Sitting of 30 June 1891

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL—(by Order.)
  Order for Third Reading read (Queen's consent, and Prince of Wales's consent, as Duke of Cornwall signified).
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
  MR. BARTLEY: I beg to move that the Bill be read a third time upon this day three months. I am very sorry to find myself again compelled to refer to this Bill, but, in the interests of the ratepayers of London, I think it is necessary that I should do so. The part of the Bill to which I object is that which relates to the pensioning or superannuation of the officers of the County Council. When the Bill was before the House upon the Second Reading I drew attention to the fact that it was an omnibus Bill, which included a scheme for the pensioning of the officers of the Council, who number, I believe, from 3,000 to 4,000 persons. On that occasion the President of the Local Government Board expressed an opinion that a complete scheme of superannuation ought to be placed before the Committee upstairs, and inserted in the Bill. When the Bill went upstairs the question was certainly considered by the Committee, and I have no fault whatever to find with them; but they discovered, as I knew they would, that it was an extremely difficult thing to put a scheme for pensioning into a Bill of this nature. The matter was of so complicated a character that they preferred to ignore it altogether. When the Bill came back to the House I put an Amendment on the Paper, requiring that before the London County Council adopted any plan, it should be laid on the Table for a certain number of days in order that the House might see what the scheme was. This was a very reasonable proposal, but the County Council considered that it affected their dignity, and objected to it. At the same time they agreed to put on the Paper an Amendment to provide that a scheme should be laid upon the Table of the House. I consented to this course, and in order to save the time of the House I agreed that if the Amendment were passed I would raise no further difficulty. But when the Bill was re-committed, although a statement in writing was made by the Parliamentary Committee of the Council intimating that the Council accepted this
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  course, curiously enough, although supported by the President of the Local Government Board, every Member of the Council who has a seat in the House-proceeded to vote against the Instruction, and it was not passed. Now, I cannot help thinking that considering the power given in this Bill means a scheme for the pensioning of an enormous number of persons, in which the rates of London are largely concerned, we ought to know something of the scheme which the London County Council propose to adopt. What are the facts of the case? The County Council, under the Bill, are to frame any scheme they like for the pensioning of their officers.
  MR. LAWSON: Superannuation; not pensioning.
  *MR. BARTLEY: The hon. Gentleman interrupts mo, and says "superannuation and not pensioning." I think that when the hon. Gentleman knows a little more of these matters he will find that pensioning and superannuation are very much the same thing. The proposal is, I believe, that one half of the cost and the whole of the guarantee are to come out of the rates. The County Council are to select who they like as members of the fund. It is not to be a matter of right that any officer of the Council is to come upon the fund but one of the clauses of the Bill provides that of their own free will the Council are to select who are to be eligible to be the members of the fund, I maintain that that is not a fair state of things. It is said that they already have power to give pensions to their officers. That may be so, but it is evident that they do not possess the powers they claim in this Bill or they would not come to this House for them. Then, again, I know it is invariably urged that whenever one says a word about the London County Council one is opposing them. I admit that I have no confidence in the Council as their affairs are at present managed, and I believe that to a great extent their action is guided by Party motives. A similar scheme of pension and superannuation has been promoted this year by the London School Board. The two bodies are very much on all fours. Both are elected by the ratepayers of London, and both have pension schemes

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  before the House this year. The School Board not having the prestige of the County Council, have brought in their scheme in a Public Bill, and they claim that their plan will be self-supporting. But when the Committee upstairs came to investigate the scheme they were informed by an actuary that it was difficult to estimate the number of millions of loss which the scheme might not ultimately involve, the figures were so enormous.
  *SIR J. LUBBOCK: When was the evidence given?
  *MR. BARTLEY: It was given before the Committee on the London School Board Bill.
  MR. LAWSON: I wish to put a question to you, Sir, on a point of order. Is the hon. Member at liberty to quote evidence that has not yet been reported to the House?
  MR. SPEAKER: Am I to understand that the evidence which the hon. Gentleman is referring to has not been reported?
  MR. LAWSON: That is really the fact.
  *MR. BARTLEY: But although the evidence has not been reported to the House there were reporters present, and as it has been published in the public Press, I think I am fairly entitled to show that even a scheme of pensions which is called self-supporting, is likely to cost the ratepayers of London from £7,000,000 to £8,000,000 every generation. Nobody knows, as yet, what the scheme of the London County Council is, except that instead of being self-supporting one-half of the cost is to be paid out of the rates. I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of the London County Council will speak before the Debate closes, and will say that we ought to accept the decision of the Committee upstairs. We are not, however, called upon to accept any decision from the Committee upstairs, because they declared that the matter was so difficult that they declined to deal with it, and left the question of a scheme out of the Bill. It is only reasonable that the ratepayers of London should know what that scheme is. It is said that the matter is one which is entirely in the hands of the
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  ratepayers; but that is not so. The present County Council will die in the course of a few months, and if this Bill passes before they die they will have the power of pensioning their own staff in any way they think proper. When in November or March next a new election takes place their successors will have no power to alter what has already been done. However many hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds the scheme may cost they will have no option in the matter except to pay whatever bill the present County Council may choose to saddle them with. I have no wish to say anything unpleasant in the matter, but as a London ratepayer and representing 100,000 of the poorest ratepayers in the Metropolis, I feel bound to protect their interests. It is, of course, no use to talk about decreasing the rates if schemes are to pass which will involve the expenditure of millions of money without the ratepayers knowing anything about what the schemes are. The London County Council have now arrived at the end of their life, and they are endeavouring to force through the House an Omnibus Bill to empower them to give what pensions they like. So far as we have been unable to get from the County Council or their Chairman or anybody what the scheme is which the Bill proposes to enable them to carry out, I cannot for the life of me understand why there should be this mystery and secrecy about the scheme, and in order to elicit some sort of explanation from the Chairman of the Council I beg to move that the Bill be read a third time on this day three months.
  MR. KELLY: I beg to second the Amendment, but I think that if the right hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London (Sir J. Lubbock) will give an assurance that no scheme will be put in operation until after the next election of the County Council, everybody will be satisfied. Personally I have not the same distrust of the Council that my hon. Friend appears to have, and I am sure they will wish that the ratepayers should have some voice in the matter. As the elections will probably take place in, March next, I would venture to appeal to the right hon. Baronet to allow the ratepayers of London to say "aye" or

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  "no" to any scheme of superannuation which may be proposed.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now" and, at the end of the question, to add the words "upon this day three months."—(Mr. Bartley.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  SIR J. LUBBOCK: I hope to satisfy the House, and even my two hon. Friends who have moved and seconded the Amendment, that there is really no reason why this Bill should not be read a third time. The question divides itself into two parts—first, whether my hon. Friends have any just ground to complain of the action of the London County Council, and whether the superannuation scheme is one which they may fairly ask the House to assent to. In regard to the first point, I must point out that my hon. Friend the Member for North Islington (Mr. Bartley) has not correctly stated the facts of the case. It was represented to us that those who objected would be satisfied if details of the scheme were laid upon the Table of the House, and the Parliamentary Agent of the Council was directed to write a letter to the President of the Local Government Board, in which he said that if it was considered desirable that the details of the scheme should be laid upon the Table the Council had no objection to do so, although it was an unusual course to take, and one which they did not think Parliament need require. When the matter came before the House this course was objected to by the Chairman of Committees and the Chairman of the Committee on the Bill, and the House came to the conclusion that it was not necessary to lay the scheme upon the Table. I regret that, owing to illness, I was not able to be present when the discussion took place. My hon. Friend the Member for West St. Pancras (Mr. Lawson) took part in it, not as a member of the County Council, but as a Metropolitan Member, and so also did the hon. Member for Woolwich (Colonel Hughes), who supported the Motion, but at the same time said that it would be inoperative, because it was only a Motion for a Return. Therefore, my hon. Friends have no reason to complain of the action
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  which the London County Council took in the matter. I hope that I have now removed from the mind of my hon. Friend any idea that he has been treated unfairly or discourteously.
  *MR. BARTLEY: I did not say unfairly.
  *SIR J. LUBBOCK: I thought I should be able to satisfy my hon. Friend on that point; and I will now say a few words on the merits of the question itself. My hon. Friend has spoken of secrecy and mystery. There has been no mystery about the matter, for the scheme has appeared upon the agenda paper of the Council, has been sent to the vestries, and was submitted to the Committee upstairs. What the Council proposed to do was to follow the example of certain other Corporations and great railway companies, and to devise a plan that would be less burdensome upon the ratepayers than had been the plan of the Metropolitan Board of Works, which paid the whole of the pensions on the rates. The whole reason for taking the power proposed in the Bill was to remove doubts as to whether workmen are included or not. Does my hon. Friend propose to exclude workmen from the benefits of the scheme?
  *MR. BARTLEY: Certainly not.
  *SIR J. LUBBOCK: Then I am glad to find that upon the second point we are not at issue. The question as to who are excluded or not under the law as it stands, has given rise to considerable legal difficulties, and has led to the introduction of these clauses into the present Bill. My hon. Friend asks me to agree to allow the matter to stand over until after the next election. The matter is a much smaller one than my hon. Friend supposes. It is one which will affect the comparatively few employés who have entered the service of the London County Council during the last two years, and I hope the House will not think it necessary to keep them in suspense. As to the Council being actuated by political motives, I would ask him to point out one single motion which has been passed by the Council which has not had direct reference to our own work. Finally, I would point out that the clauses which relate to the question of superannuation form only a small

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  part of the Bill, and as I presume that my hon. Friend does not desire to reject the Bill altogether, I trust that after this explanation he will not persist with his Motion.
  *MR. BARTLEY: I beg to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read the third time, and passed.

