Lords Sitting of 3 May 1909

THE LORD EGERTON.
Sat first in Parliament after the death of his brother.
WEMBURY (PLYMOUTH) COMMERCIAL DOCK AND RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
Report from the Select Committee that it is not expedient to proceed further with the Bill; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
GATESHEAD AND DISTRICT TRAMWAYS BILL. [H.L.]
Report from the Select Committee, That the Committee had not proceeded with the consideration of the Bill the opposition thereto having been withdrawn; read, and ordered to lie on the Table: The orders made on March 4 and 30 last discharged, and Bill committed.
GLASGOW CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Report from the Select Committee, That the Committee had not proceeded with the consideration of the Bill the opposition thereto having been withdrawn; read, and ordered to lie on the Table: The orders made on March 23 and 30 last discharged, and Bill committed.
SWINTON AND MEXBOROUGH GAS BOARD BILL. ARDS RAILWAY BILL.
Read 2a and committed.
MOUNTAIN ASH URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL. NORTHALLERTON WATER BILL.
Read 2a and committed: The Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
STOCONVERSION AND INVESTMENT TRUST (NORTH-EASTERN RAILWAY CONSOLS) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
HASTINGS HARBOUR BILL.
Read 3a and passed.
GLASGOW CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Report from the Chairman of Committees (under Standing Order No. 95), that he is of opinion that the Bill should be proceeded with as an opposed Bill: Ordered, that the said Bill be re-committed to the Select Committee to whom it was previously referred.
LAND DRAINAGE PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 3) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a to be printed; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 40.)
VEHICLES ON HIGHWAYS BILL. [H.L.]
Petition against; of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors of the City of Westminster; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL. [H.L.] (No. 41.)
A Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board for Ireland relating to the Rural Districts of Castlereagh, Midleton, and Naas (No. 1), and the Foranwell Drainage District in the County of Kildare: And
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL. [H.L.] (No. 42).
A Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board for Ireland relating to the City of Dublin, the Londonderry Port Sanitary Authority, and the Urban District of Queenstown:—Were presented by the Lord Steward (E. Beauchamp) (for the Lord Denman); read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners.
TRAMWAYS ORDERS CONFIRMATION BILL [H.L.] (No. 43.)
A Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Tramways Act, 1870, relating to Bolton Corporation Tramways, Keighley Corporation Tramways, Morecambe Corporation Tramways, Portsmouth Corporation Tramways, and Whitworth Urban District Council Tramways:
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL. [H.L.] (No. 44.)
A Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, relating to Chesham (Extension), Cleethorpes (Amendment), Herne Bay, Hind-head and District (Extension), Holsworthy, Southampton (Extension), Staines, Stourbridge, Turton, and Walton-on-the-Naze: And
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDER No. 2 BILL. [H.L.] (No. 45.)
A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Board of Trade under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, the Electric Lighting (Scotland) Act, 1890, and the Electric Lighting (Scotland) Act, 1902, relating to Dunfermline and District:—Were presented by the Lord Hamilton of Dalzell; read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners.

THE OUTER HEBRIDES.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHrose to call attention to the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation, and to the Special Reports on the Burden of Existing Rates and the General Financial Position of the Outer Hebrides presented to the Local Government Board for Scotland in 1906; and to ask whether the information contained in the latter Report could be brought up to date; and whether His Majesty's Government had considered the special circumstances of these districts, with a view of seeing whether some method of alleviating their special burdens could be devised.
My Lords, I rise, in pursuance of the Notice which appears on the Paper, to call attention to the Special Reports on the Burden of Existing Rates and the General Financial Position of the Outer Hebrides presented to the Local Government Board for Scotland in 1906, and to ask whether His Majesty's Government have considered the state of matters now existing in those Islands, and whether they cannot see their way to do something to alleviate the financial pressure upon those who are chiefly concerned. I think I shall have no difficulty in establishing two things—namely, that the state of matters is quite within the mark to be described as disastrous, and also that
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it is not in any way the fault of those who are the chief sufferers in consequence of the present position. It is very serious, and your Lordships will see that it is also very unjust.
I cannot, of course, conceal from your Lordships that I touch the fringe, at any rate, of what is a very much larger subject—namely, how far, and upon what principles, it is right and reasonable for the central authority to do something more than is at present done to alleviate local burdens. That was the main part of the reference to the large and important Commission on the whole subject of local taxation appointed by the late Government some years ago, over which I had the honour to preside. But I do not intend to raise to-night any of the larger issues which were before the Commission. I think, however, I may say this, that the question of local taxation really lies at the root of the possibility of bringing in approved schemes of social reform, especially in regard to the Poor-law, upon which the Commission presided over by Lord George Hamilton has recently presented a Report. I do not know which of these two subjects is the more important, but of this I am pretty certain, that you cannot, with due regard to existing interests and existing grievances, bring in any scheme of administrative reform with regard to the Poor-law unless and until you have done something to reform the method of local taxation.
I deeply regret that nothing has been done in this direction during the years which have passed since the Local Taxation Committee reported. I am not going to say that it is the fault either of those who sit on the other side of the House or of those who sit near me. I am certain that if it had not been for the disturbance of financial conditions consequent upon the South African War the late Government would have done something to bring in measures of reform. I know that other subjects have attracted the attention of the present Government, but I repeat, and I repeat with some confidence, that if they are going further in the direction of social reform, if they are going further in the direction of Poor-law reform, they will have to do something to alleviate the burden, at any rate, of the poorer districts in the country before they can make much advance in that direction.

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I want to impress upon the House the point of difference between what I venture to describe as services which are national in character and onerous on the ratepayer and those which are local in character and confer a direct benefit upon those who pay for them. I admit that it is not altogether in the last resort possible to draw an absolutely logical and precise distinction between them; but none of us will have any doubt that such matters as water and drainage are essentially local in character, while those services to which I refer as mainly national are those of which the universality is characteristic, which are ordered by the State, and in regard to which the State insists upon the same sort of general and universal standard in every locality. I mean such matters as education, Poor-law, police, most sanitary matters, and things of that kind.
Before the Commission over which I presided there were two distinct classes of grievances alleged, and, as I venture to say the Report establishes, proved. There is, first, the grievance that this class of national service is undoubtedly paid for by those who are interested in special classes of property, I am not going into that branch of the subject to-day; but there is also the grievance, and it is hardly a less one, that even as between the owners of these same classes of property—real property in England and heritable property in Scotland—the burden which each has to bear varies according to the differences of the localities in which the property happens to be placed, and very seldom, comparatively speaking, is that the fault of those who are the owners or occupiers of that class of property. I do not deny that in some cases there may be extravagance; but the first point I wish specially to impress upon the House is this, that the test of whether the service is fairly borne or not is according to the ability of the locality to bear it, and, if your Lordships will allow me, I will say that the ability of the locality to bear the service may be best measured and attained by the amount of valuation per head of the population. Valuation gives the riches of the locality. The population is a rough, but not unfair, measure of the probability of the burden which will have to be borne.
I venture to say, without fear of contradiction, that administrative reforms, however desirable they may be, which
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greatly increase the burden upon the individual ratepayer, cannot with any sense of justice or fairness be imposed on the poorest districts equally with the rich. Two things have to be kept in view, I admit. The first is economy in the discharge of the local administration, and, secondly, how far it is possible to improve that administration. None of your Lordships who have not studied the question with some closeness really realise how much the ability of different districts to bear certain charges varies. I am not able to say what the extreme limits of variation in England are, but they are very great. They are not, perhaps, quite so great as they are in Scotland, because the unit of administration is, speaking generally, larger in England than in Scotland, being the union for Poor-law purposes in England while it is the parish in Scotland. The richest parish in Scotland has a valuation of £44 per inhabitant, while the one which is poorest by this standard has only a valuation of 9s. per head of the population. It is obvious that a parish with £10 per head of valuation can raise twice as much with the same sacrifice as a parish with only £5 per head of the population. Therefore, when I tell your Lordships that in one parish, at any rate, the valuation is £44 per head and that in another it is only 9s. per head, it is clear that the comparative ability of these parishes is nearly 100 to one; in other words, that a penny in the £ per inhabitant in the richest parish will raise nearly 100 times as much as a similar rate in the poorest parish.
As I have said, I am only concerned tonight with such matters as poor relief, roads, police, education, and sanitation. The administration, speaking generally, has to conform to a certain national standard while the administration is local, and those who have to administer in each locality ought to have regard, and I think as a rule do have regard, to three considerations—to what are the requirements of public policy imposed upon them, to reasonable economy in the discharge of the duty, and to ability to bear the burden imposed. There has been special inquiry into the ability and administration of these parishes in the Hebrides to which I am specially referring. An inquiry was ordered by the Secretary for Scotland who preceded the noble Lord now in office, and it was conducted by one of the most qualified sheriffs in Scotland, and by

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two perfectly competent gentlemen in the employment of the Local Government Board for Scotland. The verdict of this tribunal in regard to the parishes in the Outer Hebrides was this, that the expenditure is not greater than to be expected in the circumstances in which they are placed, and that the poverty of the districts makes the burden which they must bear, even in circumstances of the most stringent economy, extremely excessive. The words are that an exceptionally heavy burden has to be borne by an exceptionally poor community. The complaints made by all classes are quoted.
This is not a mere landlord's question; it is equally felt by all who own and occupy private property in those districts. It is the same by the shopkeeper as the landlord, by the small-holder as the larger farmer; and as one man said to Sheriff Fleming—
"the amount of rates we have to pay really amounts to a duplication of the rent."
In passing, I may say that it is not surprising, in these circumstances, that in these outer islands the small-holders have an extremely hard struggle to live; the weight of the rates imposed upon them is really one of the main causes, if not the main cause, why small-holders in those districts have so poor and precarious an existence. I believe that in the parishes in the Outer Hebrides the lowest rate in the for the services I have mentioned amounts to 10s., 12s., or 15s. in the £ and in one or two cases it rises to the extraordinary amount of 25s., 26s., and 27s. in the £. A word of explanation is necessary in that connection, because if the rate was 25s. or 26s. upon the gross rental it, of course, could not be paid; it would mean bankruptcy. But your Lordships know that under the system in which rates are levied in Scotland there are certain powers of deduction given to parish councils in the case of owners and certain powers of classification in the case of occupiers, so that, although the rate in the £ may seem more than the basis upon which it is laid, it is not, and cannot be, of course, paid if it exceeds the gross sum which is the produce of the property.
For purposes of comparison I am going to discard to-night all question of the rate per £ that is raised, simply because it
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would not make a fair comparison between one parish and another. I have, with the assistance of some friends in the Scottish Office, and with the full consent of the noble Lord opposite, and also by means of explanations which have been given to me by the owners of some of the property in these districts, been, I think, able to compile a statement which will show your Lordships, without fear of misunderstanding, how really serious and heavy the burden is which is borne by these communities. It is not, as I have said, only a landlords' question. The same burden relatively is borne by everybody, whether he be owner or occupier, one-half of the rates being borne by the owner and the other half by the occupier.
I take the case of the parish of Loch. Major Mathieson, who is the owner of a large portion of that parish, supplied me with these figures, which have been corrected and criticised in the way I have just mentioned. His gross rental from the parish in 1907–8 was £2,900. I take that year as being the last available year, because in the following year there was a certain amount of litigation which confused the issue and which has not, I believe, altogether been determined. Therefore, it is bettor to disregard for our present purposes this year and to take the previous year. The gross rental from the property in 1907–8 was, as I have said, £2,900. Allowing ten per cent. of that as not recoverable—a moderate allowance—the net sum received was £2,600. The parish rates—that is, for poor relief and education—amounted to £1,121, the county rates to £435, and other charges, such as minister's stipend and land tax, to £150, so that the gross rates for purely onerous services for which no return is rendered at all to the individual owner came to £1,706 out of a total received of £2,600, leaving a balance of £894. But out of that balance there had to be paid income tax, management, repairs, insurances, and any mortgages or jointures which might have had to be paid by the unfortunate proprietor. And management in a case of this kind does not mean merely supervision. Management in a case where there is a large amount of sporting rental includes such things as keepers' wages, and, if the shooting is not let, the unfortunate proprietor has still to pay these wages and to pay the rate on the rental he has not received. That is a plain and unvarnished

