practically have been almost exactly the same as they are now. That seems to me to be an example of a misconception and misunderstanding which has throughout the discussion underlain a great deal of what has been said by the supporters of this measure. They have failed to realise how extensive, how far-reaching, how terribly severe is the sweep that is made of the character which has belonged hitherto to our elementary schools under the management of those who have hitherto had control of them.
What becomes of the appointment of the teachers? That is taken away from us in any case. The whole management of the school in its ordinary daily work is taken away from us in any case. The "facilities" are to extend to two days only, and the lack of elasticity that would result as regards the ordinary working of religious teaching is evident at once to anyone who is an expert in school management. Please recollect, my Lords, that I am not objecting to these changes; we accepted them, we have agreed to them. But to tell us now that to allow the teacher to give the teaching in these schools two days a week when he volunteers to do it, and it is convenient to the rest of the management of the school—to tell us that this is to leave the school exactly as it now is, is to misconceive the whole effect of the Bill.
Further, in the speech alluded to, I urged that in the special schools arranged for under Clause 4 the arrangements should not be fettered by such conditions as should make their attainment or their permanence in many cases practically impossible. To some extent, I fully admit, the noble Earl and his colleagues have gone some way to meet us; but there remain 1396 a number of difficulties of that sort which I confess would, in my judgment, reduce to a very small number indeed the schools under Church of England management which would have been able to find their place under Clause 4.
Then, further, if you enact, as you do—and I am not complaining of it, on the contrary I welcome it—that every parent in England shall have within his reach the opportunity of sending his children to a school in which the teaching shall be of the simpler kind which he may desire, there does seem to be, if you transform the character of the existing schools in order to bring that about, a corresponding responsibility on the other side to endeavour in some way or other to meet the difficulty which will arise and grow to an intensity not yet adequately realised, the intensity of feeling of wrong and loss on the part of the parents equally keen and earnest on the other side, who will have no corresponding opportunity for their children in districts in which there are council schools and nothing else.
These, together with some reasonable security that a fit denominational school should be able to count on being taken over, were the proposals I tried to foreshadow as those which I should support. Will any fair man say these were wrecking proposals? They were within the four corners of the Bill in every sense of the word. They were not wrecking Amendments in any way that that word can be properly applied. They do not lie outside the principles of the Bill. These form the substance of the Amendments we tried to make. In a measure so long, so complex, and dealing with such a mass of administrative details, there were a great many other things needing consideration and suggesting Amendment, and needing it all the more because very many of them had never been discussed in the other House of Parliament at all. We did think it right—I thought it respectful in every sense to the House of Commons—that we should go through those parts of the Bill carefully; and I think the Government recognised that we were right in so doing by themselves placing on the Paper no small number of the Amendments with which it was sent 1397 down to the other House for consideration there.
It may possibly interest your Lordships to know what were the sources from which the various Amendments emanated which found a place in the Bill as it went down. As I reckon them there were eighty-three Amendments in the Bill, leaving aside drafting or purely consequential Amendments, which were forty three in number. Of these Amendments the noble Earl the Lord President was responsible for nearly one-third—that is to say, twenty-six out of eighty-three; and, taking in the drafting Amendments, he was responsible for almost one-half. The front Opposition bench was responsible for.twenty, independent Opposition peers for twenty-two, Roman Catholic peers for seven, the Episcopal bench for seven, most of which, I think, have been accepted by the Government, and one Amendment emanated from an independent peer on the Ministerial side. Thus the Government were responsible for 31 per cent. of the Amendments, apart altogether from thirty-seven other drafting Amendments which were carried on the Motion of Lord Crewe.
It is constantly said outside the House, and not infrequently in both Houses, that the Amendments we introduced were contrary to the principles for which the country declared at the general election. These principles were two, and two only—the principle of full popular control and the principle of the freedom of teachers as such from tests. If it can be shown that any one of our Amendments really directly traverses either the one or the other of those two principles I, at least, should not be prepared to support that Amendment. But there are, of course, many different ways of giving effect to those two principles, and of necessity no declaration was given to the country before the general election as to how this thing was going to be done, and I urge that it is completely misleading for anybody to say that this Bill as it stood ever had the imprimatur of the constituencies of England.
I do not want to dwell again on the principle of no tests for teachers. I think we have all accepted that, and I have only striven 1398 to draw attention to the distinction, which is constantly overlooked, between the appointment of a teacher as an once of a school and the appointment of a man who is to give religious teaching. As regards the former, I am prepared to admit that no test shall be imposed; but as regards the assigning to a man or woman the duty of giving religious teaching, I am literally unable to understand the position of those who say that those responsbile for the choosing of the person to give that teaching should be prohibited from finding out the qualifications of those who are to give it.