BOURNEMOUTH EAST CEMETERY BILL [Lords] (by Order.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. SHAW LEFEVRE*(3.40.) MR. SHAW LEFEVRE (Bradford, Central) moved as an Amendment—
  "That this House is not prepared to set aside by private legislation the principle laid down in the nineteenth section of the Commons Act of 1876, that land set apart for fuel allotments under Enclosure Acts shall not be diverted to other purposes than recreation grounds and garden allotments."
  The right hon. Gentleman said: I desire in a few words to explain my reasons for opposing this Bill. The matter is of importance, not only as regards this particular Bill, but in regard to other cases which may hereafter come before the House. The Bill proposes to take compulsorily a plot of ground which must practically be kept open for the recreation of the public for ever, and to convert it into a cemetery. The proposal is in direct contravention of the policy both of the Commons Act of 1876, and of the Act of the Local Commissioners, passed two years ago, and forms a dangerous precedent in respect to other cases which may be dealt with in the future. Under old Enclosure Acts it was not uncommon to set apart certain allotments to be maintained for the benefit of the poor of the parish who were in the habit of using common land for the purpose of cutting turf. As time went on it was found not worth while to cut the turf, and, as the commons became disused for that purpose, they were devoted to purposes of recreation. Down to 1876 the Local Authorities were in the habit of selling these lands, and using the
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  money received in other channels I may remind the House that I took some part in the passing of the Act of 1876, although it was introduced by the Party opposite. It seemed to the framers of the Act, and to those who supported it, that it was undesirable to permit the sale of public land of this description, and a clause was inserted in the Act prohibiting the Local Authority, in future, from selling such land, but requiring it to be used for purposes of recreation or for garden allotments In the particular case now before the House, that of Bournemouth, that town was at one time surrounded by extensive commons. In 1802 these commons were enclosed, but two allotments were set apart to enable the poor to cut turf from them. Not only the Charity Commissioners, but the Land Commissioners, and the Local Government Board, have now expressed an opinion that these allotments come under the terms of the Commons Act of 1876, and it is therefore certain that these two particular allotments cannot be sold under that Act. Two years ago the Corporation of Bournemouth applied to Parliament for a Private Act to enable them to lay out these two allotments as public parks; and under that Act they have already appropriated one of them for a public park. This was done with the consent of the Attorney General, and without the payment of compensation. There now remains the other allotment, and by the present Bill the Corporation of Bournemouth propose to take 26 acres of it for the formation of a cemetery. My contention is that this action on the part of the Corporation is in direct contravention of the Commons Act of 1886 and of their own Act passed by the Bournemouth Town Commissioners two years ago, and that if Parliament sanctions it, it will form a dangerous precedent for the future. I have ventured to oppose similar proposals in other cases, and I am glad to say always with success. I did so in the case of Barnes Common, where the Local Authority proposed to buy a portion of the Common for the purpose of converting it into a cemetery, and I took the same course in the case of Southampton. These instances are sufficient to show that this House does

  1849
  not regard with favour a proposal to convert allotments of this kind into "cemeteries. If they are not laid out as a public recreation ground they ought to be appropriated for garden allotments. I know it will be said that the Bournemouth. Corporation know best what the people want in the matter, but my reply is that their proposal is contrary to the provisions of the Act of Parliament which takes this power out of the hands of the Local Authority. It may further he said that it is a matter which ought to go before a Select Committee; but I would remind the House that the public of Bournemouth would have no locus standi to appear before a Committee. The only persons who would have an authority to appear are the Corporation of Bournemouth themselves and the cottagers who possess allotment rights. I, therefore, venture to maintain that this is a matter which may be fairly dealt with by the House as a public question, and I think the House will do well to affirm the policy which has long been advocated both in and out of Parliament, namely, that of not allowing allotments of this kind to be appropriated either by private persons or by the Local Authority. For these reasons I beg to move the rejection of the Bill, and I hope that the House, on this occasion, will pursue the same course which it has followed in the past.
  SIR WALTER FOSTER: I beg to second the Motion. I believe there are many Members of this House, and a still larger number of persons outside the House, who are disposed to view with jealousy any attempt to appropriate land of this kind for the purposes contemplated by the present Bill. I know something of Bournemouth, where this land is situated, and I believe that this attempt to acquire land in the poorest quarter will be injurious to the general welfare of the town. It is an attempt to obtain by means of a Private Bill land which has been dedicated thrice over to the poor for other purposes. By the Act of 1802 and by the Act of 1876, and again only in 1889, it was declared that the land was to be maintained for recreation purposes. So long as other land can be obtained for a cemetery, I do not think it is for the wellbeing of the community that this particular plot should be taken for
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  this purpose. No Bill of the kind would be acceptable unless it contemplated the appropriation of an equal quantity of land for the benefit of the people in some equally convenient locality. This Bill does nothing of the kind, and I think it is our bounden duty, in the interests of the poor, to resist the proposal to the full extent of our power.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House is not prepared to set aside by private legislation the principle laid down in the nineteenth section of the Commons Act of 1876, that land set apart for fuel allotments under Enclosure Acts shall not be diverted to other purposes than recreation grounds and garden allotments."—(Mr. Shaw Lefevre.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. C. E. BARING YOUNG: I hope the House will not delay the progress of this Bill in consequence of the objections of the right hon. Gentleman. The original tenants and occupiers of the land are not all to be regarded as poor, and, assuming that the land comes under the provisions of the Enclosure Act, there can be no question that the right of cutting turf has been in abeyance for a very considerable period. At the present moment the land is lying waste, and no turf is cut at all. At the same time, the population of Bournemouth is rapidly increasing, and the existing cemetery is becoming much overcrowded. The land which the Bill deals with is very conveniently situated for the purposes of a cemetery; it is within easy reach; and good roads can be made. The right hon. Gentleman says that the Bill is in contravention of the principles of the Act of 1876; but whatever the exact wording of that Act may be, I think it will hardly be contended that the provisions of the measure are not in accordance with the principle and spirit of that Act. It is proposed to lay out the land in such a way that it will even, when converted into a cemetery, form gardens and walks which may be looked upon as a recreation ground; and I may remind hon. Members that there are many old burial grounds, even in London, which, in this respect, have been laid out advantageously for the