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tale, and I venture to say that so stated—and it cannot be contradicted —it reveals an absolutely unparalleled case of hardship when it is demonstrated that there is no extravagance and that due regard to economy in administration has been had. Indeed, it amounts to absolute bankruptcy.
I will take one other case. I do not desire to unduly take up the time of your Lordships, but I will take the case of the parish of Barvas, the parish to which I referred a moment ago as the poorest parish in Scotland. In the case of Barvas the figures are almost equally instructive. The circumstances are these. The rental of the estate to which I refer is £2,459. I ought, perhaps, to say that, without making any deduction at all, the total amount of rates borne by the owner as owner of the whole and as occupier of those parts left in his occupation amounts to £1,017, or, for parish services alone, 41 per cent. on the total income drawn from the subjects in question. But when you add county rates and the other things I have mentioned, over which the owner has no control, such as minister's stipend, land tax and so on, and deduct them from the total received, there is only about £590 left, and this is still subject to income tax, repairs, insurance, management, and the other things I mentioned a moment ago.
The position in these two parishes is aggravated by another set of circumstances. Only two or three days ago a meeting was held in Stornaway which was addressed by Provost Anderson, well known to the noble Lord opposite as one of the ablest and most energetic of the local administrators in that district, and he supplies to some extent the explanation why the charges are so heavy in those parishes. He says that, in addition to the crofter and the farmer, there are a class of persons known as cottars and squatters. The difference between a cottar and a squatter is this. The cottar is the parasite upon the crofter. He has taken part of the crofter's holding. He cannot be got rid of by the crofter, and I believe he can hardly be got rid of by the landlord once he has settled there without such an amount of expense as to make it prohibitive. The squatter is the analogous person who has squatted on the common grazing belonging to the whole community. There is no difference between them in
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degree—the one is the parasite upon the crofter, the other the parasite upon the community as a whole; and Provost Anderson says there are no fewer than 1,103 cottars upon the crofts the occupiers of which are not rated. They are not tenants of anybody, and they pay neither rates nor taxes. In addition to those 1,103 cottars there are 289 squatters in the four parishes in the Lews, and, out of a population of 27,000 in the rural parts of the Lews, no fewer than 7,247 belong to the cottar and squatter class. Not one of these individuals pays a penny either in rates or taxes or rent. They contribute nothing whatever to the amelioration of the burden, but they share in all the benefits, such as they are, of poor relief, education, and other things of that kind.
I think I have established my case at any rate to this extent, that there is a clamant grievance crying for a remedy, and I think it is only a type, perhaps an exaggerated type, of what will have to be done if any scheme of general Poor-law reform costing more money is brought into operation. I have shown that the local finances of these districts are absolutely on the verge of bankruptcy. I have undoubtedly taken the two worst cases I know of, but they do not materially differ from what is going on in any of the parishes in the Outer Hebrides. This is no mere personal grievance of one or two people. It is making the useful and beneficial occupation of a property, whether as owner or occupier, in these districts absolutely impossible. The facts have been established by the inquiry and they will not be disputed; and the question I wish to put to His Majesty's Government is whether, in the circumstances I have explained to the House, they cannot hold out some hope of coming to some extent to the assistance of those who are suffering from a state of matters for which they are in no way rsponsible.
THE EARL OF DUNMOREMy Lords, the main facts relating to the financial condition of the Outer Hebrides have already been exhaustively dealt with by the noble Lord who has just sat down, and I do not propose to detain your Lordships by entering into a detail of figures and statistics. It is now nearly three years since the Local Government Board for Scotland received the two Reports dealing with the pressure of local rates in the districts

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referred to, and although they contained the statement that these rates formed an exceptionally heavy burden on an exceptionally poor community, no relief has yet been afforded. A sound basis for such relief was suggested by Lord Balfour of Burleigh as far back as 1902 in the Final Report of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation, but since those suggestions were made there has been an enormous increase in the burdens of these parishes, accompanied in most cases by a diminished rental.
For many years the injustice of the incidence of the rates throughout the whole of the country has been recognised by successive Governments, with the result that the Imperial Exchequer has contributed towards local expenditure, those contributions taking the form of grants in aid, but such of these grants as were allocated in accordance with expenditure have in these parishes in proportion to the total expenditure greatly diminished. I think, in view of the existing high rates in these districts, that these grants cannot be considered as having proved adequate to removing the injustice caused by the inequalities in the local burdens. The chief sufferers under this heavy burden are not only the owners, but also the hotel-keepers, shopkeepers, and all those who occupy their own premises and pay the combined rate. It is, in fact, a prohibitive tax on industry and capital. The effect is to be seen in these impoverished districts.
The noble Lord called attention to the difference in valuation per head of the population in different parishes in Scotland. Under such conditions it is, perhaps, hardly surprising to find that the combined county and parish rates amount in two parishes respectively to 27s. and 25s. in the £. These figures are certainly open to some criticism on the ground, as the noble Lord pointed out, that the parish rates are assessed on the net rental and not on the gross; but a more accurate means of ascertaining the true increase and extent of the ratepayers' burden might be obtained by taking the actual expenditure of the parish council for a year, and, having deducted all Government grants, comparing the figures with those obtained in a similar manner for some former year. On this basis the expenditure on poor relief alone in one parish has increased by over 50 per
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cent. since 1896. That is after having deducted all Government aid.
I think the real reason of these high rates is to be found in the low assessable rental of the population combined with the ever increasing demands made on the poorer parishes by progressive legislation. Economy in local administration could never remedy this, for even with the same amount of pauperism and the same expenditure per head the rate in these islands would still be six times as heavy as in Scotland generally. In giving your Lordships those figures I have assumed that the burden of pauperism is equal in the areas compared, but this assumption is not borne out by the facts, for the burden of pauperism is much heavier in these districts. A considerable portion of the population consists of cottars and squatters who pay neither rent nor rates, but receive the full benefit of the local government. But there is another factor directly contributing to the heavy poor rate in the numbers of these poor people who, having spent the whole of their lives working in industrial centres, return as paupers to the land of their birth. As an instance of this, I may mention that of fourteen applicants for relief before the South Uist Parish Council three weeks ago twelve had been made paupers in other districts on the mainland, only two being local inhabitants.
In considering these financial difficulties it should also be borne in mind that practically the whole of the ratepayers, as agricultural occupiers, are only assessed on three-eighths of their rental under the Agricultural Rates Act of 1906. That Act, while very justly relieving the land of part of its excessive burden, did not reduce the total expense falling on the rates, and the agricultural rates grant, which was intended to recoup the parish for this reduction, has in these islands proved insufficient. The result is that owners and non agricultural occupiers have to bear the greater part of the extra burden caused by this reduction. There is no doubt that the taxable capacity of these islands is quite inadequate to meet the demands of local government. It is the natural result of the over-population of poor land, and the natural difficulties have been increased by dividing up the land into small holdings without any regard to economic conditions.

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I recollect last year the Secretary for Scotland remarking in the House of Commons that the Vatersay question and similar troubles in these districts would be solved if the Crofters' Act had contained powers for the enlargement of holdings and for dividing up the land among the crofters. But I would point out that taking the land for this purpose unfortunately either curtails or abolishes the principal ratepaying subjects, and I think the noble Lord, in solving the one problem, would under our present system of rating rind himself confronted with another and probably more serious problem. I would make it quite clear to your Lordships that I am in favour of establishing small-holdings wherever possible. I think that is a principle on which we are all agreed; but it is relative to the subject we are discussing this evening to point out that the question is entirely an economic one and has a direct bearing on the rates. Even if these smallholdings could be made self-sustaining, their taxable capacity would still be inadequate to supply their local requirements, and nine-tenths of the local expenditure would still fall on the owners and non-agricultural occupiers. This is neither just nor is it expedient, for the State should recognise that the greater portion of this expenditure is raised for national purposes. In other words, many of these rates give no direct return to the ratepayers for the taxation levied. In these districts, from which the majority of the young men migrate to the large commercial centres, education certainly gives no return to those who paid for it. Yet efficiency in education is absolutely necessary to our national well-being. I think I may say it is almost as important as national defence, and in a similar manner its cost increases in accordance with the competition of other countries. Therefore, if His Majesty's Government have made up their minds, which I trust they have, to demand of these poor parishes an efficient administration of these services, services which the noble Lord has justly termed national services, I think they must of necessity pay for it.
It is in districts such as these that we see the injustice of our present system of taxation, and it seems to me that the best remedy as regards these districts would be in the taking over of certain services by the State, services which are national in character
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and of national importance. So far as these islands are concerned I would venture to point out to your Lordships that the chief objection to nationalising these rates does not apply. It is obvious that the parish councils are elected by those who have to pay the smallest proportion of the rates, consequently there cannot be the same incentive to economy of administration as in the wealthier parishes. I have taken the figures of four parishes, and find that the total amount paid in rates in respect of the occupancy of each croft averages 4s. 8d., the bulk of the rates, amounting to over £5,000, being borne by the owner. These are abnormal conditions, and it is in view of these conditions that I am doubtful whether any scheme based on a system of Government grants would result in attaining the same degree of efficiency and economy in the administration of these islands as could be obtained by the nationalisation of the rates. But, considered in relation to the local taxation of the three countries, the scheme advocated by Lord Balfour is undoubtedly a far safer and more practical method of equalising these burdens. I do not wish to submit any proposal as to how His Majesty's Government should deal with this problem, but I would point out that the question is now in an acute stage, and that, pending some legislation in regard to our system of taxation, some temporary and exceptional measure of relief for these islands is urgently needed.
THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (LORD PENTLAND OF LYTH)My Lords, with the main lines of the case which has been presented to the House this afternoon I have no desire to quarrel, and perhaps I may be allowed, as Secretary for Scotland, to welcome, in the first place, the speech which the noble Earl who has just sat down has made and which I know to be delivered with much knowledge, to which I cannot pretend, of the facts and circumstances of the western islands. Lord Balfour of Burleigh, too, speaks on this subject with unique authority. On the one hand, he has held the office of Secretary for Scotland for many years; and I should like to take this opportunity of acknowledging how readily he has placed at the disposal, at any rate, of one of his successors, his great experience and knowledge on Scottish questions. But he speaks also with unique authority on this subject as having presided over the deliberations of