I turn to the principle of full popular control. Surely there is a field for the widest possible misunderstanding as to the meaning of the words, and a wholly novel claim as to what they really mean has been authoritatively put forward within the last few days by no less a person than the Minister for Education. He said in the House of Commons last Monday—
In all those thickly-populated districts, those places where the mind of England is made up, those bodies"—(he was speaking of county, city, and borough councils—)have become infected with a lofty ambition. They are determined to municipalise education from top to bottom; to get hold of complete control over all the machinery of education from the infant school to the University.If these words are taken literally they would imply that Eton was to be under the control of the County Council of Bucks, Harrow under the County Council of Middlesex, and Liverpool University under the control of the council of the borough. I do not suppose that the words were literally intended; but they seem to me to describe a demand on the part of the local education authority which, if it was ever made, and I have never heard any authority make it, is so startling, so novel, that I desire to call attention to it now. It seems to me to ignore in the very strangest way the place of the chief paymaster in the schools, which is the State as represented by the Houses of Parliament. Has the country ever asked that such complete autocracy, such complete omnipotence shall be placed in the hands of the local education authority without 1399 control by Parliament as regards any of the details?But let us suppose that you do recognise that claim. I ask, do you, as a matter of fact, try to grant it? You do nothing of the sort. Under the Bill and under previous legislation these authorities are absolutely prohibited from exercising the freedom claimed for them except in one direction. On the one side is a barbed wire fence of the closest sort. On the other is the open country into which they can go as far as they will. The barbed wire side is that which may seem to lead to denominational teaching of any kind, direct or indirect. The other is the direction which may lead the school away from religious teaching altogether. In that direction they are left perfectly free. Under the Cowper-Temple clause they may grant no facilities for any form of religious teaching save one, and in the transferred schools, which you are now placing under them, there is to be no power on their part to allow the head teacher to give the special teaching, and no power in a rural area to allow any teacher to give it at all. I am not asking at this moment whether it is a right decision or a wrong one, but I put it alongside the claim which is made for autocracy on the part of the local authority. Is that carrying out the definition laid down by Mr. Birrell? Is that real liberty? To claim it as the giving of absolute freedom to the municipalities seems to me unmeaning.
Every year there is published by the Education Office the Code for that year. It has the force of an Act of Parliament, and it bristles at every turn with restrictions on the local authority. That does not correspond with the claim which is being made so loudly that the local education authority must be absolutely free. Every public elementary school serves a national as well as a local purpose, and the State is the chief paymaster, and I maintain that the nation in Parliament has the right to lay down the leading principles of educational policy to which the local authority ought to conform. That most local education authorities welcome such guidance I am certain. I yield to no one in my admiration for the way in which 1400 most of our local authorities, many of them recently under quite extraordinary difficulties, have done their work, and I do not think we shall conduce to that; work being better done by following the lines which the Minister of Education suggested.
This question of the teacher, on which so much turns, is not a, detail but part of a very big principle. You make that, vital question upon which will depend the efficiency or inefficiency of your "Clause 3" facilities depend altogether on the discretion of the local education authorities. There is nothing to prevent any municipal authority from saying—"We intend that there shall be no teacher here giving the facilities teaching under Clause 3." They may do so from no malice prepense but simply from the utterly mistaken idea that by so refusing they will be avoiding worry and strife. They may say simply—" We do not desire that any teacher under our control shall give that teaching;" and the moment that is said your facilities, on which you rest your claim to have acted fairly towards Church schools, are swept away and gone for all practical purposes.
No educational system is truly representative of our national life unless if regards within due limits the claim of (1) the nation, (2) the locality, (3) the parent, and (4) the Christian community to which the parents belong. Our business as legislators is to assign to each, of these its proper weight and influence, and any attempted solution which ignores the claim of anyone of them is foredoomed to failure. This year the English people have come to realise, as I think they never did before, the complexity and difficulty of this problem. I think the Bill fails to realise that, fails certainly to recognise the depth of the attachment felt by hundreds of thousands of families to schools carried on with, I think, universal approval in close association with a great religious body.
The Bill proposes through a false idea of freedom to impose on thousands of teachers an intolerable restraint in their teaching of religion. The Bill ignores the conviction of a vast majority of Englishmen and women that (with due 1401 protection of conscience, on which we all insist) religious teaching ought to form part of the regular work in school hours of every elementary school. I admit that after your Lordships had amended the Bill so as to bring that teaching within school hours the Government have not asked for that Amendment to be struck out; but as the Bill came to this House it omitted that large and vital principle in the carrying on of religious education. During these long discussions that great principle has stood out more clearly than before.