  1851
  public. It is only proposed to take 26 acres out of a piece of land which comprises 100 acres, and it is proposed to convert the remainder into a public park. The Corporation of Bournemouth also propose to lay out another estate of 140 acres as a public park, so that ample provision will be made for recreation purposes. The right hon. Gentleman asks why other land is not taken. The reason is, that it is impossible to come to reasonable terms with the owners; and although the Corporation might come to Parliament, it would involve a heavy expense and the delay of another year. Why should there be any delay? The people of Bournemouth have been fully consulted, and are unanimously in favour of the scheme. I ask hon. Members to look at the matter from a common-sense point of view, and not to be swayed by the factious objections of the right hon. Gentleman to a proposal which concerns Bournemouth, and Bournemouth alone, and upon which every one in Bournemouth is agreed. The Corporation have no desire to over-ride the provisions of the Act of Parliament, but they do ask to be allowed to put a fair and liberal interpretation upon that Act, and to take a step which will be of the greatest advantage to the whole neighbourhood.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGS: I think that the House will not agree to the Second Reading of this Bill. The hon. Member who has just spoken defends the measure on two grounds—first, that it only proposes to take away a part of the land, and next because it is impossible to get land from other sources without coming to Parliament for compulsory powers, and it will be less costly and more easy to take land belonging to the people. It must also be remembered that the people whom it is sought to deprive of this land will have no power to set out their views before a Select Committee. They are, therefore, absolutely driven to this House for protection against the wrong that is sought to be done to them. I have read the case of the promoters which has been circulated among hon. Members, and a more lame case it seems almost impossible to fancy. It simply amounts to this: that they see an opportunity of getting land for a cemetery cheap, and they are anxious to be spared
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  the expense of going for compulsory powers. The right hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) explained fully the position of the case in regard to the Enclosure Act of 1876, so that it is not necessary that I should go over that ground again. It may, I think, be taken for granted that there is no power to divert this land except for the purpose of a recreation ground. I need not point out the advantage of having 100' acres of land in the immediate neighbourhood of a town of 40,000 inhabitants for purposes of recreation. I trust that the House will refuse to pass this Bill. It is said that the Corporation will pay for it, but what amount of money or other land can compensate the people of Bournemouth for losing a piece of land of this kind? The promoters say that it is lying waste and is useless; but that would not be the case if it were converted into a recreation ground. Recreation grounds are very much desired in the neighbourhood of large towns, and why then, alienate these 100 acres of land or any portion when it is legally adaptable for the purpose? But leaving out the legal question there is the common-sense-argument against giving up a recreation ground that already exists for the prospect of acquiring ground for the same purpose hereafter. The notion that a cemetery is practically a recreation-ground need not be discussed. Cemeteries are not the liveliest of recreation grounds, as a rule, and in these days when we are legislating in the direction of providing recreation grounds I do-not think it is wise to allow any Corporation under the guise of a Private Bill to upset the law of the land. I trust that the House will not listen to any argument as to money value, because the convenience and advantage of such a large piece of land in the neighbourhood of a large town cannot be estimated by money value. The promoters have arrived at the conclusion that it would be easy to get this Bill through the House, seeing that those who would oppose it, if they had the power, are only the mass of the people, and what is everybody's business is really nobody's business. They have, therefore, neglected to include in the Bill provision for other land in the place of that which they propose to take away. I hope the House will support the Amendment.
  SIR H. DAVEY: Every Member of the House will sympathise with the object which my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford has in view, but I venture to think that he has shown no reason why the Bill should not be submitted to a Select Committee. The Committee would be able to investigate all the considerations which have been placed before the House, and to decide whether it is expedient to carry out the proposal of the Corporation of Bournemouth or not. I also think that many of the observations which have been made by my right hon. Friend and by the hon. Member for the Bordesley Division (Mr. Collings) are misapplied. To hear their language it might be supposed that Bournemouth had a dense manufacturing population, and that it was covered with houses, whereas, as a matter of fact, there is no place in England which is better furnished with recreation grounds and open spaces than Bournemouth. What are the grounds upon which the House is asked to refrain from taking the usual course of sending the Bill to a Select Committee? My right hon. Friend has referred to the Act of 1876, but I have extreme doubt whether this case comes within the section of the Commons Act of 1876, which has been referred to. The land which the Corporation of Bournemouth desire to take is land set aside for the benefit of 58 specified owners and occupiers of cottages, and no one else has an interest in it. They are not necessarily poor, but they, and not the public, are the only persons who have any interest in the matter. No doubt by an Act passed in the present Parliament the Corporation of Bourne month have liberty to apply this piece of land to the purposes of a public park. As I understand, the land is at present waste, and not fit for the purposes of a park or a recreation ground. It is a piece of moor or waste land such as surrounds Bournemouth on almost every side, and the Corporation propose to purchase at a price to be fixed by an arbitrator or jury, not for any private purpose, but for the advantage of the town at large. It is not as if it were proposed to build upon it. A cemetery may not be a cheerful place, but it is at any rate an open space, and stands in a different position from land acquired for building purposes. My right hon. Friend says there is no
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  provision in the Bill to substitute land for that which is proposed to be taken; but the purchase money will be paid into Court, and can be used in the purchase of other land. It is an entire mistake to suppose that the charity would be lost to the public, for the money realised from the sale can be so used as to far more than compensate any loss to the public. Some hon. Members seem to know what the people of Bournemouth want better than the people themselves. No one in Bournemouth, so far as I know, dissents from the proposal of the Corporation.
  MR. JEFFREYS: I wish to say a few words in support of the Bill. The hon. Member for the Bordesley Division seems to be labouring under a slight misapprehension. He seems to think that this land is suitable for cottage allotments. That is not the case; it consists merely of sand and heather.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGS: I said recreation ground; not cottage allotments.
  MR. JEFFREYS: Bournemouth is already provided with ample recreation ground, and every house in it has practically a recreation ground of its own. The promoters of the Bill are a popular body representing a Mayor and Corporation who were only constituted last year. They simply propose to take 26 out of 100 acres of land for the purpose of forming a cemetery, and, as the hon. and learned Member for Stockton (Sir H. Davey) has informed the House, they propose to pay for it, so that, if considered desirable, the money can be invested in fresh land, and devoted to allotments. In Bournemouth it self there is not the slightest opposition to the Bill, and I hope the House will read it a second time.
  MR. COURTNEY: My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stockport has made a strong case for the Second Reading of this Bill, but what he has said has been said over and over again when an application has been made by Railway Companies or Municipal Authorities to get possession of portions of commons for particular purposes. It has already been said that a price would be paid, and that the money might be invested in the

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  purchase of similar land. As years have gone on the temptation to get hold of land that is very cheap has been increasing, but there has also been a disposition to postpone the consideration of what is most desirable for those who may come hereafter. Parliament has always viewed these applications with great jealousy. It is quite true that in this case money would have to be paid for the land, and that it would have to be invested, but it is not likely that the same quantity of land, or the same continuity of land, would be obtained. These considerations have already attracted the attention of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who has made a Report on this Bill, which will have to be considered if it is referred to a Committee. The right hon. Gentleman says, in reference to the local Act passed by the Bournemouth Commissioners two years ago, when it was contemplated that the land would be dedicated to a public park—
  "Whether the land shall now be converted into a cemetery, or whether the view of Parliament expressed so recently as 1889 that the land should be ultimately available for the purposes of a public park shall be set aside, are considerations which ought to be entertained and weighed maturely by the Committee to whom the Bill is referred."
  Although personally I view the Bill with great jealousy, because it is very much in conflict with what has been in the mind of Parliament for a long time past, I think it would be a strong measure to reject it on the Second Reading when there is no objection to it in the neighbourhood. At the same time, if we read it a second time I think it ought to be sent to such a Committee as will ensure that all the objections which are made to the proposal should be considered. I would, therefore, suggest that the Bill be referred to a Hybrid Committee, with full power to consider all these questions—whether no other land can be got for a cemetery, and to provide further that the money paid shall be invested in the purchase of other land. It is with some hesitation that I recommend the Bill to be read a second time, and I hope care will be taken that in dealing with Private Bills of this nature we are not putting aside those considerations of public policy which have hitherto animated Parliament.
  *MR. GILES: If the people of Bournemouth were perishing for want of fresh air I could understand this sentimental objection to the measure. But Bournemouth is one huge recreation ground; with a beautiful public garden in the middle of the town, a grand promenade on the cliffs, a magnificent beach, and a garden in front of almost every house. For my part, I think the people of Bournemouth are the best judges of what is for the advantage of their own town, and I think the House ought to listen to them before they consent to reject this Bill. The House has lately been very much in the habit of encouraging schemes for local government; but if they refuse to pass this Bill what is to become of local government? I may say that we encountered a similar sentimental objection in Southampton when we wanted to enlarge the cemetery there, but we carried the Bill.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: As I live myself in the neighbourhood of Bournemouth, and know something about the town, I feel bound to say a word upon this subject. I really think that a demand for additional recreation ground at Bournemouth is very much like insisting upon having additional recreation ground at Ascot. Bournemouth is surrounded with recreation ground. What we are asked to do is, in the interests of posterity, to overrule the interests of the existing generation and their representatives. If we are to refuse to accept the views of the natural local government of Bournemouth in order to provide something that may suit posterity many years hence, I am afraid that the House of Commons may be called upon to do nothing else. I have always been a strong advocate for the preservation of open spaces; and if this were a case in which, for a single moment, I thought an injury would be done to the cause of open spaces, I would vote for the Amendment of my right hon. Friend, but, knowing the locality, it does appear to me that the proposal of my right hon. Friend is unreasonable. It further appears to me that the proposal of the Chairman of Committees to refer the Bill to a Hybrid Committee is also unreasonable, seeing that there is nobody in the town who opposes it. It would, in my opinion, be a great slur on the self-government