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the Royal Commission on Local Taxation, which reported, I think, some seven years ago.
It is not probable that your Lordships will expect from me to-day any statement dealing with the recommendations of the Royal Commission, or any indication as to the policy of His Majesty's Government in regard to them. But perhaps I may be permitted to say this, that it must be a subject of general regret in all such cases that elaborate inquiries, involving great labour and much time, should take place and should then remain for many years before they are acted upon. The grievances remain, the inequalities as between localities or as between parishes remain, the clamour for assistance continues, the distinction between national and local services remains uneffected, and very often in the maze of grants, fee grants, stereotyped grants, assigned revenues, whisky money, and the rest of it—in the maze of difficulty that surrounds the subject few people have the leisure or will give the energy to master the subject, with the result that the advocates of some special interest or some particular reform too easily capture the public attention and warp public opinion before it is really roused to consider the whole subject.
Before I pass to the local case, perhaps I may say this on behalf of the Government on the general case which has been presented. While the Government have not been able to lay before Parliament or the public any proposals dealing generally with local taxation, some advance has been made on lines which are particularly associated with the name of Lord Balfour. I refer to the scheme which he propounded to the Royal Commission and embodied in the additional Report, by which highly-rated and poor localities might receive benefit at the expense of more fortunate districts, through a scheme of distribution of grants so calculated that they should give most help where most help was needed, and should have particular regard to ability to pay. In the Education Act which was passed last session for Scotland we adopted this principle.
The moneys devoted by Parliament to Scottish education fall into two categories. By far the larger amount, something like two-thirds or more of the whole, is provided by annual votes in Parliament. The
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remainder consists of moneys which from time to time and by various Acts of Parliament have been allocated to special educational purposes. There are grants which have been made in relief of fees, there are grants for secondary and technical education, and grants for many other purposes, totalling something like half a million of money. These grants were all devoted to some special purpose, permitting no co-ordination so far as their application went of the various kinds of education, and presenting a very intricate and difficult question to those who had to deal with it. The simple step was taken of paying all these sums into one fund and enacting that that fund should be distributed according to the very principle which Lord Balfour had advocated in his additional Report. It is obvious, however, that for a change of this kind to be carried out, unless great opposition is to be provoked, no authority must suffer by the change; that is to say, every local authority receiving grants must at least receive as much as it had received heretofore. In order, therefore, to carry out the scheme of giving greater aid to poor localities an additional sum was required, and £105,000 was provided by the Treasury to carry out that plan of distribution. If any such plan is applied on a general scale to the relief of local authorities a corresponding sum will, I venture to think, be required for the purpose. I mention this instance in order that it may be placed to the credit of the Government that they have at any rate done something to profit by the labours of the Royal Commission, and as showing some earnest of a desire to proceed to the reform of local taxation.
I pass now to the special case brought before the House this afternoon of the rating of these parishes. The Hebridean parishes mentioned are eight in number, and there have on former occasions been difficulties and complaints in regard to the rating. The proprietor of part of the Island of Barra some three or four years ago declined to pay the rates due. The parish council resigned, and a clause of the Act of 1845 was put into force. A parish council was constituted of officials and the chairman of the last elected board, and the Poor-law and other Acts are administered now by that authority. There had been some unwisdom and carelessness in administration. That has been put right. The rate has been

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reduced by a considerable sum in the last three years under the more efficient management, and though the administration has not resumed its normal course, yet I trust that if no other difficulties supervene we may Le on a fair road to that end.
In the Lews, which consists of four parishes, we are now confronted with a difficulty which has been raised by the refusal of the proprietor there to pay his rates. It becomes necessary, therefore, to consider what actually are the burdens borne by him in this respect. I do not intend to enter into, or to dispute, the figures given by the noble Lord who asks this Question, except in one particular. I do think it is necessary to bear in mind that Major Mathieson, whilst being the proprietor of the whole island, is also the occupier of various shooting properties on the island. The custom is for the owner to be rated in respect of those shootings not only as owner but also as occupier, but if the shootings are let he then recovers the rates from the shooting tenant. Therefore, that qualification must be borne in mind when the rates paid by the proprietor are mentioned.
I will not quote the figures to your Lordships, but will content myself with stating what I understand to be the general situation in the Lews. The island consists of four parishes, but there is no question just now about the fourth parish, which contains the burgh of Stornaway. We are concerned with the three rural parishes. In the first place—and here I rather demur to the statement made by the noble Earl who spoke second—there is no adverse criticism so far as I am informed of the administration of the parish councils. They are economical, they have been careful, and have carried out their somewhat difficult and onerous duties to the satisfaction of all concerned. There has been no accusation of lax administration, or extravagance, or anything of that kind, and I trust they may continue to discharge the duties which they have performed satisfactorily in the past. The burden of the poor—that is to say, the number of the poor—is not excessive. The proportion of pauperism to the population is not excessive. It is under the average for Scotland. Take the parish of Barvas. The proportion in that
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parish is under the average for Scotland, and that fact is very creditable to the people, for many of them are very poor. The burden of expenditure on the poor is not abnormal. That being so, there being no fault to find with the administration, the number of poor not being excessive, the burden of expenditure on the poor not being excessive, how is it that these high rates of which complaint is made come about? The explanation is, of course, that given by the noble Earl, Lord Dunmore.
The real cause of the high rate is the low assessment. On whom does it fall? On what classes of ratepayers does this burden fall? The rate, broadly speaking, is borne half by the owner and half by the occupier. Major Mathieson is the proprietor of, practically, the whole island, and therefore the owner's rate falls almost exclusively upon him. Of the occupiers, upon whom does the burden fall? Take the parish of Barvas. The burden does not fall upon the crofters. Their rental is one-third of the whole rental of the island. What do they pay in rates? They pay from ½d. to ½2d. a week in rates. That surely cannot be considered an excessive burden. The burden, therefore, does not fall upon them. The reason they pay so low a rate is that they receive not only the benefit of the Crofters Act, but also receive relief from the Agricultural Rates Act. That is the explanation. Nor is the burden heavy on the farmers, who also receive relief from the Agricultural Rates Act. It really falls, so far as the occupiers are concerned, upon the merchants and the sporting tenants. There are not very many of them, and, as I have indicated, the proprietor is really responsible ultimately if the shootings are unlet for the rates of the sporting tenants. It is quite true that the nominal rate is high, that the burden on the rental, which is a low rental, is high, but the burden per head of population is not high. It is a remarkable thing that the burden per head of population is extremely low. The average annual amount of parochial assessment in respect of all the rates raised in these three parishes produces a burden of 5s. 9d. per head of the population.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHHas the noble Lord taken off the 7,000 people who pay nothing at all?
LORD PENTLAND OF LYTHI shall not forget to mention them. The burden per head of the population is 5s. 9d., whereas in the county of which this forms a part it is 10 s. 11 d.—approaching double—and in Scotland as a whole it is 10 s. 6d. There must be some explanation for this, and the explanation is largely to be found in the fact to which Lord Balfour has drawn attention, namely, that there is a large population in this island who pay neither rent nor rates, and who contribute certainly their share to the burden laid upon the education rate and upon the poor-rate. The real truth then is this, that the burden, taken as a whole, is not excessive; and bearing in mind that fact I confess I see great difficulty, pending a general reform of local taxation, in finding any method of affording relief to this island.
The real truth is, it is the distribution of the burden among the population which is at fault. I will not go into the figures. They have been very much quoted, and the rate which Major Mathieson has had to pay has been stated. The fact has been published that in these three parishes the rates as a whole were 16 s. 3d., 15 s. 11 d., and 17 s. 9d. That is the nominal rate. When it is desired to find the burden we must look at the burden of expenditure borne by this assessment. There are two observations to be made about that burden. In the first place, comparing this year with last year there is no increase in the burden. Comparing this year with three years ago there is no substantial increase in the burden. Comparing the burden this year with that of ten years ago, and bearing in mind that the general rise in parochial assessment throughout Scotland has been something like thirty-three per cent. in that period, there is no abnormal increase in the burden borne in the Lews. There is, of course, the difficulty of the existence of the cottar population, which entirely alters the distribution of burdens and throws an extremely heavy burden upon the proprietor.
Your Lordships are aware that all this occurs in spite of the operation of certain grants voted by Parliament in the hope of giving relief to Highland districts. There is the Highland Relief Grant and there are the funds of the Congested Districts Board, of which some £30,000 have been spent in the last ten years in this island. It is not
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to be forgotten, too, that the people who live here do not entirely subsist by the produce of their croft and their work in the islands. The able-bodied among them are employed in occupations outside the islands for a large part of the year, with the result that a sum of something like £127,000 in a named year went into the island, with the further result, calculated in these Reports, that the outside earnings of every crofter family came to something over £26. The operations of the Old Age Pensions Act passed last year have also had a remarkable effect in the Lews. A sum of no less than £18,600 will now go annually into that island as old age pensions. This, I hope, may have a good effect, in the first place, in reducing the number of those who are put upon the pauper roll, and, in the second place, in making it more easy for the older of these small tenants to pay their rents. When rents are mentioned, it ought, I think, to be recollected that there is no complaint, so far as I understand, on the part of the proprietors that rents are not fairly paid.
I am extremely sorry not to be able to take a more hopeful view of the possibilities of the Government being able to help in this matter. It cannot, however, I think, be denied that, important as this question is to those concerned—and I should be the last to minimise its importance—it is neither large enough in scope nor typical enough in character to entitle the Government to commit themselves in respect of it to any general line of policy with regard to the main recommendations of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation. I have mentioned to your Lordships that we have tentatively and experimentally applied to part of the education money for Scotland the principle advocated by Lord Balfour. I trust that may give some relief to these parishes. It is intended to give them some relief. The final decision as to the application of that fund still rests with Parliament. A Minute will be laid before the House of Commons during this session, submitting for their approval a plan for the distribution of these moneys. I trust this may give some relief to the Lews parishes, though I know it may well be considered infinitesimal when placed by the side of the burden which the proprietor has to bear. And when I mention the proprietor I ought to say that it would be far more agreeable to me to be able to go further to meet his