Deeply do I regret our failure to reach an agreement on matters of such vital importance to our national life. The earnest effort which certainly very many of us had made to secure an educational settlement has to my intense sorrow proved ineffective. I do most strongly protest against the words spoken by my noble friend the Lord President of the Council when he said that we had chosen war rather than peace. Those words were for him strangely unfair. I desire with all my heart peace rather than war.
§ *THE EARL OF CREWEI think I ought to state that those words had no personal application to the most rev. Primate. Quite the contrary.
*THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYI accept my noble friend's assurance. I think, however, that there are occasions on which there are more important issues even than peace. A great utterance was made by one of the most conspicuous men now alive a week or two ago—the President of the United States. In his message he used these words—
Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness; but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual.I think those words have a profound significance in the present controversy if by righteousness we mean, as I should mean, the principles of fairness and of justice to those who have laboured long and hard in a cause which has been nearer to their hearts than any other thing on earth.1402 I should like to end with a word of hope. Something, I think, has been gained. People think about this more than they did; and, so thinking, we are being led, as I believe—not now, I know not when—to a solution which shall be larger and more true than this attempted solution would have been had we attained it. To such a solution I think we shall some day come, a solution which shall wound no conscience, which shall meet the convictions of different sections of the community, and shall promote the religious unity of the nation—I earnestly hope that day may not be far off—by granting a full measure of religious freedom in our educational life.
§ THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIREMy Lords, I ask leave to address to the House a very few words. I have no intention of attempting to follow my noble friend behind me or the noble Earl opposite in the numerous details of this measure; still less have I any intention of following the most rev. Primate into the far wider considerations which he has introduced in the eloquent speech to which we have just listened.
I rise solely for the purpose of making one or two observations on a much smaller point, and to say why to my very great regret I feel myself unable to concur in the course which has been recommended to us to-night on this side of the House. My noble friend referred to certain communications which it is in the knowledge of every one have been in progress during the last few days, and enumerated a very large number of subjects on which an agreement had not been arrived at and a large number of points which remained in the Bill untouched by the Amendments of the Government, to which he took strong exception. But I did not understand my noble friend to say that on any of those points but one had it been found that it was impossible that an agreement should be arrived at. I did not understand him to say that all of them had even been discussed, and I certainly.did not understand from him that it had been found that on any large number an agreement was absolutely impossible.
1403 It has been stated in the Press, and I think the statement of my noble friend tended to corroborate that statement, that there was one point on which agreement has been found to be absolutely impossible, and that disagreement on that one point has been so pronounced and distinct that it was useless to waste time on going into a further examination of the other points to which my noble friend referred. If that statement is correct, or has any approach to correctness, it is against the severance of communications or rupture of negotiations that I desire to protest. In my opinion a very sharp distinction exists and ought to be drawn between those provisions of the Bill which relate to the transfer of schools, such provisions as are contained in Clauses 2 and, I think, 10, 11, and 12, and those which relate to the future management of the schools which are transferred.
As the Bill reached us it would have been entirely within the option of the local authority whether certain voluntary schools should or should not be transferred at all, and the schools which had to been taken over by the local authority would by a certain date have ceased to exist and would never have been resuscitated and would have been replaced by schools provided by the local authority. On this point we have secured very considerable concessions from the Government. We have secured that every existing voluntary school, whether it is a school for which Clause 3 or Clause 4 facilities are desired, should have an appeal from the decision of the local authority to the Commission to be appointed under the Bill, the fairness and impartiality of which have been universally recognised. I would not say that the conditions of that appeal are entirely satisfactory or entirely adequate for the protection of all existing voluntary schools; but I did not understand that upon that point the last word of the Government had been spoken, or that upon that point, or anything approaching that point, communications broke down.
The provisions relating to the future management of transferred schools seem to me to belong to a very different category. Of the highest importance as 1404 some of those provisions are, they are not and cannot by their nature be of a final character, and their effect and operation can only be tested by experience of their working. Under these circumstances, they must be to a large extent, certainly to some extent, subject to future revision by Parliament. I cannot altogether agree with what fell from the Lord President of the Council when he said that if the compromise proposed by the Government had been found to be practicable, it would only have been on condition that the Bill should be taken as an agreed Bill, by which I imagine he intended that this should be a complete and final settlement of the whole question.
§ *THE EARL OF CREWEI think that perhaps I ought to correct the noble Duke. What I intended by that phrase was that the Opposition should be willing to drop all their substantial Amendments in consideration of the concessions offered by this side of the House.
§ THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIREThe Opposition might have dropped their Amendments, and, if a compromise had been arrived at, they would have done so. But it was not for noble Lords opposite, nor upon this side, nor within the power of this Parliament, to secure that any agreement or compromise which might be arrived at in the present session should necessarily become a permanent or a final settlement. If the rumour to which I have referred that it was on the point of the teachers in the Clause 3 schools that this suggested compromise finally broke down is true, then I say that is a point which eminently comes within the category of the second class of provisions to which I have referred. That was a provision relating to the future management of these schools, and, in my opinion, it is one of those provisions which would most probably have come up very shortly for review in another session of Parliament. I believe that both the original arrangement, and the amended arrangement proposed by the Government would have been found unsatisfactory, and in many cases so unworkable that the local authorities and the teachers themselves would have been the first to require some alteration and amendment of the clause. Therefore 1405 I say that insistence upon the special form of this clause was not a point on which I should have considered it necessary to impose a summary conclusion to the negotiations.
But, be that as it may, I admit I am so impressed by the prospect of uncertainty and doubt over the future of our voluntary schools—and, indeed, over the possibility of the effective continuance of real religious teaching in our elementary schools at all in the future—thatpersonally I should have been inclined to make almost any concession in provisions which were not of an irrevocable character rather than relegate the decision of this question to another session of the present Parliament or the next which would have to deal with this subject. But I know very well the difficulties which my noble friends behind me would have had in dealing with their supporters in either House of Parliament, and, perhaps still more, in the country if they had been disposed to take my view. Considering the enormous importance which has been attached throughout these discussions to these special provisions respecting the teachers, I know it would have been very difficult for them to have made any concession or shown any sign of yielding upon this point. I have received, as no doubt your Lordships have, a vast number of letters, memorials, and representations upon this subject; and I acknowledge that not one out of ten—I should say nearer, not one in a hundred has been in the direction of conciliation, but rather in the direction of refusing any concession. I am, however, not at all certain that after a very short time has elapsed, when these more or less irresponsible advisers have had greater experience of the results which will follow the loss of this Bill, they may not regret that they have not allowed their representatives in this House a freer hand and a larger discretion. But great as the difficulties have been, none the less I feel myself obliged to raise this protest, unavailing and ineffectual as I know it to be, and belated as I am afraid I must confess it, against the decision which has been arrived at to stop communications, with the possibility of compromise upon other points, upon this solitary question of the teachers.
1406 I do not know whether we shall ever see another Education Bill in this Parliament. If we should, I trust we shall be able to approach it with a clearer perception of the great and marked distinction, to which I have called attention, between those provisions which must necessarily be permanent and irrevocable, and those other provisions which can be subjected to revision in the light of experience. Before I sit down I should like to say how fully and entirely I concur in some of the words uttered by the most rev. Primate towards the conclusion of his speech. I feel, as he feels, the amount of mischief which has been done by the large use that has been made, with imperfect consideration, of the enunciation of great principles. Almost every question that has been raised has been referred to such principles as that of public control, of no tests for teachers, and of the rights of parents. These are principles to which all of us are able to give a qualified acceptance; but, unfortunately, in enunciating those principles we all of us attach to them a totally different significance.
In my opinion, our educational system never has been founded upon any great, wide, and generally-accepted principles. I doubt very much whether it ever will be. If this Bill had been passed, either in the form in which it was originally introduced or as amended by this House, it certainly would not have conformed to any of the principles which have been laid down. I wish we could have been more unprincipled. If we could only have recognised this Bill as merely a set of regulations, a set of practical, perhaps even they might be called empirical regulations, for the future management of our public elementary schools, if we could have concentrated our attention on whether those regulations were consistent with the efficiency of education and with a sense of justice on the part of all parties concerned, and omitted all consideration of principles, I think it would have been possible to have made greater progress. I hope we shall hear less about principles and more about those practical regulations of which an Education Bill must always ultimately consist.
§ VISCOUNT GOSCHENMy Lords, I think your Lordships will sympathise with me when I say that I am as sorry to find myself in opposition to the noble Duke who has just sat down as he was to find himself in opposition to my noble friend behind me. I rise mainly to say this, that, not being a Party man—
§ VISCOUNT GOSCHENI think I may frankly say I am not a Party man. I have been drummed out of the Party. At any rate, I ask your Lordships to believe that in all I have said in this matter I have been entirely free from Party. I have simply regarded it as an educationist, and as one wishing for fair play and justice for the voluntary schools. I must really ask the House and the public to believe that in this matter I am not animated by Party; and I claim that this House has not been animated by Party. It is not fair to say that the action which has been taken by the Opposition leaders has been taken under the influence of any single individual, however powerful. Each Member on this side of the House has had a full opportunity of expressing his opinion, and it is almost a unanimous opinion at which we have arrived. I may say this, in reply to my noble friend who has just sat down, that, if his view had been taken, and if the Amendment with regard to the teachers had not been pressed, I should not have hesitated to take the same course which he has taken in the opposite sense, and I should have come forward and said that I did not see my way to agree with those who had come to the conclusion that the Bill could be passed without that Amendment.