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  of the people of Bournemouth to send this Bill to a Hybrid Committee, because the Corporation would be put to great expense in meeting opponents who have really no interest in the matter.
  MR. R. CHAMBERLAIN: The proposal of the right hon. Member for Bradford is not to provide an additional recreation ground, but to prevent a recreation ground which already exists from being absorbed. The right hon. Member for Derby says that the Corporation are the persons who should decide the matter, and that we are introducing a new precedent when we say that the Corporation are not the proper persons to decide whether they are to appropriate what belongs not only to themselves but to posterity. That is no new principle, but in raising money by a Municipal Body it is well-known that a fixed period for repayment is laid down, so that an excessive burden may not be imposed upon posterity. The House of Commons having on three occasions expressed an opinion with regard to the appropriation of this land, I think a Private Bill ought not to be allowed to upset that opinion, and to create a precedent which will be followed in other cases when it is possible to get land cheaply by taking common land instead of purchasing from a private owner.
  MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: If it is the wish of the House to adopt the suggestion of the Chairman of Committees that the Bill be referred to a Hybrid Committee I am prepared to withdraw the Amendment. [Cries of "No!"] If it is referred to a Hybrid Committee I believe it will be shown that the opposition is not of that unreasonable character which my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby (Sir W. Harcourt) seems to suppose; but as there is an objection to the proposal of the Chairman of Committees, I must persist with the Amendment.
  (4.30.) The House divided:—Ayes 182; Noes 70.—(Div. List, No. 310.)
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the Bill he committed to a Select Committee of Five Members, Three to he nominated
  1858
  by the House, and Two by the Committee of Selection."—(Sir Walter Foster.)
  Debate adjourned till Friday.

QUESTIONS.

  THE CASE OF HERBERT JACKSON.
  MR. COGHILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the recent death in Her Majesty's prison at Starford of Herbert Jackson, aged 30, of Tunstall; if he can state what were the circumstances under which it occurred; whether Jackson was in a good state of health when he entered the prison; and if he will cause some inquiry to be instituted to ascertain whether his death was caused, or was accelerated, by the severity of the prison discipline?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,): I have inquired into the circumstances attending this prisoner's death. At the end of May he was seized with an attack of influenza. This was followed by inflammation of the lungs, which caused his death, and the verdict of the Coroner's Jury was to that effect. He was in a good state of health when he entered the prison, and I am assured by the Governor and medical officer of the prison that his death was in no way caused or accelerated by prison treatment or discipline.

INQUEST AT WALKER COLLIERY.
MR. BURT: I wish to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to a letter in the Newcastle Leader, of the 23rd instant, in which the officials of the Miners' Union of Walker Colliery complain of the conduct of Mr. Hoyle, Coroner, in connection with an inquest held concerning the death of a miner who was killed while following his employment at the colliery named; whether he is aware that representatives of the workmen, duly appointed according to the Mines Regulation Act, were refused admission into the room in which the inquiry took place, were kept waiting outside while the first witness and the plans of the workings were examined,

1859
and only one of the three persons deputed by the workmen was allowed to enter the room; that afterwards another was admitted, but still one of them, namely, Mr. Young, Secretary of the Northumberland Miners' Association, was excluded during the whole time; and whether, if the facts be correctly stated, the Coroner acted in accordance with the 48th section of the Mines Regulation Act, which empowers the workmen to be represented at inquests of the kind?
MR. MATTHEWS: I have seen a letter in the Newcastle Daily Leader complaining of the conduct of the Coroner. I have obtained a Report from the Coroner, who informs me that the representatives of the workmen arrived late during the examination of an important witness, to which the Coroner wished to give special attention, and he was not at first informed that the persons who claimed admittance were duly authorised representatives of the men. When that fact was brought to his knowledge he admitted the two representatives of the men. He docs not remember having been asked to admit a third person. Had he been asked, he would have considered what number of persons he could have allowed to take part at the inquest, having regard to the language of the Act. This third person does not appear to have been an authorised representative of the men, and I do not collect that he had any title to demand admittance. On the facts as reported to me, I infer that the Coroner had no intention to disregard the law, or to deprive the workmen of their right to be represented.

DEFENCE OF KING GEORGE'S SOUND.
ADMIRAL FIELD: I wish to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Secretary of State for the Colonies will be pleased to call the attention of the Government of the Colony of Western Australia to the arrangements agreed upon last year for the defence of King George's Sound as a most important coaling station, in order that the forts or batteries to be supplied with guns by the Imperial Government may be completed without further delay, the Secretary of State for War having informed Parliament that the guns are
1860
ready for despatch to the Colony, but that the works for their reception were not nearly completed, if even they were begun?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Baron H. de WORMS,): There is no occasion to press the Australian Governments on this subject. They are acting in concert, and are pressing forward the work as fast as they can. The guns are ready for shipment, but the mountings, which were equally prepared, are to be changed by the wish of the Colonial Governments for those of another type, necessitating fresh manufacture. The order has been given, and the work will be pushed forward as rapidly as possible.

SUNDAY LABOUR AT HONG KONG.
ADMIRAL FIELD: I wish to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, seeing that the Legislative Council of Hong Kong have recently passed an Ordinance placing restrictions on the working of ships' cargoes in that harbour on Sundays, as prevail in England and the self-governing Colonies, on representations made by the Secretary of State last year, and seeing that, by Parliamentary Return, C. 6348, Session 1891, it appears that unnecessary and avoidable Sunday labour in working cargoes and coaling ships is still carried on in Singapore and 13 of the smaller Crown Colonies, the Secretary of State will endeavour to bring about a similar change on behalf of the seamen of this country in the aforesaid Colonies to that so recently adopted at Hong Kong, so that seamen may enjoy their Sunday rest in port in common with other of Her Majesty's subjects?
BARON H. DE WORMS: The Secretary of State proposes to communicate with the Governors of those Colonies in which Sunday labour in the ports appears to be not sufficiently restricted, with a view to further restrictive measures being taken either by legislation on the lines of the Ordinance recently passed in Hong Kong or otherwise.

THE DRAYTON BASSET SCHOOL.
SIR J. SWINBURNE: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he is aware that

1861
the last teacher appointed to the Drayton Basset School, near Tamworth, was uncertificated; that the school is now entirely closed; and that there is at the present time no school available for the children of the parish; and whether he will take steps, with as little delay as possible, to ensure that the children of the parish shall be provided with proper educational facilities?
*THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir W. HART DYKE,): The school was for many years certified as efficient, but a few months ago the managers intimated that they were about to appoint a certificated teacher: plans also were submitted and approved for some alterations in the building. The Department have not been informed that the school was closed, but the necessary steps will be taken to secure that there is a sufficiency of school accommodation.

THE CASE OF JOHN BOYLE.
MR. A. O'CONNOR: I desire to ask the Postmaster General whether an old man of 80 years, named John Boyle, has now been engaged for 30 years in the Postal Service for Arranmore Island from Burton Port,; and whether, having regard to his great ago and failing sight, he could be awarded a pension?
THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES,): In reply to the hon. Member, I have to state that John Boyle is contractor for the conveyance of mails by ferry boat between the Island of Arranmore and Burton Port on the mainland, a contract which he has held jointly with Neal Boyle for 12 years. As he is not an established Post Office servant, I regret that it is not in my power to procure him a pension.

COAST GUARD INSPECTIONS.
MR. JOHNSTON: I beg-to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that on Sunday, the 21st instant, Captain Dupois, H.M.S. Shannon, arrived in Smerwick Harbour on his annual tour of inspection of the Coastguard stations, and proceeded at once to inspect Ballydavid Station, sending messengers to the four surrounding stations that he would inspect them the same evening, and that in
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consequence of this action the Coastguards at all the stations were prevented from attending Divine service; and whether he will request the officers of Her Majesty's Navy to refrain from such unnecessary interference with the sanctity of the Lord's Day?
*THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord G. HAMILTON,): Captain Dupois did inspect the buildings of the Ballydavid Coastguard Station on June 21, but no messages were sent to the surrounding stations that he would inspect those stations the same evening, as stated in the question, nor were any of the men so prevented from attending Divine service on that day. If a station is inspected on Sunday the inspection is always so arranged that the men can attend Divine worship.