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desires this afternoon, on public grounds if on no other; he is a considerate and kindly landlord who lives among his people and is deservedly popular; but, except indirectly, through the influences I have mentioned, I am not able to give any assurance on the part of the Government to-day.
There is no reason, I believe, to anticipate any increase in the burdens which we have been discussing: it is more likely they will diminish. It must be borne in mind that, compared with the rest of Scotland, there has been no substantial increase in them during recent years. There remains the question of the cottars. I would ask your Lordships' attention for one moment to this question. The cottars form one quarter of the population of the island. Their stock is on the crofters' grazings, and their houses are either on the crofters' grazings or on the crofters' holdings. The movement for some regularising of their position deserves every sympathy and encouragement. Some of them are people who have no hope of a career, and whose only desire is to end their days where they are now; but the others include many who resent the position of inferiority in which they are placed, and some of whom, I hope, would be willing to become rentpayers and ratepayers like their neighbours. It must be demoralising to have in the community men escaping public burdens who are better able to bear them, in many cases, than those upon whom they fall; and I hope something will be done to bring these people within the area of rent-paying and rate-paying inhabitants, so that they may bear their share of this burden, which is all the heavier now because it is not properly and equitably distributed.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNMy Lords, the situation in the Lews, which has been laid before your Lordships to-night by Lord Balfour, is very serious indeed, and has become actually acute. The noble Lord the Secretary for Scotland said that the proprietor had refused to pay his rates. The reason is that the proprietor cannot pay his rates. They amount to very nearly the whole of his income. The ratepayers, too, cannot pay their rates. Why? Because they have not the money. In the Island of Lewis the average rent of crofts is under £2. It is absolutely impossible for the crofters to make a living out of them. The noble
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Lord says that the rates are inconsiderable in amount. So they are. But you must take them in relation to the rent which these people pay and their means.
In the Lews you see the crofter system in perfection. The average rental is, as I have said, under £2, and one-fourth of the people are cottars and squatters. The noble Lord says that the cottars and squatters are people who very likely feel the indignity of their position. They feel very much injured because they are said not to contribute in any way to the advantage of the community. What I complain of is this, that it is exactly that class which the Secretary for Scotland is doing everything he can to encourage. If the cottars and squatters were a certain number of men beyond whom there would not be any increase, then I think it might be possible to deal with the difficulty; but the reason why it is perfectly impossible to deal with it is that as soon as you find a small-holding to accommodate one of these persons he sets to work to breed other cottars and squatters. And the more you divide up this island the more will the population increase and the greater will be the difficulties. The noble Lord at the present time continues encouraging landowners to break up their farms and divide them among these people. He is simply doing his best to create another Ireland, and before very long that result will follow.
What consolation has Major Mathieson or the population of the Lews got from this debate this evening? None whatever. This is a difficulty which will not wait. The noble Lord says there has been no increase of rates during the last five years. I notice that when he forwarded the complaint of Major Mathieson to the Treasury, some Treasury clerk sent an answer to that effect. When rates have approached or surpassed 20 s.in the — what does it matter what increase there is? Even supposing there has been no increase within the last three years the income of the islands during that period has been unequal to meeting those rates. That is the difficulty with which we have to deal.
This question of the outer islands is a most serious question and is becoming more serious every day. The noble Lord was asked last year if he was aware that

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there were between 7,000 and 8,000 squatters in the Lews, and he replied in the affirmative, adding that the matter was under his consideration. The trouble is that everything is under his consideration, and that everything remains there. I know no person who is better able than the Secretary for Scotland to give a sympathetic answer that has nothing in it. I defy anyone to extract anything—certainly not comfort—from any answer he gives. In this case what will happen? Major Mathieson is unable to pay his rates, and unless the noble Lord adopts some practical line of action the state of Lews will become, if possible, worse than it is now.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEMy Lords, I ventured to observe the other evening, when we were discussing the affairs of Lady Cathcart's estate, that it seemed to me that the policy of His Majesty's Government was to promote the creation of what I described as uneconomic holdings in that part of Scotland. The debate which has taken place this evening I think absolutely confirms that impression. We have really had a most illuminating picture of the condition of the population of these islands. A great portion of them were described by my noble friend Lord Balfour, who speaks with special authority on these subjects, as being people who were parasites of the legitimate inhabitants of the islands. They pay no rent; they pay no rates. Occasionally they get the advantage of a liberal grant-in-aid out of public funds, and now, of course, old age pensions will be poured in liberally into these regions. It really looks as if these islands will be the only thoroughly happy and comfortable place to live at before long. There is one other most disquieting phenomenon which was touched on by by noble friend Lord Dunmore, to whom we listened with much pleasure on the occasion of his first speech in this House. He pointed out that, while all these things were taking place, the effect of this policy of creating new crofts, of giving these squatters slices out of other people's holdings, was to put an end to the existence of the only solvent rate-paying members of the community. The picture does seem to me to be a really alarming one, and I trust that on some future occasion we shall learn that His Majesty's Government are taking it a little more seriously than they appear to be doing at present.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD LOREBURN)My Lords, I shall trouble your Lordships with but very few observations. In regard to the condition of this island, my noble friend the Secretary for Scotland has said all that need be said, although, of course, I quite agree that the condition of things is not satisfactory. What I have risen to say a word upon is the line the debate has taken by reason of the observation of the noble Earl, Lord Camperdown, that it is the desire of the Government to increase the number of squatters and cottars, who will breed other squatters and cottars, and so reduce these unfortunate islands to the condition of Ireland. I really think the noble Earl is not warranted in making that statement. I presume he referred to the Bill which this House refused to assent to more than a year ago.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNI can assure the noble and learned Lord that I had not the Bill in my mind at all.
THE LORD CHANCELLORThen I will say no more. I was going to point out that the mere creation of smallholdings had no sort of relation with any method for perpetuating what I acknowledge to be a deplorable condition of affairs in some parts of the islands. As regards the general opinion which the noble Earl and the noble Marquess have expressed, I am quite certain that the Government wish nothing less than to continue the state of dependency and misery which exists in that part of the country. But what I was about to say falls to the ground when the noble Earl states—and I accept unreservedly what he says—that he was not referring to the Bill of a year ago.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNIf I used the word "holding" I can perfectly understand the interpretation which the noble and learned Lord put upon it. I was meaning crofts. What I was referring to was the policy that is being pursued at the present time by the Secretary for Scotland in urging the breaking up of farms and turning them into holdings on which these cottars and squatters may become tenants, which is invariably followed by the creation of more squatters and more cottars.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHMy

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Lords, I will not occupy more than a moment, but I desire to point the moral of what is admitted by the Secretary for Scotland. We have here a large class of people, the cottars and squatters, who pay no rent and no rates; and the noble Lord must remember that the crofters do not pay rates on anything more than the value of the croft. They do not pay rates on any improvements. Therefore, they might build an hotel on the croft or a house as big as an hotel, and they would not be rated upon it. So that we are really getting in the Lews an object-lesson of what would be rating on land values and nothing else, and I think the lesson is a very valuable one.

THE EDUCATION RATE.
THE EARL OF ONSLOWrose to call attention to the Circular 709 of the Board of Education giving notice that in the Code for 1909 the proportion of children in average attendance at public elementary schools to the number of teachers will be materially reduced, thus involving a considerable increase of the staff; and further giving notice that this is but a prelude to changes involving additional expenditure; and to ask His Majesty's Government whether they can state the amount of the increase in the rates which may be needful in order to meet these drastic changes.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, it is so comparatively short a time since I drew the attention of the House to the burdens of local taxation and to the way in which national services were being paid for, not out of national but out of local funds, that I feel I owe some apology to the House for reverting to the question even in a different form and under different aspects, more particularly as the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, has just engaged your Lordships' attention in a somewhat lurid picture of the state of affairs in the Outer Hebrides. But I am afraid that we are closely approaching the time when that which is happening in ultima Thule will be happening in our immediate midst—namely, when rates and taxes will between them absorb all the value of the land of this country.
The utterances of the noble Lords opposite and of their colleagues in another place, full of sympathy with the ratepayers and of appreciation of the difficult
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position in which they find themselves in regard to important national services, leave nothing to be desired; but what does leave a great deal to be desired is the tardy fulfilment of the promises noble Lords opposite have made. We, of course, expected that when the Budget for this year was produced there would be some increase in the income-tax payable on real property, but we did think that some consideration would have been given to the local ratepayer. Indeed, when I came to read the remarks of the Chancellor of the Exchequer I was buoyed up with hope at the earlier part thereof, in which he spoke of the promised consideration for the local ratepayer and the financial proposals which he intended to lay before the House which would enable him to make good that promise. I read on and on through the Chancellor's speech till I got to the end of it, but I did not find one single word about relief to the local ratepayer, and there is no such relief of any kind promised by His Majesty's Government. As far as real property is concerned, the only property which bears the burden of local taxation, more taxation is to be placed upon it when it is bequeathed, more taxation when it is settled, and more taxation when it is given away; and if it is situated, as mine is, in a populous district where the agricultural value is very small and the capital value considerably higher, it will be liable to additional taxation because some day it may be built on.
The Prime Minister some little time ago received a very important deputation on the question of the burden of education on the local rates; and he said, speaking for himself and his colleagues, that in education they had the preventative of many social evils, and that unless education were kept in a state of complete and progressive efficiency they would have failed in their attempt. It is not only the ratepayers, but equally educationists, who view the present state of affairs with a feeling of grave alarm. A resolution was passed by the National Union of Teachers to the effect that the—
"ever-increasing burden of rates is a grave menace to educational efficiency, and calls for immediate increase of grants from the Exchequer."
That is the view, not of the ratepayer, but of the educationist who is pressing the Government and the represensatives of the ratepayers to spend more money on education.