The Amendment with regard to the teachers, though my noble friend does not attach the greatest importance to it, seems to me to be absolutely of the essence of the case. No one could have listened to the most rev. Primate without seeing how certain that is. It lies at the bottom of the whole case. In his very ingenious argument, to which I listened with great interest, my noble friend made a distinction between Amendments dealing with the future and those dealing with the present. The noble Duke would have 1408 concentrated all the necessary influence upon securing Amendments which would ensure voluntary schools being taken over, because that was a matter of present interest. If I understood him rightly, he would have postponed all that related to the future management of the schools. If that had been done, what would have happened in the interval? All the teaching by the existing teachers would have been stopped, the whole of the religious instruction would have got out of gear, and the whole of the present generation of children would have been deprived, or might have been deprived, of the instruction which they now enjoy. Would that have been a solution? Would that have been a condition of things which could have been contemplated with equanimity? From the very commencement it has always been certain that the point on which it was absolutely necessary to insist was that existing teachers should be allowed to continue to teach.
Nothing could be more extraordinary than the contention of the noble Earl the Lord President of the Council that the Clause 3 schools would, with your Lordships' Amendments, have become denominational schools. Let noble Lords remember that the management would be entirely different. No stress has been laid upon the fact that three of the managers would have been appointed by the local authority and three by the minor local authority. Therefore the whole of the management would lie in hands that might, if I may say so, be manipulated in order to prevent the leave being given to the teachers. That is a point which I do not think has been sufficiently insisted upon. At this stage, however, I do not wish to go into details, but I demur from the main point in my noble friend's speech that the teachers' question was the only point at issue. It was not the only point. My noble friend is misinformed if he imagines that with the teachers' question settled all other differences would have been settled. I have not been present at the conferences to which allusion has been made, but I have heard a great deal about them, and I believe it is acknowledged by the Lord President of the Council himself and by his friends that 1409 the chasm was much wider than the one created by the question of the teachers. I am certain that no member of His Majesty's Government will get up and say that there was a prospect of settlement in this matter if the question of the teachers had not been pressed. It is o supreme importance that no mistake of that kind should be made in the country, and that it should be known that the question of teachers was not the only one at issue.
§ *THE EARL OF CREWEAs the noble Viscount has asked that Question, I have no hesitation in saying that from the moment the negotiations began I had not the faintest expectation that they would meet with any success.
§ VISCOUNT GOSCHENAh! The noble Earl knew the minds of his colleagues. We now see the spirit in which they approached the conference.
*THE EARL OF CKEWEI cannot allow that statement to pass. It was the attitude of noble Lords opposite very early in the negotiations that made me come to that conclusion.
§ VISCOUNT GOSCHENIt was the attitude of the noble Earl and his friends which very early in that conference gave to noble Lords on this side of the House the conviction that it was perfectly useless to hope for agreement. [Cheers, and Ministerial cries of "Divide," and Opposition cries of "Order."]
§ THE MARQUESS OF RIPONI would ask my noble friends behind me not to interrupt the noble Viscount. He is a man so distinguished that he is entitled to be heard with respect and in silence by your Lordships.
§ VISCOUNT GOSCHENI do not claim a hearing on any personal grounds, but I really think this is a very serious matter and one of extreme importance. I maintain, and my noble friend opposite has not contradicted me, that it was not only on the teachers' question that difference existed. I do not think the noble Duke would have been entitled to say, even if that were the case, that the negotiations ought to have been carried on; 1410 but I maintain that the chasm was much wider and that no efforts on the part of noble Lords on this side of the House could have produced a settlement acceptable in view of the attitude taken by His Majesty's Government. I give the Government credit for wishing to give more, but their supporters would not let them.