THE MEASURE OF MILK CHURNS.
MR. COBB: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that a large number of tenant farmers supplying milk to the London market suffer substantial loss in consequence of there being no official standard measure of the milk churn; whether he is aware that it is recognised by many London milk dealers that the proper measure of a churn is 8 barn gallons of 16 pints to the gallon, but that, notwithstanding this, a large number of London milk dealers require the delivery of 17 pints to the barn gallon, and supply ehurns which, in addition to this excessive quantity, hold 3 and often 4 pints more, thus entailing a loss to the farmer of 12 pints in a churn, or nearly 10 per cent.; whether, with a view of remedying this, he will push on the communications which are now in progress between the Standards Department and the Local Authorities as to the inspection, verification, and stamping of milk churns, and as to limiting the amount of error or variation which may be permitted; and whether he can name any period within which he expects the arrangements will be completed?
*THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): I am not aware that the custom of trade in London entails so serious a loss on farmers as is stated in the hon. Member's question; but the

1863
Standards Department will in the course of next month issue to the local Inspectors instructions for the verification and stamping of milk churns of the various capacities now in use, so as to show the capacity of each, and it will, therefore, not be necessary to have a particular standard denominated a "churn."

THE CASE OF MARY MILLARD.
MR. COBB: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make inquiries as to the case of Mary Millard, aged 20, who, on 25th June, was charged by the police before the Aldershot Bench with being a disorderly prostitute; whether the report is correct that Police Constable Bradbury swore positively that she was a well-known prostitute, and Police Sergeant Cottle stated that there was no doubt whatever that she was a prostitute; that, at the suggestion of the chairman, the case was adjourned in order that Miss Millard might be examined by a doctor, and afterwards, on the resumption of the case, Dr. Gibson swore that he had examined her, and that the charge that she was a prostitute could not possibly be true, the chairman stating that the case fell through, and that the police should be very careful how they run people in on such a charge; and whether he will bring the facts before the Public Prosecutor, so that Police Constable Bradbury may be indicted for perjury?
The following questions were also on the Paper:—
MR. MORTON: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the case of Mary Millard, who, on Friday, the 26th instant, was falsely charged by the police at Alder-shot with being a disorderly prostitute; and whether he will institute an inquiry as to the conduct of the police?
MR. H. J. WILSON: To ask Mr. Attorney General whether his attention has been directed to a case before the Aldershot Magistrates last Friday, when two policemen swore that a certain girl was a well-known prostitute, which evidence was proved to be entirely untrue; and whether he will call the attention of the Public
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Prosecutor to the matter, with a view to the prosecution of the constables for perjury?
MR. WALTER M'LAREN: To ask Mr. Attorney General whether Miss Mary Millard, who was charged by two policemen at Aldershot with being a disorderly prostitute, when it was subsequently proved that she was entirely innocent, has any remedy against the police; and, if so, what it is?
MR. MATTHEWS: My attention has been called to the case, and I have called for Reports from the Magistrates and from the Police Authorities. These I have not yet received. I should, therefore, be obliged if the hon. Members would postpone their questions till Friday next.

DELIVERY OF LETTERS AT CHADLINGTON.
SIR B. SAMUELSON: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he has considered a Memorial from the inhabitants of Chadlington, praying that he will grant them the same privileges in regard to the delivery of letters as have been conceded to Spelsbury and Dean, being portions of the same district, so as to put all the inhabitants of the district on an equal footing?
*MR. RAIKES: I have received an application for improved Postal Service at Chadlington, and the matter is now under inquiry. I will inform the hon. Member of the decision arrived at as soon as possible.

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION BILL.
MR. O. V. MORGAN: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, with regard to the Elementary Education Bill, Clause 3, Section 3, whether, in the event of free education being demanded where there are no free schools, the compulsory clauses of "The Education Act, 1870," will remain in force until there is sufficient free school accommodation; and, if not, what is proposed to be done with children who demand free education before free school accommodation is provided?
*SIR W. HART DYKE: It is not proposed to put the compulsory clauses of the Act of 1870 in force for the supply of free school accommodation for a year

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after the passing of the Act; and the hon. Member will observe that in the meantime the repeal of Section 10 of the Elementary Education Act, 1876, is not included in the measure.

TOBACCO GROWING IN ENGLAND.
MR. H. T. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he has received any complaints from agriculturists as to the withdrawal of the Treasury sanction to the experimental growth of tobacco in Great Britain; whether he has received any information as to the use which can be made of the product when treated as directed by the Inland Revenue Department as an insecticide or for other purposes, and whether he would support an application for the renewal of the Treasury sanction for the cultivation of tobacco?
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. CHAPLIN,): Yes, Sir; I have received some complaints as to the withdrawal of the Treasury sanction to the experimental growth of tobacco in Great Britain. I have also had representations to the effect that the tobacco grown in this country can, after treatment as directed by the Inland Revenue Department, be advantageously and economically employed as an insecticide and as a wash for sheep; and I am now in communication with the Treasury on the subject.

BOARDED-OUT CHILDREN.
MR. NORRIS: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the statements made by Miss Mason, the Inspector of boarded-out children, contained on page 203 of the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Local Government Board, as to the existence of purpura among boarded-out children, have been submitted to and endorsed by medical or surgical authority before publication by the Board; if he is aware that the British Medical Journal of May last and leading physicians and surgeons entirely differ from the diagnosis as given by Miss Mason, who attributes the existence of purpura to ill-treatment, neglect, and
1866
insufficient or improper food; and whether the Board will take measures to ascertain the opinion of leading members of the medical profession as to their symptoms and causes of purpura, and cause the same to be inserted in their next Report for the guidance of Boarding-out Committees who are responsible for the proper treatment of the children?
*THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE,): My answer to the first question is, No. I am aware of the article which appeared in the British Medical Journal in May last. I find that in that article it is stated that improper feeding would unquestionably be one of the main factors in the causation of purpura. It is suggested, however, in the article that the Inspector's diagnostic differential points between purpura and flea-bites may have sometimes played her false. At the same time, I may observe that Dr. Liveing, the consulting physician of the skin department of the Middlesex Hospital, states that he thinks Miss Mason's conclusions are probably correct, and that while purpura is rare in a severe form, in a mild form it is not uncommon in poor, badly-fed children. I have also received communications containing medical opinions upon the subject of purpura opposed to the statements in the Report, and these have been brought under the attention of the Inspector. As regards the third question, I cannot say I think that the course suggested is necessary.

THE MANIPUR PRINCES.
MR. H. J. WILSON (for Mr. SCHWANN): I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether the action of the Viceroy of India in refusing to hear the counsel appointed by the Manipur Princes (now under sentence of death) to appear before him is based on precedent, or by some act or ordinance; and, in the latter case, under what act or ordinance?
BARON H. DE WORMS (for Sir J. GORST): The Government of India, as was explained in an answer to a question last week, is not tied by precedent, ordinance, or statute in dealing with the Manipur Princes.

ABDUCTION OF AN ENGLISH GIRL BY A KURD.
MR. PICTON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can give any further information as to the efforts made to secure the safety and release of Kate Greenfield, captured by the Kurds?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir J. FERGUSSON,): The position of affairs, according to the last advices received, was that the Persian Government had despatched troops and guns to Sonjbulak to obtain the release of the girl. As some of those who are detaining her are Ottoman subjects, the Persian Government desired to obtain the consent of the Turkish Government before using force against them. Her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople has earnestly supported the request of the Persian Government for the concurrence of the Porte in the measures which it was proposed to take.

ARRANMORE POSTAL FACILITIES.
MR. A. O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he has received representations from Arranmore Island, off the coast of Donegal, that the proceeds of the lobster fishery, the earnings of the islandmen in Scotland and of the boys and girls in other counties, the wages of the local teachers, and payments for the lifeboat and lighthouse services, and other matters, are all remitted through the Post Office, and that the necessity of making journeys to the mainland, across a sea often dangerous, involves much loss of time and money as well as great personal inconvenience for the inhabitants, who are over 1,000 in number; and whether he will direct the opening of a money order office on the island?
*MR. RAIKES: In reply to the hon. Member, I have to say that the representations which he refers to have not reached me; but I will have inquiry made upon the subject, and should it be found that the circumstances are such as to warrant the opening of a money order office on Arranmore Island, I shall be happy to give the necessary instructions.