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At the deputation to which I have referred a gentleman who represented the County Councils Association pointed out that the grievance among ratepayers was not so much against increased expenditure which the ratepayers and their representatives could control, as that imposed by Acts of Parliament and by Departmental circulars. The Prime Minister, replying to these observations, remarked that no greater disservice to economy could be done than to throw a disproportionate charge on the Exchequer while the actual daily management rested with the representatives of the ratepayers. It does not rest with the representatives of the ratepayers. The local authority has scarcely any real control; and I think Mr. Runciman must have smiled a little when those remarks were made by his colleague the Prime Minister, because he had all the time in his pocket, so to speak, the education Circular to which in a moment I shall draw your Lordships' attention. He had in the pigeon-holes of his office the bitter cry of the representatives of many local authorities. He had the proposals coming from Leeds to suspend the increase in the teachers' salaries in view of the growing increase in the rates. He knew that economies were being made even in fuel, and that there was an endeavour on the part of many local authorities to get back something by letting their schools for other purposes. Yet within a month of this deputation the Circular to which I draw your Lordships' attention was sent round to every one of the local authorities.
What does this Circular do? It is a very unusual document. It is a forecast of the Code for the year 1909, and it is quite clear, I think, from the wording that the Department foresaw that it would create no small alarm in the minds of the local authorities if it came upon them as a bombshell in the shape of the Code itself. It was, therefore, circulated some time beforehand, in order to prepare their minds for the blow which was about to fall upon them. Under the terms of this Circular the Code for 1909 will provide that in future no class is to contain more than sixty pupils, and the size of the upper classes is to be still less, ranging from forty to fifty. Pupil teachers are no longer to be counted on the staff, and after August of this year no more men will be recognised as supplementary teachers, and such women as are recognised will be
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allowed to teach only (1) scholars registered as infants, or (2) older scholars in the lowest class in a school of a rural parish in which the average attendance does not exceed 100. The value of head teachers will be reduced from 50 to 35 scholars—a reduction of 30 per cent. Certificated assistants will remain as before, but uncertificated assistants will be reduced in value from 45 to 35 children—a reduction of 22 per cent. It is necessary to bear mind that the staff represents three-fourths of the whole expense of a school. To call upon the local education authorities between now and August next to make this enormous change will involve a very heavy burden on the ratepayers.
I have asked for a few figures from some of the local authorities to show approximately the magnitude of the extra charge which may be thrown on the local authorities. I am told that to carry the Circular out to its full effect in the county of Norfolk will mean an expenditure of £11,000—equal to a rate of 2d. in the£; in Gloucestershire it will mean an expenditure of between £7,000 and £8,000, equal to an extra rate of 1½d, in the £; in Staffordshire an expenditure of between £5,000 and £6,000, equal to a rate of three-eighths of a penny; in East Suffolk, £3,400; in Nottinghamshire, £3,000; in Lincolnshire, £5,000. In Hertfordshire the rate is now 11 d., which includes £3,000 spent on medical inspection. In Hampshire the additional cost will be very heavy, especially in the smaller schools where there are only from 75 to 100 children.
This expenditure will undoubtedly be more onerous in the country than in the towns, but in some of the towns it will be quite as heavy. In Sheffield it is estimated that the additional cost will be over £9,000 or an extra rate of 1½d. in the £. I do not know whether the noble Viscount the Lord President of the Council is a considerable ratepayer in the town of Wolverhampton, but, if so, I have a grim satisfaction in feeling that his withers will not be unwrung. It is estimated that the cost will be £4,328 in Wolverhampton, necessitating an extra rate of 2 8d. in the £. I see that the noble Viscount shakes his head. I also observed that the President of the Board of Education stated, in another place, that there had been a great deal of wild estimating on the matter among county councils.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT WOLVERHAMPTON)Hear. hear.
THE EARL OF ONSLOWI have asked in my Question that we might be furnished with actual facts and figures, and nobody will be more delighted than the local authorities of the counties I have referred to if it should prove that the cost is not quite so heavy as has been indicated. Then I am told that, although these may be the nominal requirements of the Department, a great deal of latitude will be left to the inspectors. I do not know which I most dislike—the interference of a Government Department or the arbitrary impositions of Government inspectors. We know that all Government inspectors are human and many of them are faddists, and if we are to be left to the mercy of a faddist inspector of the Board of Education as to how far or how little the requirements of the Department are to be carried out, Heaven help the ratepayers! I think a little light may perhaps be thrown upon the origin of this very remarkable Circular. There is a very powerful organisation, powerful in the House of Commons as well as in the country, called the National Union of Teachers. That body holds an annual meeting at which all subjects of interest to educationists are discussed, and this Circular has not escaped attention. One of the speakers at the annual meeting said that—
"The Board of Education has happily seized the opportunity offered by the temporary cessation of strife over Education Bills to consider the staffing of public elementary schools and the size of classes, with the result that an admirable Circular had been sent out by the Board."
He went on to say that—
"There were some 500 well-equipped college-trained certificated teachers waiting to fill the gap which would be caused by the new regulations of the Board of Education, and an additional 4,000 would be seeking employment in August."
Is it not remarkable that August should be the exact date which the Board of Education has fixed as the time when these extra teachers shall be employed! The National Union of Teachers was not blind to the fact that some grave difficulties would arise in the path of those who desired to see this Circular carried out if the whole burden were to fall on the ratepayers, and it was stated at that time that the strain on the local authorities would become intolerable, and a reaction would
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set in unless something was done to relieve the burden on the rates.
I read a speech the other day by a member of your Lordships' House, who has occupied a very high position in Government, and who is a very great authority on finance. He did not hesitate to advise those who act with him in his part of the country that local authorities and county councils would be justified, by a combined process of passive resistance, in making it impossible to carry out this Circular. I do not know whether that advice will or will not be acted upon, but, if it is, I should be very curious to know what would be the attitude of His Majesty's Government with regard to the administration of the Local Authorities (Default) Act. That is a very useful Act, and if it had been put in force in the recent Swansea case it might have been productive of much good. But His Majesty's present Goverment were not the authors of that Act. They were always opposed to it, and, as far as I know, have set their faces very deliberately against coercing any local authority under the powers conveyed by that Act. That is in the womb of the future, and I leave it to His Majesty's Government as to how they may deal with the action which recalcitrant local authorities may possibly take.
It is very hard that Parliament, which does not represent the ratepayers—and I am glad to see the Government now admit that the ratepayer and the taxpayer are not the same person—should impose these burdens on them, but still more objectionable is it that by a stroke of the pen from a Government Department it should be possible to add 2d. to the rates without the county affected having any power to protest or remonstrate except through the voice of their representatives in Parliament. I really am surprised that Noble Lords opposite should support what I venture to think is so great a departure from sound Liberal principles. We are told now, in almost every Act affecting local administration, that in cases of need the Government Department may step in and force the representatives of the ratepayers to do that which they may be unwilling to do. There was a provision to that effect in the Small Holdings Act. There the Board of Agriculture is to step in and do

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that which the representatives of the ratepayers think may place an undue charge upon the rates. The same power of a Government Department to coerce representatives of the ratepayers is to be found in the Housing and Town Planning Bill, which will no doubt reach your Lordships' House later in the session. I do not for a moment deny that it may be extremely desirable, from an educational point of view, that schools should be better staffed than they are at present in some parts of England. The Circular states that the intention of the Board of Education is to bring those authorities who are behindhand in staffing their schools up to a level with those who, in their opinion, have their schools sufficiently staffed; and I notice that in some of the counties, more particularly in Cheshire, it is not expected that the Circular will produce any effect in increasing the cost of education. I do not know whether that is merely a coincidence, or whether it is due to the fact that the noble Lord opposite, Lord Stanley of Alderley, who, I think, is accepted by all of us as the greatest authority upon education in this House, happens to be a Cheshire man, and has brought his Cheshire people up to such a level that nothing is to be desired in that extremely well-managed county. But Cheshire, Lancashire, London, and other densely-populated counties have a very large rateable value, and the burden to their ratepayers is insignificant in comparison with the burden which is placed upon purely rural and agricultural counties like Norfolk and Suffolk.
Your Lordships will have another opportunity of expressing opinion on this subject when the Code for 1909 is laid upon the Table; but, at any rate, I do hope your Lordships will declare, with no uncertain voice, that it is not desirable that, in the picturesque language which has been used elsewhere, Departments should be perpetually applying ginger to local authorities to make them do what the Departments deem to be their duty, but which they do not. I think that, as far as possible, local authorities ought to be left to administer the law that Parliament entrusted to them, and that this Circular, calling for enormous expenditure and issued by a stroke of the pen of a Government Department, ought either to be paid for out of funds provided by Parliament or to be discountenanced and discouraged by Parliament.
VISCOUNT WOLVERHAMPTONMy Lords, I am not going to follow the noble Earl in any discussion as to the Budget, nor am I going to discuss the general question of finance. But there are one or two questions he has asked which I should like to dispose of at the beginning of the few remarks with which I shall trouble your Lordships. The noble Earl objected very strongly to this change which the Board of Education contemplate being announced by a Circular prior to the issue of the Code. That Circular was issued simply with the object of promoting public convenience. The Board of Education thought that, as they were proposing a considerable change with reference to the administration of educational affairs in the forthcoming Code, they should, as soon as, possible, before that Code was prepared, lay before the local authorities the changes contemplated. There was no arrière pensée in that proceeding. With reference to the statement of the noble Earl regarding the month of August, I would point out that the 1st of August is the date on which the new Codes always come into operation, and all changes of an important character must, for obvious reasons, take effect in that month.
There are two totally distinct questions before your Lordships— one educational and the other financial, and the two should be kept quite distinct. I am entirely in sympathy with the noble Earl with reference to the position of ratepayers. One of the greatest questions of the day is the unsatisfactory relations between local and Imperial taxation. I think that the ratepayer is often very unfairly treated under our present financial system, and the Government have made no secret that the first business of next session will be to deal with the Poor-law which is at the bottom of all these questions. Nothing will be satisfactory until Parliament deals with the whole problem of the Poor-law. I do not quarrel with the noble Earl in his complaint of any addition to local rates, but I think he has been sadly misinformed as to the facts of the case and as to the ultimate result of this Circular so far as cost is concerned.
The objects of the changes introduced by Circular 709 are stated in paragraph 2 of the Circular itself, as follows:—
"The Board aim, on the one hand, at a reduction in the size of classes, such as will afford relief to teachers, often seriously over-burdened, and secure

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more individual attention for scholars; and, on the other hand, at stimulating the employment of teachers possessing superior qualifications."
As regards the employment of teachers, the Circular is intended to encourage the employment of certificated teachers as compared with teachers holding lower qualifications, to discourage—or rather to restrict the range of—the employment of teachers who have no recognised qualifications at all, such as supplementary teachers, and to stimulate, so far as may be necessary, the employment of a greater number of teachers in individual schools, especially in small schools. I am very glad to see in his place the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford. When it was expected that this debate would come on at an earlier date, the right reverend Prelate wrote a letter to The Times, in which he expressed his regret that he would not be able to be present on that occasion to take part in the debate. The right reverend Prelate, however, made some very important remarks in that letter with reference to the position of unqualified teachers, and I hope he will say in the House to-day what he wrote to The Times on that question.
If it is necessary to quote any authority in support of the reforms which the Circular contemplates, I should refer to the recommendations of the Royal Commission over which Lord Cross presided, and which reported as long ago as 1888. Both the Majority and Minority Reports laid stress on the laxity of the scale in the Code of that date prescribing the minimum staff of the schools, and pointed out that, as a matter of fact, the aggregate staff employed in the schools at that date was largely in excess—to the extent, indeed, of forty-nine per cent.—of the staff required for the aggregate number of children in average attendance. There was, in effect, available a very considerable margin of teaching power, and the Commissioners urged that steps should be taken to bring the requirements of the Code up to the standard of the practice of the great mass of the schools. The situation at the present day is very similar to that of 1888, and there is, in the aggregate, a considerably greater margin of teaching power, especially in the more highly-qualified grades of teachers.
The Majority Report does not recommend any specific staff scale, but it com
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ments strongly on the large size of the classes existing in many schools, and summarises the opinion of the expert witnesses who appeared before the Commission as being that the average maximum number for an ordinary class in the schools should be forty, and for the highest class twenty-five. The Minority Report in this respect is rather less drastic, and concludes with the following words:—
"We are of opinion that, though in large schools with thoroughly efficient trained assistants classes of sixty in average attendance may be satisfactorily taught, yet that classes of fifty would be far better, and that it would be more easy to educate as well as to instruct them."
Some progress has been made since 1888 towards introducing the reforms advocated, and the staff scale was gradually raised in some particulars, but no substantial change has been made since 1898; and, as regards the size of classes, it may fairly be said that the reforms advocated in 1888 have been very long overdue. This is a difficult matter to explain except to experts. But the question on which this reform turns is the number of teachers to be employed properly to staff a school. What is proposed is this, and I think the House will see that in a typical case it is not a very extravagant proposal. The number of scholars for which the head teacher counts is reduced from fifty to thirty-five; the certificated assistant teacher counts for sixty as hitherto; the uncertificated teacher counts for thirty-five instead of forty-five, and the supplementary teacher for twenty instead of thirty.
THE EARL OF ONSLOWWill the noble Viscount say what he means by a typical case? I understand this is to be the rule in all cases.
VISCOUNT WOLVERHAMPTONThat is to be the measurement of the staff, as a whole, but there is no interference with the local authority as to its distribution. The local authority will redistribute, alter, regrade, or do what they think proper, but they must have a certain number of teachers in a school which contains a certain number of scholars. They will apportion them among the classes, and they are given greater freedom in this respect than formerly. Every one desires the improvement of education, and the only way to do it is to improve the qualifications of the teachers and not to overwork them. I think I may say that, so far as educational