I will not intrude any further observations upon the House except to say this, that there has been in the House of Commons and in a certain portion of the Press a tone of menace with reference to Church schools which I greatly deplore. It has not found much expression in the courteous speeches of the Lord President of the Council, but in the concluding words of the noble Earl I did detect a tone of menace when he said that no doubt harsh things would be done. What does that mean? One cannot read much, perhaps, into those five simple words; but when one sees that it has been said out of doors that by administrative action pressure is to be brought on the schools in order to secure by administration that which Parliament will not grant, then I think those words derive some significance. Surely it cannot be the intention of His Majesty's Government to say that by administrative action they will do, because of the rejection of this Bill, what otherwise they would not have thought it necessary to do; that because of the rejection of this Bill they will put such penal pressure on voluntary schools that those schools will be squeezed out. I want to know: Is sectarian animosity to be enthroned in the Board of Education in order to carry out the views of a Parliamentary majority? However that may be, the Church and the denominations must face the difficulty and must look those threats in the face. The Church, at all events for the present, retains its 12,000 schools, and it will be the business of the Church, by increased exertion, by increased enthusiasm, and by increased sacrifices, if necessary, to see that she keeps the same position of respect and confidence which she has established in the country, so that when fresh attacks come it will be found that the Church has not been asleep, but has lone its utmost, in these troublous times, 1411 to maintain the schools which have been founded by the exertions of the past, and which will be continued by similar exertions in the future.
THE DUKE OF NORFOLKI do not wish to detain the House for more than two minutes. I should be very sorry, however, if the debate closed without my expressing the sincere feeling of myself and those who share my religious views, that undoubtedly the Government have taken a very great step towards meeting our wishes in the Amendment which they have put down upon the Paper with regard to the appointment of teachers. I cannot say that it is absolutely satisfactory, because it hardly safeguards the question of the religious teaching upon which we feel so keenly; but I do appreciate the fact that the Government have made a very distinct effort to meet our wishes. I think that my co-religionists would be disappointed and sorry if I did not publicly express that feeling. At the same time I do most sincerely regret that, while they have given that boon to those interested in Clause 4 schools, they have not seen their way to go still further, and remove the barriers in the way of entering under Clause 8. I am bound to say that it was distinctly disappointing to find, on looking through the Amendments of the noble Earl the President of the Council, that that matter had not been dealt with. I admit that on the fraction question the Government has shown that it is prepared to give something, but it is only a small part of what is really required. On the two Amendments of Lord Lansdowne and Lord Crewe the attitude of the House has been equally rigid. The first one was with regard to the number of those voting. This put nearly one-fifth of our schools in instant and serious jeopardy. The Amendment of Lord Lansdowne, which was negatived, the House preferring that of Lord Crewe, would have made it possible at any time when there was no school available of the character required, for any two or three parents, who had among them ten children, entirely to destroy all our facilities with regard to Clause 4 schools. With regard to future schools that is a question of enormous importance. 1412 By the Amendments carried in this House it was rendered impossible to have any fore-knowledge in building a school whether the money would be lost or whether the school would be taken over. Those points make us feel that our view as to Clause 4 being an illusory boon have been justified to the end. It is unnecessary for me to dilate upon this point, because the noble Lord has told us to-night that it is intended that these facility schools are to be exceptions. Surely, when he said that, he must have known that his invitation to us to carry such a Bill could not be accepted, and that those who belong to the religious body to which I belong must have felt it an intolerable strain. Since the Act of 1870 we have never handed over one single school to the school boards of the country. That has been our determination in the past, and we are not likely to accept any Bill which clearly fore-dooms many of our schools to extinction. The noble Earl ended his speech with a remark which seemed to come very strangely from him, after all that we have heard. I could not use the word "threatening" to anything which fell from the noble Earl the Lord President of the Council, but there was a sinister warning in what he said. If he meant that we are to have a hard time of it, I can only say that we have had a hard time during the last sixty years. We base our claim merely upon justice, and we ask for nothing for ourselves that we do not claim for every other parent in the country; and if we are to be treated with some severity because we have adhered to what we believe to be our duty to the religious well-being of the community, we do believe and trust that our countrymen in the future will remedy this, and that ultimately our claims will be satisfied.
§ THE MARQUESS OF RIPONI cannot but regret that my noble friend Viscount Goschen should have indulged in a very unnecessary sneer at my noble friend the Lord President.
§ VISCOUNT GOSCHENI am sure that anything like a sneer was entirely absent from my intention, and I cannot 1413 imagine that what I said could be taken in that spirit.