ATLANTIC CATTLE TRAFFIC.
MR. T. FRY, for Mr. C. WILSON: I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, as the powers under which the Board of Agriculture is enabled to make rules for the conduct of the Atlantic live cattle trade were granted for an entirely different purpose, namely, to prevent the introduction of contagious diseases, and as such powers add another authority under which the shipping trade of this country is conducted, Her Majesty's Government will, during the recess, consider the advisability of bringing in a Bill to transfer those powers from the Board of Agriculture to the Board of Trade, excepting so far as they relate to the prevention of the introduction of contagious diseases?
*THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,): The hon. Member is, I am afraid, unacquainted with the Act to which he refers. The Board of Agriculture is required under the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Acts to make regulation, not only to prevent the introduction of disease, but also, in the language of the Act, "for insuring for animals carried by sea a proper supply of food and water, and proper ventilation during the passage and on landing," and "for protecting them from unnecessary suffering during the passage and on landing." The assumption, therefore, contained in the question, namely, that the powers of the Board were granted for an entirely different purpose, would appear to be inaccurate. With regard to the second part of the question, it appears to Her Majesty's Government that the carriage and conveyance of cattle is a matter which comes more naturally within the province of the Board of Agriculture rather than of the Board of Trade, and they do not feel disposed to interfere with the existing arrangement.

MESSRS. SAMUDA BROTHERS.
MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether Messrs. Samuda Brothers have, in consequence of the complaint of the Admiralty Overseer, been compelled to discharge as incompetent several of the

1869
engineers and smiths that they lately engaged to work on H M.S. Sappho (now being built by contract) in the place of the men on strike; whether the work done by these incompetent men will be allowed to remain in the ship; and what steps the Admiralty propose to take to insure efficient work in the future?
LORD G. HAMILTON: I have received no report nor any complaint of inefficient work done at Messrs. Samuda's yard. I should add that an officer is specially appointed by the Admiralty to watch the construction of vessels building by contract, and it is his duty to see that inefficient work is not put into them, and, if it is, to call the attention of the Admiralty to the fact.

TRAMWAYS (STREET AND ROAD).
Return ordered—
"Of Street and Road Tramways authorised by Parliament showing the amount of Capital authorised, paid up, and expended, the length of Tramway authorised, and the length open for the public conveyance of Passengers, down to the 30th day of June, 1891, the gross receipts, working expenditure, and net receipts, the number of passengers conveyed, and the number of miles run by cars, during the year ended the 30th day of June, 1891, together with the number of horses, engines, and cars at that date (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper No. 282, Session 1890)."—(Sir Michael Hicks Beach.)
Return presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 303.]

NAVY (BOILER, &c, TUBES).
Return ordered—
"Of Boiler and Condenser Tubes delivered under Contract between the 1st day of June, 1890, and the 31st day of May, 1891, showing Rejections, &c. (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 366, of Session 1890."—(Mr. Howard Vincent.)

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,—Consolidated Fund (No. 2) Bill, without Amendment; Cork (County and City) Court Houses Bill, with Amendments.
PRESUMPTION OF LIFE LIMITATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.—(No. 385.)
Lords Amendments agreed to.
ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION BILL. (No. 355.)

    COMMITTEE.
    Order read, for resuming Proceedings on going in to Committee.
    MR. SPEAKER: I ought to state to the House that there are six Instructions on the Paper on the Order for Committee on the Elementary Education Bill. Of these the first, second, third, fifth, and sixth are not in order. Nos. 1, 2, and 3 are without the scope of the Bill and cannot be brought within its scope by an Instruction. The second Instruction especially confers powers on a body which is concerned not with elementary but with secondary education, and is in itself a temporary body appointed for a very limited term of years. Nos. 5 and G are quite beyond the Resolution which the House came to in the preliminary Committee, and upon which the leave for the introduction of the Bill was given; and No. 6 has the additional defect of being a mandatory Instruction. No. 4, there fore, is the only one left, and that, I think, will be in order, inasmuch as I understand it to mean that in consideration of the fee grants being given it is right to require the parents to keep their children at school for a longer period than they now do. That is quite in order.
    MR. SUMMERS: I rise to move that it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to raise the standards for partial and total exemption in schools receiving the fee grants. In doing so it will not be necessary for me to detain the House for more than a very few moments. The House will recollect that it has been by a slow and gradual process that we have arrived at the present stage of our educational progress and advance. Compulsion was first partially introduced in 1870, was widely extended in 1876, and was fully and universally established in 1880. Section 74 of the Act of 1870 empowered School Boards to make bye-laws requiring the parents of children of such age, not less than five years nor more than 13 years, as

    1871
    might be fixed by the bye-laws, to cause such children (unless there was some reasonable excuse) to attend school. The Act of 1870, then, established the possibility, but not the necessity, of compulsion within the School Board area. The Act of 1876 went still further. It established what is called permissive compulsion outside the School Board area. Section 21 of that Act provided that School Attendance Committees should have like powers with School Boards of enforcing by byelaws the attendance of children at school. If the district outside the jurisdiction of a School Board was a borough, the School Attendance Committee might, if they thought fit, and if it was a parish the School Attendance Committee for the Union comprising such parish, on the requisition of the parish, but not otherwise, were bound to make bye-laws respecting the attendance of children at school, under Section 74 of the Elementary Education Act, 1870. Last of all came the Act of 1880, which for the first time made compulsion the law of the land. Section 2 of that Act is in these terms:—
    "It shall be the duty of the Local Authority (within the meaning of the Elementary Education Act, 1876) of every school district in which bye-laws respecting the attendance of children at school, under Section 74 of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, are not at the passing of this Act in force, forthwith to make bye-laws under that section for such district."
    If, after December 31st, 1880, no such bye-laws were in force, the Education Department might declare the Local Authority in default, or might itself proceed to make bye-laws respecting the children in attendance in such district. Acting under these provisions of the Elementary Education Acts, the Local Authorities have made bye-laws for the attendance of children at school, and have fixed the standards for partial and total exemption from the obligation to attend school in their respective districts. These standards for partial and total exemption vary enormously in different parts of the country, and what I have to complain of is not that the standards were unsuitable at the time when they were originally fixed, when compulsory education was a new principle and the Education Acts had only just come into operation, but that many of them are unsuited to the circumstances of to-day,
    1872
    when the duty of parents to see that their children are educated is universally recognised, and the great Education Act of 1870 is on the point of attaining its majority. Some of the standards fixed by the Local Authorities are ludicrous in their absurdity, and ought no longer to be tolerated. On May 28th last, the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council informed me that there are 29 parishes whore compulsion prevails only between 5 and 10 years of age There are likewise five parishes where Standard III. is the standard for total exemption, and no standard for partial exemption exists. There are, moreover, two parishes where Standards III. and II. prevail for total and partial exemption respectively, nine parishes where no standard for partial exemption prevails, and 25 parishes which have Standard I. for partial exemption. These, said the right hon. Gentleman, are remains of old bye-laws adopted before 1880. The Department, he continued, has no power to compel their revision, although every effort is made to induce the School Authorities to raise the standards as occasion offers. The right hon. Gentleman has now an opportunity of taking power to revise these ludicrously low standards, and I trust that he will not be slow to avail himself of it. But this is not all. I have as yet only touched the fringe of the question to which my Instruction relates. The right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council has been good enough to grant me a Return of the number of School Boards and School Attendance Committees in which the standards for partial exemption are Standards II., III., and IV. respectively, and in which the standards for total exemption are respectively IV., V., and VI. This Return discloses some very striking and important facts. It shows that there are in England and Wales 160 School Boards and 89 School Attendance Committees in which the standard for half - time exemption is Standard II., and 936 School Boards and 481 School Attendance Committees in which the standard for full-time exemption is Standard IV. Now, these low standards for partial and full-time exemption are contrary to the law and practice of Scotland, and this is only another illustration of the well-known fact that in matters of education