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considerations are concerned, the Circular has been received with general approval, and those interested in education would be glad to see the reforms carried out. The whole of the criticism of the Circular has been focussed on its financial aspect—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDSHear, hear.
VISCOUNT WOLVERHAMPTONAnd it has been urged that such great additional burdens should not be imposed on local authorities without additional State aid.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
VISCOUNT WOLVERHAMPTONIf the Imperial Exchequer would find the funds, there would be no objection to the principle.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDSHear, hear.
VISCOUNT WOLVERHAMPTONThat certainly narrows it down. There are good reasons for believing that the financial burden likely to be imposed by these changes has been greatly exaggerated. Although since 1888 the staffing scale has several times been made more severe, I am not aware that the successive changes have been made the occasion of demands for increased aid from the State; and if it is the case that the Circular—or rather the Code in which it will be embodied—only requires some authorities to do what other, and very similar, authorities have been both willing and able to do on their own initiative—in other words, if the Circular only contemplates a levelling up to the standard of good or adequate existing practice—the case for increased Exchequer aid to be given to all authorities alike is not a very strong one. I do not wish to say anything disrespectful of the local authorities, but I know the source from which a good deal of this information comes. Estimates have been published in certain areas which not only show signs of hasty or careless work, but also indicate a disposition to make the worst of it. The language of the Circular is not, I think, open to the charge of obscurity or want of precision; but, even if it were, it must be remembered that it is addressed to experts, or at all events to bodies who have experts in their employment, and nothing would have been easier than for those bodies to address a question to the Board of Education on any point on which they did not feel certain. Very few inquiries, however, have in fact
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been addressed to the Board by authorities as to the meaning of the Circular.
The principal points on which the Circular has been misunderstood are the following: It has been assumed that a certificated teacher would be required, not only for each complete group of 80 children at a school, but also for each fraction of a group over and above a complete group. The illustration given in the Circular itself seems to me to render this interpretation quite out of the question. It has also been assumed that the individual teacher in a school may not teach a larger number of scholars than that for which he counts when the sufficiency of the staff as a whole is being considered. For instance, it has been assumed that, because the uncertificated teacher counts for 35 children in the staff scale, he may not teach a class of more than 35 children. This misunderstanding was removed by the answer given as long ago as April 5 in the House of Commons by the President of the Board of Education to Mr. Charles Roberts.
The methods of estimating the financial effect of the Circular in some areas have been singularly hasty and fallacious. It is, however, quite possible to form a very fair estimate of the financial effect, and some very excellent specimens of close estimating have in fact been furnished to the Board of Education. In some cases, however, the estimator has contented himself with doing a very simple sum in arithmetic. He has argued that as the teaching value of certain grades of teachers has been reduced at certain rates, therefore new teachers must be provided to make up the aggregate teaching value of all the teachers in the area to the figure at which it stood before the reduction. This method is doubly erroneous. In the first place, it entirely ignores any existing margin of teaching powers in the aggregate staff, and it entirely ignores the margin in the staff of individual schools, by reference to which alone any reliable estimate can be formed. It assumes that, if the authority had, say, 20 per cent. margin under the old conditions, it must maintain the same margin under the new conditions. It is quite possible, however, that the practice of the authority is so far above the old scale that in these cases no increase of the staff at all would be required. In other cases the estimating officer has taken each school and class separately, but has entirely

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ignored the possibility of any adjustment by regrading or reclassifying the school and by redistributing the staff. Where this method of estimating has been pursued, and at the same time the Circular has been misunderstood in the way I have already described, it has not been at all difficult to produce a most alarming financial result.
The noble Earl referred me to Wolverhampton. Having been chairman of the Wolverhampton School Board, I am not quite ignorant on this point, and I have gone into the question of Wolverhampton. Wolverhampton has a very good school staff at the present moment, and I am satisfied that the additional expenditure of putting the Circular in force will be practically insignificant—you would have some difficulty in giving it a rate value at all. I know it was widely reported that the Wolverhampton authorities anticipated that the Circular would involve an additional expenditure equivalent to a rate of much more than 2d. in the £. I am informed by the Board of Education that this is an entire mistake, and that there is no reason to anticipate that the changes announced in the Circular will involve any substantial increase in respect of salaries.
THE EARL OF ONSLOWDoes the town clerk admit that?
VISCOUNT WOLVERHAMPTONI am quite sure the town clerk would not form any opinion that he was not satisfied was perfectly sound and right, but it is evident that he has arrived at a conclusion on the figures supplied to him which is not correct. Another case to which publicity has been given is that of the borough of Leicester, where it was estimated that additional staff costing £3,310 would be required. I am informed that at least £3,000 can safely be struck off this estimate. The calculations of the Leicester authority appear to have been based on the present size of existing classes, and make no allowance for the possibility of regrading. I may say, in passing, that one case is quoted in Leicester of a class in Standard VII having an average attendance of no fewer than 88 scholars under a single certificated teacher. I put it to your Lordships whether that can be defended on any ground whatever. As regards other areas, I have seen estimates that, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the cost of additional salaries would be £23,000 a
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year, and that in the county of Durham the cost would be no less than £20,000 a year. I am advised that these figures may safely be rejected. No estimate is worth anything which does not take account of the possibilities of adjustment by regrading and reclassifying schools, and by redistributing the existing staff.
In the areas of almost all local authorities there is a very considerable margin of teaching power in the aggregate. Without this aggregate margin, there could, of course, be no margin in the individual schools. The problem is to distribute the available staff in such a way that there shall be a sufficient margin in all schools and no excessive margin in any school. In one case—that of Leicestershire—I am informed that the very able Director of Education has made an exhaustive inquiry into the circumstances of every school, and has found that a saving of between £700 and £1,000 on his first estimate can be effected by redistribution of staff, reducing the cost involved by the Circular to practically nothing at all. If it is said that there are educational objections to adjustment by redistribution, regrading and reclassifying, I can only say that I am informed that in, many cases distinct educational advantages would result. It is, perhaps, rather a bold prophecy to make, but I am not at all sure that in the end some local authorities will not have reason to bless the Circular which has been issued by the Board of Education for calling their attention to points in which economies can be legitimately effected by improved. administration.
THE EARL OF ONSLOWCould the noble Viscount say what the original estimate in Leicestershire was and what it has been reduced to?
VISCOUNT WOLVERHAMPTONNo. I have not the figures, but the Director of Education has, after making exhaustive inquiry, found that a saving of between £700 and £1,000 on his first estimate can be effected by redistribution of staff. The noble Earl alluded to the requirement in the Circular that no class shall contain more than 60 scholars on the registers. Speaking generally, I do not think it is too harsh to say that, if a local authority is severely hit by this rule, it does not deserve much consideration. It may, of course, be conceded that where an authority

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has inherited a long-standing deficiency of accommodation or a large number of badly designed or arranged school buildings which require replacement, or has really had great difficulties in meeting the demands of a growing population, it would be unfair to condemn it without qualification for teaching some of the children in unduly large classes. This consideration applies to a case like that of Newcastle-on-Tyne, where the problem of school accommodation is admittedly a difficult one. But I am informed that in Newcastle there were quite recently 331 classes with over 60 scholars on the roll, 52 classes with 70 or more scholars on the roll, and 16 classes with 75 or more scholars on the roll. I think that shows how very desirable it is that some improvement should take place.
After all, however, there remain a very considerable number of local education authorities who, it is believed, will either not be affected at all, or not affected very seriously, by the new Regulations. Among county areas I may refer to the cases of Lancashire, Cheshire, Surrey, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and Leicestershire. Among urban areas I may mention London and the county boroughs of Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Plymouth, Devonport, Bradford, Blackburn, Burnley, Norwich, Yarmouth, Croydon, West Hartlepool, Southport, Chester, and other places. In some cases improvements have been contemplated, or are already in progress, which will be completed before the effect of the new Regulations is felt; and it is, of course, quite unfair to attribute to the new Regulations the cost of improvements which would in any case have been undertaken, or which the authority would have been obliged to undertake, under the old Regulations. There has, I am afraid, been a disposition to saddle the Circular with some expenses which do not properly belong to it.
The noble Earl complained that under this Circular the local authorities will be placed more at the mercy of the Board's inspectors. In administering a great Department of the State you must trust your officers, and having been concerned with educational matters for some years I can safely say that there is no staff of public servants who deserve more confidence than the staff of inspectors under the Board of Education. Their instincts are not to spend but to save money, to get as good an
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education for as small an amount of public expenditure as is possible. There is not the least reason to fear that His Majesty's inspectors as a class will act with less discretion and consideration in the future than they have in the past. I admit that the new Regulations will constitute an important change, but it is a step onward, and I cannot think that the House of Lords will express disapproval of an attempt made by a very competent Board of eminent administrators to carry out a policy which Lord Cross's Commission of twenty years ago recommended as desirable. Politics have nothing whatever to do with this matter. The Board of Education are proceeding cautiously and carefully, and I believe that when effect has been given to this scheme we shall all be glad to admit that it has brought about a great improvement in the public education of this country.
LORD BELPER:My Lords, I listened with great interest to the speech of the noble Viscount, very conciliatory in tone, but a great part of it an ex parte statement with regard to the financial liability which will be cast upon the boroughs and counties. There was one remark which the noble Viscount made at the beginning of his speech in which I entirely concur—namely, that two questions are involved, one educational and the other financial; and to my mind it is a great mistake if we to-day succeed in mixing up those two questions in any way. Let me say, speaking for the County Councils Association, that they recognise that fully. They recognise that the educational question is one on which there may be all the satisfaction which has been expressed by the noble Viscount, and many of the county councils would, I know, be very willing to see this reform carried out if it could be done without a large additional burden on the ratepayers. For that reason the resolution which has been passed by the Executive Council of the County Councils Association does make this very clear distinction, for it declares that—
"Whilst abstaining from any consideration of Circular 709 until a report thereon has been obtained from the educational committee, the Council deprecates the practice of imposing heavy additional burdens on the ratepayers by Departmental circulars without previous discussion in Parliament."
That, I think, is a very intelligible ground to take up. As a matter of fact, this