§ THE MARQUESS OF RIPONThere is certainly some distance between my noble friend and myself, but what he said sounded exceedingly like a sneer. I am convinced that all concerned in the communications in which we have recently been engaged were animated by a sincere desire to come to a satisfactory conclusion. That desire was equally sincere on both sides. The question was a very difficult one and involved a great number of considerations, and perhaps it is not very surprising—though it is very lamentable—that they did not result in something more satisfactory than what has come about. But I cannot for a moment doubt the good faith of those who met together upon that occasion. The most rev. Prelate, at the conclusion of his eloquent speech, indulged in a hope that this question would shortly be solved—apparently, in the space of a few months or, at all events, a few years. I am afraid I cannot share that feeling of the most rev. Prelate—I wish I could. I feel penetrated with a very sincere and deep regret that this Bill is to be destroyed. No Bill is perfect and no Bill that will ever either House of Parliament will not be open to question and criticism. But the question is, as it seems to me. What lies before you if you reject this Bill? I say if you reject this Bill—I do not mean by "if" that I have the smallest doubt that this Bill will be now rejected—but if this Bill is rejected, I think you should ask yourselves, more than you appear to have done, what is to be the result. The noble Duke who was sitting on the Cross Benches (the Duke of Devonshire) is, I think, the only person who in the course of this debate has grappled with that question, and really shown that the most important point of all is, What is the future that will be left to us? That, my Lords, is the subject to which I desire to address the few words that I shall speak to your Lordships to-night. This Bill being rejected, the country is sent back to the condition created by the Act of 1902. I can conceive 1414 nothing more unfortunate, for the cause of education in all its branches, than that we should be forced to return, for any period, to conduct the educational administration of the country under the Act of 1902. Your Lordships do not seem to me to realise the position in which His Majesty's Government found themselves when they came into office. I think I touched upon that point in words which I ventured to address to your Lordships at the conclusion of the debate on Second Reading. We found ourselves in a position not of our creating and not brought about by our acts but created by our opponents—a position which had led to the gravest difficulties—difficulties so grave that your Lordships seemed to agree at least that something ought to be done in the matter. You say you have accepted the principle of public control, and you have intimated, in words, a willingness, in some form, or other, to accept the principle of no tests for teachers; therefore you have admitted that the position created by the Act of 1902, and the general election which followed it, has been such as to need large and important alterations in the present state of affairs. But, my Lords, if you reject this Bill, do you think you will be hereafter able to settle the difficulties under which we now suffer more easily than you can do now? Do the noble Lords who support denominational education believe that they will get again the terms that they might have had under this Bill? In saying that, I beg your Lordships to understand that I am making nothing in the nature of a threat—I have had too long an experience in this House not to know that the very worst thing in argument is to indulge in a threat—I have too much respect for your Lordships to do anything of that kind. But I do fool that I should be wanting in the performance of my duty, not only to the Government but to your Lordships' House, if I did not venture to raise a warning voice upon this measure. My noble friend (the Duke of Norfolk) spoke, I was glad to hear, with some acceptance of the change which we offered to make in Clause 4.
§ THE MARQUESS OF RIPONWell, my noble friend is, I know, very difficult to please in this matter. But, my Lords, I must really tell my noble friend that I have the most earnest conviction that nothing more than Clause 4, as it would have been amended under our late arrangements, could be obtained at the present time. And, if you are going to reject this Bill in the hope that you will get something better for denominational schools some years hence, may I be forgiven for saying that that is pure gambling. I do not believe you will get anything more; on the contrary, though I should deeply regret it, I fear you are likely to get, not more, but less. Look at the situation which will be created when this Bill has been thrown out. You send us back to the state of things which exists at the present moment; we shall have all over again, particularly since the decision in the West Riding appeal, the passive resisters; we shall have infinite administrative difficulties; we shall have greater difficulties still with both county and borough councils; we shall have a continuance—aye, and perhaps an aggravation, of that agitation which the Act of 1902 created. Do not
§ let your Lordships think that those who are the standing opponents of the Act of 1902, and of all that it created, will be quiet. You will have a renewal of agitation dangerous to the interests of education; you will have a renewal, aye, and an aggravation of the state of things which led to the introduction of this Bill.
§ That, my Lords, is the argument which I feel bound to address to your Lordships to-night because, for that state of things, the responsibility must rest upon those who have—I have no doubt in perfect honesty—rejected the measure because it has not satisfied them in certain respects. I have, all my life, been a practical politician, and I have all my life thought it was political wisdom—perhaps I might say that it was statesmanship—to take what you can get in the circumstances of the case. My Lords, it seems to me that you are more likely to get less than more now that this Bill has gone; and it is to me, I honestly admit, a source of the very deepest regret that this measure should fail.
§ On Question, "That this House do insist on its Amendments to which the Commons have disagreed," their Lordships divided:—Contents, 132; Not-contents, 52.