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    Scotland is always ahead of this country. By the Scotch Act of 1883 (Section 6) it is provided that the minimum standard for half-time shall be the third, and the minimum standard for full-time the fifth. The borough which I have the honour to represent has made great sacrifices on behalf of popular education, and I am glad to say that it has a high standard for partial and total exemption. Its standard for partial exemption is the fourth, and its standard for total exemption the sixth. I do not ask the House to raise the standards throughout the country to the level at which they stand at Huddersfield, but I do claim that the time has arrived when with the greatest possible case and the greatest possible advantage we might raise the standards at least to the minimum at which they now stand by law in Scotland, and have stood for the last seven or eight years. I assume that the Vice President and the Government will accept my Instruction, and I think that I am justified in making this assumption. In this matter, at all events, the Education Department is on my side. The great defect in our present educational system is by universal acknowledgment the early age at which our children leave our public elementary schools. Lord Cranbrook and Sir William Hart Dyke, the President and Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, make use of the following language in their last Educational Report:—
    "We are sorry to find on examining the school returns that the education of so many children of 10 years of age and upwards is discontinued, as soon as by passing the prescribed standard they are freed from the obligation to attend school, and become entitled to go to work. Out of 481,106 children presented in Standard IV. in 1888, as many as 167,742 disappeared from the examination lists of our schools in 1889, while the 309,388 scholars in Standard V. of 1888 fell in the year to 138,864, and the 127,863 scholars in Standard VI. to 38,363."
    What does this mean? It means that out of nearly 5,000,000 children on the registers, only a miserable 138,864 reached the sixth standard, and only a paltry 38,363 went beyond that standard. When we remember that the Education Department themselves inform us that, as a general rule, a child of 10 should be able to pass the Fourth Standard, and that it ought to be advanced
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    a standard every year, no one can pretend that the state of things disclosed in the figures I have quoted is in any degree satisfactory or ought any longer to be endured. We are now about to make an additional grant of some £2,000,000 to our public elementary schools, and in doing so we are bound to make provision for their increased effieiency. I know of no way in which this can be better or more wisely done than by raising the standard for half-time and full-time exemption. What should be the particular machinery for securing the object we all have in view I leave it to the Government to determine. For my part I should be perfectly willing to leave the matter in the hands of the Education Department, simply giving them power by a Minute to fix, as in Scotland, a minimum standard for partial and total exemption. All that I am anxious about is that the standard of education in this country should be raised, and I am comparatively indifferent as to the precise character of the machinery that may be devised for the purpose. In my main contention I am supported by the Royal Commission on Education, and by every member of that Commission. That Commission issued two Reports—a majority Report and a minority Report. Both the majority and the minority advocated the raising of the standards. The majority of the Commissioners report as follows:—
    "From every quarter we have been told that a very great majority of children now leave school as soon as they are legally exempted from attendance, and that the education of the majority of scholars is thus prematurely closed."
    "In parishes where there is much demand for children's labour, and where the standard of exemption is as low as the fourth, several witnesses assured us that few children remain at school after 10 years of age."
    Nor is this an exceptional case. The statistics published by the Royal Commission show that the percentage of scholars above 10 in 1886 was only 33·74. The Commissioners continue—
    "The consequences of premature removal from school, on passing the standard prescribed as a condition of labour, are even more serious where the demand for juvenile labour is slack. An interval then occurs between the completion of school life and the entry on employment, which, in the case of boys especially, is most injurious to character, and leads to the loss of what little intellectual acquirements they

    1875
    had gained at school. At Stoke-upon-Trent, for instance, Sir Lovelace Stamer points out that, while a total exemption from school can under the bye-laws be easily readied at 11, under the Factory Acts full-time work is not attainable till the age of 13, and we gather from his evidence that the interval between 11 and 13 is too often wasted in idleness, with the worst effects on those who are condemned to it."
    "We have heard much evidence tending to show that the Fifth Standard might be made the universal minimum standard of exemption, as is the case in Scotland, without inflicting any serious injury on parents or employers."
    The Commissioners then go on to make the following very important recommendation—
    "We are of opinion," they say, "that the minimum age for half-timers exemption from school attendance should be 11, and the minimum age of full-time exemption 13."
    This Report was signed by Sir Richard Cross (the present Lord Cross), (Chairman), Cardinal Manning, Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Harrowby, Earl Beauchamp, the Bishop of London, Lord Norton, Sir Francis Sandford, Canon Smith, Dr. Rigg, Canon Gregory, T. D. C. Morse, C. H. Alderson, John G. Talbot, and S. G. Rathbone. The minority report in precisely the same sense. They say—
    "As to compulsion, we cordially concur in the recommendation that the minimum age for half-time exemption from school attendance should be 11, and for full-time exemption 13, and that half-time should only be conceded to those who are beneficially and necessarily employed at work."
    The Minority Report is signed by E. Lyulph Stanley, John Lubbock, B. Samuelson, R. W. Dale, Sydney Buxton, Thomas Edmund Heller, Henry Richard, and George Shipton. Another argument in favour of my Instruction will be found in the proceedings of the House and the speeches of the Home Secretary on the Factories and Workshops Bill. The Home Secretary argued that the factory districts should not be placed in an exceptional and invidious position as regards educational requirements. When speaking against the proposal of the hon. Member for Poplar to raise the age of factory half-timers from 10 to 11, he said neither he nor his colleagues would raise any objection to a general proposal dealing with half-timers throughout the country. I call upon him to redeem his pledge. In the United Kingdom there are as many as 180,000 half-timers. Of these,
    1876
    100,000 are half-timers under the Factory Acts; the remaining 80,000 are what are called educational half-timers, or half-timers, under the Education Acts. In the Factories and Workshops Bill, which is now being discussed in another place, we have raised the age of half-time exemption from 10 to 11 years. Having raised the age of factory half-timers, I say we ought to go farther. We ought to raise the age of the educational half-timers as well, and so put both classes on a footing of equality. For all these reasons I trust the Government will accept my Amendment, and by so doing make their Assisted Education Bill the means of improving the character and increasing the efficiency of our Public Elementary Schools.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to raise the standards for partial and total exemption in schools receiving the fee grants."—(Mr. Summers.)
    MR. A. H. DYKE ACLAND: I do not know the answer the Government intend to give to my hon. Friend, but under your ruling, Mr. Speaker, in regard to the last Instruction proposed, it appears that this will be the last opportunity we shall have of asking whether there shall be any truly educational character in this Bill. If the Government reject this proposal they will not only be obstructing the efforts which are being made to improve education generally in the rural districts, but they will also be obstructing the efforts of those who are interested in improving and organising the system of cheap intermediate education for the picked children of our elementary schools. This is a point upon which some of the best supporters of Her Majesty's Government are anxious that they should accept this Amendment. Prebendary Row, whose name was quoted yesterday, speaking of this Bill, is reported to have said that if in respect of school attendance they had demanded one more year at school and required each child to make 350 attendances between the ages of 5 and 11 before going to work, we might have looked to a better attendance as the complement of free education, and he added, "My fear is that free education will result in attendance being less regular than at present." Prebendary

    1877
    Row does not stand alone in this opinion. There are many educational authorities who are far from feeling assured that this Bill as it stands is likely to improve the attendance at the schools. The National Society, representing nearly all the Church of England voluntary schools in the country, had passed the following resolution:—
    "That Standards III. and V. should be adopted universally as the minimum standards respectively for partial and total exemption from school attendance."
    You cannot read a single Report issued on the part of the Government without seeing that the Inspectors in every part of the Kingdom are begging the Educational Authorities to raise the standard of school attendance. When we look at what is going on in Scotland and other countries where the educational standard is so much higher than our own, it is a melancholy thing that we should have to say that of the School Board schools there are still 1,680 which make the Third Standard the half-time standard, and still 1,417 that make the Fourth Standard the full standard. If we really mean anything in educational reform, then advantage should be taken of this opportunity, the greatest opportunity ever offered for making parents accept some advance in this matter. Not for another generation shall we have such an opportunity. We are giving £2,000,000 into the hands of parents, and here is an easy, lit, and proper occasion to say to them: We must have a quid pro quo; when we give you this enormous sum we ask you in your own interest, and still more for the future of your children, to keep your children a little longer at school, as is done in almost all the foreign civilised countries in the world. No, the Government do not do this, they do not regard this as an Education Bill at all. This opportunity once gone, I do not know that we can ever recover it, but this I know, that children are leaving school at 10 and 11 years of age by the hundreds of thousands, and we have not a system of national education adequate to the enormous sums we expend, and this I know, that unless we organise a system of intermediate education available for the picked children of the poorer classes, unless we encourage parents to keep their children longer at elementary
    1878
    schools, a largo part of the money expended on intermediate education will be wasted also. We are striving in Wales to set up 70 or 80 cheap intermediate schools, which we wish to fill with the picked children of the working classes, small tradesmen, and farmers, and if we could only say to parents you must keep your children longer at school, we should then have the means of finding out, before the children are taken from school, whether children are fit to be educated stage by stage, and become useful in their generation to this great country. I know that if this proposition is not carried we shall have no education discussion left, it will be a question of struggling for money between the two educational organisations of the country, and I think it will be a lamentable thing if this great occasion for which we have been waiting so long should be lost, and we should stultify ourselves in this way. Are we to be told there is no time? Whose fault is it that time is short? Whose fault is it that one of the greatest Education Bills of the century has been introduced at a time which in an ordinary Session would be equal to the middle of July, to be crowded through by the middle of August? Is that our fault? Are we not justified, even though it be late, to introduce some educational provisions within the four corners of this Bill? I put it to the Vice President, whose friendly attitude we all admit, whose frank request to us not to pursue mining operations into the past was received with sympathy the other day, here is an opportunity by which he may earn a far larger amount of sympathy. Let him turn to the First Lord of the Treasury and to the Cabinet, and say: "I do not represent a Department whose duty it is to catch votes at the next General Election; I do not represent a Department whose primary duty it is to relieve; the poverty of parents whose poverty needs relief; my Department is the Education Department, and I refuse to be made a party to a Bill which offers the greatest opportunity of the century, unless, as representing the Department, I may put something into it which shall at least raise the level of education in the country." I do not know whether this Bill is going to succeed or not, but, if this proposal is refused, it will not be an Educational Bill, it will be