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resolution was carried almost unanimously, only one gentleman voting against it, and I believe it very fairly represents the feeling of the county councils with regard, as I say, to the financial part of this scheme.
The noble Viscount said the object of the Circular was to give notice to the local education authorities as to what they might expect in the Code; but what we complain of is this, that in the middle of March, at the time when the estimates for the coming financial year are made up, there is suddenly sprung on the county councils and borough councils, without any notice and without consultation of any sort, this Circular, which if it is to be carried out must throw some financial burden, at all events, on a great number of authorities during the course of the financial year. It is an axiom of those who manage the affairs of the nation that they cannot entertain any alteration of the estimates after the time that the estimates have been considered; and surely, knowing that the financial estimates of the year in every educational body—and they form a very large part of the rates that have to be raised—are always made in March, it is unreasonable in March to send down a Circular to county councils which will cause their estimates to be reconsidered.
The other point I wish to put is that the circumstances under which this Circular has been brought forward are such as to cause very strong feeling indeed amongst local education authorities. Let me revert to the point which Lord Onslow put in his opening speech. There was a very influential deputation, representing every education authority in England and Wales, which was the result of a meeting at which resolutions were passed unanimously urging the Government to readjust the education burden, which was so much larger compared with the grant given by the Government than in years past, and especially dwelling on the question of medical inspection. The Prime Minister received that deputation, and he not only declined until the whole question of local taxation was considered to give any relief for education, but he absolutely refused to give anything at the time for medical inspection, although there had been a provisional promise a year ago that some grant would be given on this heading. Mr. E. N. Buxton, the well-known educationist, who was once Chairman of the London School Board and is now
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Vice-Chairman of the Education Committee of the County Councils Association, pointed out that the Act which dealt with medical inspection was one with which they all sympathised, but it was supplemented by an expansive Circular sent out by the Board of Education necessitating extra financial burdens. The Prime Minister, in reply, said—
"I do not think, as to that, there is any point in regard to which the head of the Education Department has increased the severity of the burdens; in fact, he had no power to do so by any Circular from whatever source it may come."
I hailed with great delight the statement of the Prime Minister that the Board of Education has no power to issue regulations increasing the charge put upon the rates by the Act. I quite admit that this does not refer intimately to the matter now before us, but when the question of medical inspection comes up again the statement of the Prime Minister will be very valuable evidence with reference to the position taken up by the Board of Education in trying to force particular expenditure in regard to medical inspection upon the authorities. It did strike us as rather a strong instance of the irony of the situation that the very next day the Circular to which the noble Earl has called attention was issued, putting this additional burden upon local education authorities. We feel very strongly upon this matter, and I sincerely hope, after the statement that the noble Viscount has made, that the charge will not be so high as has been anticipated. But I should like to ask him to, at all events, consider, when the time comes, the estimates and figures brought forward by the educational authorities.
We have a committee of the County Councils Associations sitting this week which will have information from all the counties in England with regard to their estimates. I can assure the noble Viscount that we have no wish to exaggerate what those estimates are likely to be. They will be very carefully sifted, and if it comes to a question whether this will put any, or a serious, burden on counties, I hope the Board of Education will promise to give consideration to our statement as well as to the facts that they have gathered themselves. I only mention that because there was another occasion, with regard to medical inspection, when, although our figures had been very carefully collected, the Board of Education declined to discuss

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the matter with us at all. I trust that, as there is some doubt as to what this extra charge will be, the matter will be carefully looked into with a view on both sides of arriving at a true solution. With no wish to say anything with regard to the educational part of the question, I do desire again to enter a strong protest—and in this matter I think I am speaking on behalf of a very large number of counties in England—against these charges being continually put upon the ratepayers, charges many of which have not the direct sanction of Parliament and which the authorities themselves could not foresee, and, therefore, have not been able to include in their estimates.
LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYMy Lords, I will not at this hour go at any length into this question, but I desire to made one or two remarks on the Circular. In the first place, having given a good deal of attention to it and tried as far as I could to verify some of the figures that have been published as to its probable extra cost, I wish to say that, in my opinion, the information on which the noble Earl who initiated this discussion has relied is grossly exaggerated. The suggestion of an increased burden of 2d. in the pound is far beyond any possibility. Twopence on the rate throughout England and Wales would amount to £1,300,000 or £1,400,000.
THE EARL OF ONSLOWI only mentioned one county—Norfolk.
LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYI do not think we are competent at this moment to discuss the financial question properly. It requires very careful examination. I am obliged to the noble Viscount the Lord President of the Council for the official information he has given us, but I feel that in a question like this it is important that the financial side should be gone into very carefully, the local authorities being able to be heard and to explain their views. I cannot help thinking that if a small and able committee of the County Councils Association could call at the Board of Education and confer with the officers of the Board, the matter could be cleared up.
Mr. Runciman,in the reply which he gave in the House of Commons the other day, stated that five county authorities had submitted to him their own estimate of what the proposals in the Circular were going to
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cost—namely, Gloucester, Hertfordshire, Devonshire, Bucks, and Cheshire. After all, these are the figures coming from the authorities themselves, who would certainly not understate the case of pressure; and I may say that, having worked out the figures which they gave, according to Mr. Runciman's answer, I find that on the question of teaching staff the increase in the cost in these five counties, on their own statement, is 2.7 per cent., and if we take the increase on the whole of their maintenance cost it would be under 2 per cent.
I was very much surprised when I read the statement made by the Town Clerk of Wolverhampton, and I have taken some trouble to test his statement. Having gone into the matter I am absolutely satisfied, as the noble Viscount below me is, that the Town Clerk of Wolverhampton was unnecessarily terrifying his town council and that he raised a perfectly gratuitous scare. Among other things, he stated that, on account of the alteration of the size of classes and the value of the teachers, they would have to build a very large number of additional class-rooms. I have obtained the latest figures of Wolverhampton, and find that this is a town which has very materially neglected its duty in the way of school provision. There were a large number of schools scandalously overcrowded, and I took the opportunity of observing to this official that the evidence showed that, quite irrespective of any Circular, they were under an obligation to make a considerable addition to their school provision. The answer I received was that they were at present building for 1,200, and plans were being prepared for the accommodation of a further 1,200.
This Circular is a very belated contribution to the bringing of our teaching staffs of elementary schools up to something like the standard as to numbers which efficiency requires. I wish sometimes that a noble Lord from Scotland would tell us how very much behindhand we are in the matter of education as compared with Scotland. To give England the same proportion of certificated teachers as Scotland possesses the number would have to be increased by 26,000, and the training college accommodation would have to be twice enlarged. I should like to ask how many supplementary teachers there are in the whole of Scotland, and what proportion they bear to the teaching staff. The fact is that

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we are wretchedly behindhand. We have been going on teaching our children with teachers incompetent for the purpose, and the sooner we make up our minds that that is to come to an end the better. I am glad to say that a large number of the county authorities have increased their staffs; and it is improbable that the cost of acting on the Circular will be more than a halfpenny rate in the small fringe of counties where the schools are understaffed.
Now, may I say a word in sympathy with those who have spoken from the other side? Though I think this Circular was rightly issued, being intended to be a warning and intimation and to pave the way to enable people to discuss and consider what would come later in the Code, I do feel that in this time of transition and ever since the Act of 1902 the local authorities have had very heavy work put upon them. They have had very heavy expenses to incur, and some of them have rushed into expenses that they need not have incurred. The National Union of Teachers is a very powerful organisation, and is always contending that the teacher is the person who ought to get the money; and anyone who has studied the figures of expenditure on schools since 1902 will see that the larger portion of the increased expenditure has been on the salaries of the teachers, and I think if there had been little more caution at the beginning the pinch would not be so great now. The local education authorities have had many problems to tackle which would have proved difficult in the case of authorities that had been at work for many years and were thoroughly familiar with all the details of administration. Therefore, I do sympathise with the local authorities who would like to have a little breathing time, and I also sympathise very much with those noble Lords and others who feel that there ought to be some protection of the rights of self-government possessed by local authorities in charge of education.
Complaint has been made of the great amount of administrative discretion put into the hands of the Board of Education. You could not possibly administer an education Code without giving immensely wide powers of an administrative character to the Board of Education; but I do say that the present Board is pressing Depart
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mental authority a little too far. I will take the case of the medical inspection of schools. I was delighted when I saw the statement made by the Prime Minister that Departmental circulars cannot extend a statutory right. There is no doubt that the Board of Education has taken upon itself in its Departmental circulars, and now in the Code, to invent an officer called a school medical officer—an officer not contemplated by the Act requiring medical inspection; and the Board of Education is practically trying to force upon local authorities the appointment of one medical officer for the county who should be associated with the work of schools. As to whether that is good or not I do not express an opinion, but I do feel that there ought not to be an attempt by Departmental circulars to exercise powers which the Act of Parliament never conferred.
There is another matter to which I should like to refer. I daresay some noble Lords may have seen, in the course of the recent controversy about this Circular, that there appeared a long communiqué in the Morning Post giving an official explanation of the purpose of the Circular. The Morning Post, which has been a remarkably ably-conducted paper on this matter of education, had a leading article in which it was stated that this was the " official explanation." I do not think the Board of Education ought to publish commentaries and explanations on their own circulars through a newspaper. If that is to be done, it should be done officially from the Department itself.
I do think that the Circular is a little obscure and requires clearing up. There is a point in it which I wish to criticise because it illustrates what I have been objecting to—excessive Departmental interference with local management. It is quite true that the Circular gives general values for the staff and in some ways gives greater liberty to the local managers than the old Code did, because whereas the old Code earmarked a particular teacher for his own value, the new Code leaves discretion to the managers and to the head teacher to organise the school and to put a teacher at considerably more than what I would call his face value provided that the staff as a whole satisfies the requirements as to numbers. What I do not like is that the Code gives the Government inspector the power of making what I would call a per-