1417| CONTENTS. | ||
| Canterbury, L. Abp. | Devon, E. | Churchill, V. [Teller.] |
| Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.) | Cross, V. | |
| Norfolk, D. (E. Marshal.) | Falkland, V. | |
| Bedford, D. | Feversham, E. | Goschen, V. |
| Newcastle, D. | Gainsborough, E. | Halifax, V. |
| Northumberland, D. | Haddington, E. | Hardinge, V. |
| Portland, D. | Hardwicke, E. | Hill, V. |
| Rutland, D. | Harrowby, E. | Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.) |
| Wellington, D. | Lauderdale, E. | |
| Lindsey, E. | Iveagh, V. | |
| Bristol, M. | Lonsdale, E. | Knutsford, V. |
| Cholmondeley, M. | Malmesbury, E. | Llandaff, V. |
| Lansdowne, M. | Mayo, E. | St. Aldwyn, V. |
| Salisbury, M. | Morley, E. | |
| Morton, E. | Chester, L. Bp. | |
| Albemarle, E. | Mount Edgcumbe, E. | Chichester, L. Bp. |
| Camperdown, E. | Nelson, E. | London, L. Bp. |
| Carnwath, E. | Plymouth, E. | Norwich, L. Bp. |
| Cathcart, E. | Radnor, E. | Oxford, L. Bp. |
| Cawdor, E. | Shaftesbury, E. | Peterborough, L. Bp. |
| Clarendon, E. | Strange, E. (D. Atholl.) | St. Albans, L. Bp. |
| Darnley, E. | Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.) | Salisbury, L. Bp. |
| Dartrey, E. | Verulam, E. | |
| Denbigh, E. | Waldegrave, E. [Teller.] | Abinger, L. |
| Derby, E. | Wicklow, E. | Addington, L. |
| Allerton, L. | Douglas, L. (E. Home.) | North, L. |
| Ardilaun, L. | Dunboyne, L. | Ramsay, L. (E. Dalhousie.) |
| Ashbourne, L. | Emly, L. | Ranfurly, L. (E. Ranfurly.) |
| Atkinson, L. | Faber, L. | Rayleigh, L. |
| Avebury, L. | Forester, L. | Robertson, L. |
| Balfour, L. | Gage, L. (V. Gage.) | Rothschild, L. |
| Balinhard, L. (E. Southesk.) | Glenesk, L. | St. Oswald, L. |
| Barnard, L. | Grenfell, L. | Saltoun, L. |
| Barrymore, L. | Hastings, L. | Sandys, L. |
| Belhaven and Stenton, L. | Hothfield, L. | Seaton, L. |
| Borthwick, L. | Kilmaine, L. | Shute, L. (V. Barrington.) |
| Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery.) | Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.) | Somerhill, L. (M. Clanricarde.) |
| Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.) | ||
| Braye, L. | Lawrence, L. | Stalbridge, L. |
| Brougham and Vaux, L. | Leigh, L. | Stanmore, L. |
| Burton, L. | Lovat, L. | Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.) |
| Clifford of Chudleigh, L. | Ludlow, L. | |
| Clinton, L. | Macnaghten, L. | Talbot de Malahide, L. |
| Clonbrock, L. | Meldrum, L. (M. Huntley.) | Wolverton, L. |
| Colchester, L. | Middleton, L. | Worlingham, L. (E. Gosford) |
| Dawnay, L. (V. Downe.) | Mowbray, L. | Zouche of Haryngworth, L. |
| De Mauley, L. | Newlands, L. | |
| Deramore, L. | Newton, L. | |
| NOT-CONTENTS. | ||
| Loreburn, L. (L. Chancellor.) | Althorp, V. (L. Chamberlain.) | Haversham, L. |
| Headley, L. | ||
| Crewe, E. (L. President.) | Hereford, L. Bp. | Henry, L. (E. Dunraven and Mount-Earl.) |
| Ripon, M. (L. Privy Seal.) | Boston, L. | Kinnaird, L. |
| Brassey, L. | Lyveden, L. | |
| Devonshire, D. | Castletown, L. | Monkswell, L. |
| Colebrooke, L. | Monson, L. | |
| Beauchamp, E. | Coleridge, L. | O'Hagan, L. |
| Carlisle, E. | Courtney of Penwith, L. | Overtoun, L. |
| Carrington, E. | Davey, L. | Pirrie, L. |
| Chesterfield, E. [Teller.] | Denman, L. [Teller.] | Reay, L. |
| Chichester, E. | Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.) | Ritchie of Dundee, L. |
| Craven, E. | Sandhurst, L. | |
| De La Warr, E. | Eversley, L. | Saye and Sele, L. |
| Dundonald, E. | Farrer, L. | Stanley of Alderley, L. |
| Fortescue, E. | Fitzmaurice, L. | Tweedmouth, L. |
| Portsmouth, E. | Glantawe, L. | Wandsworth, L. |
| Russell, E. | Grimthorpe, L. | Weardale, L. |
| Temple, E. | Hamilton of Dalzell, L. | Welby, L. |
§ A Committee appointed to prepare a reason for the Lords insisting on their Amendments. The Committee to meet forthwith.