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sonal assessment of each individual teacher. The Government inspector may object to any teacher being sent to any class which the inspector thinks he is not competent to teach. I think that is too minute an interference. The Code should say that you must have teachers of proper qualifications and that the teachers of proper qualifications are valued at so much. I hope that the inspectors will be a little restrained on that point; otherwise the inspector will become something that he ought not to be. He will be the organiser of the school instead of these matters being left in the hands of the local authority.
There are many other things that one might say, but at this late hour I will conclude by repeating that in my opinion the Circular is only a small instalment of what is due to the efficiency of education. At the same time I would be glad if the Government could satisfy the apprehensions of the local authorities by showing in detail that it will not cost what they think it will, and if they would restrain what I must call the grasping at power by the officials of the Board of Education. At this moment the Board of Education has not exactly the confidence of the people who locally administer education, and I think a greater sense of security among those who manage the schools would be very valuable to the public.
THE LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD:My Lords, I rather hesitate to ask your Lordships' indulgence at this late hour, but there are one or two words I desire to say. I would not venture to intrude with reference to finance, except to say that, in my opinion, there is no more wasteful finance than the continuance of an expensive and inefficient system of staffing our schools and maintaining them. But what I rather desire to say is a word or two on behalf of the children from the educational point of view. I venture to think that it has not been sufficiently emphasised to-night that the real business of the Board of Education is to see that the system of education is efficient, and, as I understand this Circular, without, of course, committing myself to approval of every little detail in it, it means that the Board of Education is desirous of making our system in some sense really efficient. If the Board of Education has failed at all hitherto it has been in the way of being far too tender and too dilatory in this respect.
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The Board is met with two great obstacles—first of all, the excessive size of the classes in a great many of our schools. I am quite sure that none of us would be satisfied if our own children were being educated, at any age, in classes of sixty, seventy or eighty under one teacher, and, therefore, I cannot but feel that the Board of Education deserves our entire support in its endeavour to reduce the number of children in each class. Then, again, the Board is met with the prevalence, in some parts of the country, at any rate—a prevalence which is not decreasing—of uncertificated and unqualified teachers. Many of these teachers have no adequate knowledge of the duties they are called upon to perform. I may venture to mention to your Lordships a little experience of my own. Some time ago we established for my city and neighbourhood a system of special classes for pupil teachers, and in establishing those classes I ventured to make it known that we should be glad to see any of the uncertificated teachers at our classes who chose to come, so as to improve their education, and a considerable number of those teachers came. But the masters in charge of the classes very soon reported that they had nearly all disappeared, and when we inquired the reason we found that it was that they were ashamed to expose their ignorance before the pupil teachers in the classes. That led us to try another experiment—namely, the forming of special classes for uncertificated teachers. Again they came in good numbers, but very soon the classes almost entirely dwindled away, because so many of them were ashamed to show their ignorance before one another. These Article 68 teachers have been rechristened supplementary teachers, but they are still being appointed in large numbers in many parts of the country. I venture to think that it is the plain duty of the Board of Education, by some such means as this Circular, to stop the appointment of teachers who possess no known qualification except, I believe, that they are eighteen years of age, of good character, and have been vaccinated.
If this liberty to appoint uncertificated and cheap teachers is to go on, we are left in this ridiculous position, that we have established a certain number of training colleges and are turning out students from those colleges, a great number of whom cannot obtain situations without having to wait a considerable

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time owing to the places for which they are fully qualified having been already occupied, and occupied in many cases by the very young people who failed to pass the tests of qualification which these students did pass. Indeed, the only qualification which many of these cheap teachers possess is that they have failed to pass the examination necessary to enter the training colleges. I do think that, in the presence of such a state of things, we ought to give our sympathetic and hearty support to every endeavour on the part of the Board of Education to make the system of education with which it is charged as efficient as possible.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRYMy Lords, I cordially concur in what was stated by the noble Viscount the Lord President and also by Lord Belper that the question must be looked at from two totally different points of view, and I think I can say, conscientiously, that during the three and a-half years I was privileged to be President of the Board of Education I did my utmost to promote the efficiency of education and to emphasise the necessity of considering the heavy burdens which the ratepayers had to bear.
The provisions of the Circular have been fully dealt with, and your Lordships will hardly expect me to re-discuss them. But I should like to say that, from the education point of view only, I find no fault with the Circular. The right reverend Prelate alluded to the hardship to those teachers who have gone through a course of training and who at the present moment find themselves in a position in which they are unable to take advantage of the training they have undergone. I concur with what he said. I think that after they have trained themselves to become teachers, and in view of the important fact that each of those would-be teachers has cost the State something like £200, their services should not, if possible, be lost to the State or any injustice done to them. I would, however, remind the right reverend Prelate that a few years ago there was a shortage of trained teachers, and the Board, to meet this, had to sanction the employment of untrained teachers. These supplementary teachers having come to the rescue and done their work honestly and conscientiously, it does seem to me that these drastic provisions will bear hardly upon them.
I turn now to the other side. There is
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no question that in all parts of the country there has been great complaint of the way in which the rates have increased, and undoubtedly in all parts of England the education rate has risen very materially and has caused great grumbling on the part of the unfortunate ratepayers. This Circular must, to a certain extent, increase the rates. Whatever the actual figures may be, there is no doubt that there will be an increased expenditure as a consequence of this Circular. In the first place, there must be new class-rooms to accommodate the more numerous classes, and the replacement of less expensive teachers by more expensive teachers must, of necessity, increase the cost. It is in rural schools, where the numbers are small and supplementary teachers are employed to a considerable extent, that the cost under this head must naturally fall. It is in the rural districts and not in the towns that the burden of this extra expense will be most heavily felt.
There is great diversity of opinion as to what is to be the cost of the new Regulations under this Circular, and I think we are justified in asking for some statement on that subject from His Majesty's Government. I think we should be justified in even moving for a Return giving some idea as to the cost before we accede to this proposal. Perhaps the noble Lord who will follow me will be able to give us the figures, but, if not, I hope he will tell us that when the Code is brought up the Government will be able to give the figures on which they base their estimate as to what the cost will be. An important deputation, as has been pointed out, waited upon the Prime Minister on March 18, before the issue of this Circular, to urge upon the Government the necessity for increased grants for education. Mr. Hayes Fisher said on that occasion—
"Buildings, equipment, every single item of expenditure in connection with education, was going up, most of all, necessarily so, that for the increase of the salaries of teachers. Hygiene, manual education, physical education, organised games, all conjured up a vista of expenditure, all of which was falling on the ratepayer. The pressure of the Department, of expert opinion, and of public opinion, all tended to make the cost of education greater. But the relative portion of the charges borne by the ratepayer had increased, and must increase unless they got more Exchequer grant. From 1892 to 1902 the Exchequer grant was more than sixty per cent. of the total cost. Since 1902 that percentage had been gradually going down, and was now less than fifty per cent."

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It cannot be said that the Prime Minister, in his reply, offered the deputation any satisfaction. Mr. Asquith said—
"It was quite true that the Royal Commission on Local Taxation described education as, at any rate in the larger sense, a national service, and he agreed with them. But it was a national service, as they pointed out, which was locally administered—in other words, a service in which the representatives of the taxpayer had no direct or immediate control. When they were dealing with a service national in its character but local in its administration they could do no greater disservice to economy, and therefore to efficiency, than by throwing a disproportionate amount of the charge upon the central Exchequer, while the actual daily effective management rested with the representatives of the ratepayers."
Proceeding, the Prime Minister used these important words—
"It was said that in the successive Education Bills introduced by the present Government sums varying from a million to a million and a-half pounds or more would have been asked of Parliament in addition to the existing Parliamentary grants. He agreed. They would have been prepared to pay a very large price for educational peace."
When I heard the noble Viscount the Lord President say that this was not a political question, these words recurred to my mind. I cannot but think that this was an attempt to bribe the local authorities to accept the Government's education policy. It seems to me that it was another attempt to influence administration in the direction of their own political opinions. Mr. Birrell promised £1,000,000 in his Bill, Mr. McKenna £1,400,000, and Mr. Runciman £1,600,000. Now when the local authorities ask for a grant they are sent empty away. If these grants could be offered for political purposes, surely a grant should be given when demanded by so important a deputation on behalf of the local authorities. I hope we shall hear something on that point before the debate concludes.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF CREWE)My Lords, I desire to make one or two observations in reply to points that have been raised in the course of the debate, but at this hour I will not detain your Lordships for more than a few minutes. So far as the educational merits of this Circular are concerned there has been little dispute, and the statements of the Lord President have not been contravened by any subsequent speaker. The noble Marquess who has just sat down devoted the latter part of his speech to the
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financial aspect of the case, and asked whether it would not be possible for the Board of Education now, or, at any rate, at as early a date as possible, to make some definite estimate of what they understood the cost would be. Owing to the very nature of the case that is not entirely an easy thing to do. The amount of the actual cost must undoubtedly depend to a fiery considerable extent upon the manner in which the re-arrangements are carried out by the different local authorities. That duty, no doubt, throws a heavy burden of work upon them, and until that work has been carried out it is difficult for the Board of Education to form any definite estimate; but as soon as they have received from the various local authorities their revised estimates, which I think in many cases will be very different from the hurried estimates sent in on the first alarm, the Board of Education will endeavour to check them, as far as they can, from their own information, and, although I am not able to make any promise, I hope we may be in a position when the matter comes before Parliament again to say something rather more definite on that matter. What we can say at present is that there is no doubt that a great many of the preliminary estimates of the local authorities were largely exaggerated. Some of them seem to have gone through the simple process of dividing the teachers into the number of children, and, of course, it is perfectly evident that if that was done you could reach the most alarming results. They left out altogether the almost unlimited possibility of regrading and rearrangement of classes, which in a great many cases will, I am confident, have the effect of reducing the charge to almost nothing.
The noble Marquess who has just sat down spoke of the supplementary teachers. It is frankly admitted by the Board of Education that the desire, which I think must be shared by all those who are enthusiastic for education in the country, is, without hardship to individuals, gradually to replace those supplementary teachers by certificated teachers. I have no doubt that in many cases you can find a supplementary teacher who is a very good teacher. We do not dispute that for a moment; but, other things being equal, it is, of course, obvious that the goal to which we have to look forward is the time when all teachers in all schools shall be

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thoroughly qualified and trained. There is one observation I wish to make with regard to the remark which fell from Lord Stanley of Alderley. In very kindly terms, and speaking with an authority which we all recognise to be unequalled in this House and almost unequalled in the country, he drew attention to what he considered to be something in the nature of a usurpation by the Board of Education in directions which might be left to the discretion of the local authority. I have no doubt that my right hon. friend who presides over that Department will attach every weight to what the noble Lord said, but I confess that this consideration does occur to me. I think we must agree that of all the directions in which local management has to be combined with some degree of central control there is none in which the relation is likely to be so difficult a one as in this matter of education. We are not, I am afraid, as a nation very greatly in love with education, and although I am not going to disparage for a moment the admirable work that is done by the education committees of different county councils, those education committees work often under difficulties of their own. They work
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in some parts of England, I am certain, knowing that they are not in complete sympathy with the majority of their council, who may in many cases be the opposite of educational enthusiasts; and therefore I ask the noble Lord to reflect whether what he considers undue interference on the part of the Board of Education may not tend to strengthen those members of the county council, sometimes the minority, who are educational enthusiasts. At the same time I quite admit that it is desirable to leave local discretion to operate as far as possible in all cases where it can reasonably be done; and I repeat that the words which fell from my noble friend will receive the careful attention of the Department. I have nothing more to add. The question has been very fairly argued, and the important distinction between the educational aspect of this matter and the financial aspect has been carefully drawn and kept to during the debate. Consequently I think my noble friend may be well satisfied with the result.
House adjourned at ten minutes before Eight o'clock, till Tomorrow, half-past Ten o'clock.