    1879
    a General Election Bill. It may succeed or not as an election move, but I am quite sure that, in refusing this, the Government are throwing away one of the greatest educational opportunities over offered.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I regret that no hon. Member from the other side has risen to support the Motion, but I hope before the Debate closes we shall hear the opinions of hon. Members behind the Government. I am sure that many of them interested in education view this, as we do, as an educational, not as a financial, question. I will not go over the ground trodden by my hon. Friends, but it should be clearly understood that what my hon. Friend desires is to fix a limit below which the Local Authorities shall not fall, while leaving them full discretion to raise the standards as they think fit. At the present moment the whole system of standard exemption is simply chaotic, the standard for exemption in one district being the third, in another the sixth, and half-time exemptions varying in a similar manner. I am glad to think that in this matter of fixing the standards of exemption our Local Authorities are making considerable advances, but it should be borne in mind, and the Vice President, I am sure, will see the force of the observation, that from the Returns of the Education Department it will be found that nearly half the number of existing School Boards have not been brought into existence by their own will, or the will of the districts, but have been forced upon the districts by the Department in consequence of the deficiency of school accommodation. Such Boards are bound to be anti-educational, and to fix a low standard of exemption. The evidence before the Royal Commission shows very clearly that in a very large number of cases the standards for full time and half-time exemption are fixed very low, with the one object of driving the children out of school at a very early age in order that they may be employed by farmers and others of the district. This fact appears in the Reports of the Inspectors. No doubt one remedy for this state of things is that we should, and I hope we may in future, enlarge the area of School Boards, giving them
    1880
    greater responsibility and attracting a better class of members to rural Boards. It is high time for the Government to set a good example, and fix the standards as high as they possibly can. As I read the Instruction, if it is carried the Committee will be entitled to deal not only with the question of raising the standards, but also with that of raising the age. We ought in Committee to follow the example set with regard to factories the other day, and raise the age. The gist of the argument of the Home Secretary in opposing the raising of the age was that we must not handicap our factories, because the right hon. Gentleman said the children at full time were able to leave school at an early age, and that they contracted bad habits before going into the workshop. Therefore, this is a sort of complement to the Motion passed the other day, and I hope it will be supported, not only by Members on this side, but by educationists on the other side of the House. It has been well said by my hon. Friend that this is a quid pro quo we are asking from parents, and then it ought to be remembered that we are asking a sacrifice only from a limited number of parents, because in the large towns the standards of full time and half time are fixed as high as probably they ought to be under any circumstances. As in several districts the existing standard is low, the Instruction asks that that inequality shall be swept away. It is a question of justice as affecting parents themselves. It is not just that one parent should be obliged to send his children to school until they have passed the Sixth Standard, and that another should be able to take them away when they have passed the Third Standard. Mr. Sewell, Her Majesty's Inspector for the Nottingham district, mentions several local incongruities of this character prevailing in towns and villages within very limited areas, and as they practically affect people living under the same conditions, to whom the differences are unintelligible, they ought to be removed by the raising of the standard of exemption.
    THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir W. HART DYKE,): May I ask the attention of the House to a very few words while I endeavour to explain why it is

    1881
    that Her Majesty's Government are unable to accept the Instruction. It has been supported in fair and moderate speeches, and the hon. Member who moved the Instruction has stated with truth that in many districts the standard is fixed at IV. It has been rightly stated that there are instances of anomalous variation in the standards of exemption; and Her Majesty's Government do not desire to defend their existence at this time. They exist under what has been the law of the land for many years, and I believe that the demands which are now put forward will soon be realised by an almost automatic process, even if nothing is done to enforce them by Parliament. It is said, "Yon are now advancing a large extra sum for purposes connected with education; now is the precise time when this forward movement should be made." I will give reasons why, in my opinion, this is not the precise juncture for the change. It is true this measure gives a considerable increase of grants to schools which are of a weak order, but I venture to urge that in the Code there is a good instrument in the hands of the Department to insure increased educational efficiency. The changes which have lately been made in the Code, and the very change made by this Bill, will at all events seriously affect the near future of the compulsory system itself. Any hon. Member who has made a minute study of the question must have come to the conclusion that when the parent has been relieved from the payment of the fee to which he has hitherto been liable, we ought not to be content with the extent to which compulsion has been carried up to the present; we ought to have a better system, which will insure a far larger attendance. We have abolished the system of payment by individual results. In that we have made a very considerable change, and most hon. Members and educationists outside must have come to the conclusion that we are tending from day today more towards a system where by the age of attendance will be considered as regards the school life rather than the hard and fast line of a standard. There is no doubt that by this policy of ours, which has abolished individual passes, and according to which grants are adjudged more on the general merits of a school, we are tending rather rapidly
    1882
    towards a system whereby the age up to which attendance is carried will be considered rather than standard attained. Although it is true the Bill makes a vast change which will increase the demand on the taxpayer, yet I think it would be wise to take a little breathing time in order to see the results of the change before we adopt the policy of this Instruction. As this is a serious question, affecting not only exemption, but also compulsion in the near future, I urge that it would be better to have a year or two's experience of this Act before we make the proposed change in the Instruction. Speaking as an exponent of the Bill, I would say that in my judgment it is of importance that the change it makes should be effected with as little friction and complication as possible. I have no means of judging how an Instruction like this might be received in a district where Standard IV. is the standard of exemption. But, speaking plainly, I hold that, not only this scheme, but also certain changes which may have been made in the Code, are leading, and must lead rapidly, up to the consummation that hon. Members desire. This is my strong impression derived from all the information I have received, from the experience of the Department, and from daily communication with teachers and managers. To come to the Instruction itself, according to the wording of it, it would land us in great difficulty. It may be that it is of necessity restricted in character, so as to bring it within the scope of the Bill and make it in order; but the restriction would lead to the gravest difficulties in practical operation. It would not raise the standard of exemption throughout the country generally, but only as regards schools which receive the fee grant. Take a district in which there are a number of schools, voluntary schools and Board schools; the Board schools and some of the voluntary schools would accept the grant. Under this Instruction, with whatever Amendments may be made in it, for the Amendments must be equally restricted, what will happen in such a district to a school which refuses fee grants, as any school will be entitled to do, subject to the conditions laid down? The tendency would be for those schools which refused the fee grant to draw away from other schools

    1883
    which accepted it some of their best children, subject to the extra years' attendance which Standard V. involves. In many cases some of the best schools in the districts will be weakened by the loss of those scholars. The Instruction, if carried in its present form and afterwards given effect to in Committee, would to a very small extent carry out the hon. Member's objects, and would in certain districts be mischievous in its operation. It will be hard, indeed, on hon. Members who are ready to make some sacrifice for Her Majesty's Government, to enable them to pass the Bill this Session, if they are compelled to undertake, besides the labours of Committee, a discussion of the vast and complicated question of child labour in its relation to elementary education.
    MR. MUNDELLA: I must say I have heard the speech of my right hon. Friend with some regret, and the reasons with which he supported it with some surprise. He says if there were two standards provided and the fourth did not receive the fee grant, the parents would withdraw their children and send them to another school. On the contrary, if the parents took away the children from the school, they would send them to work, and the advantage would be on the side of the school which did not receive the fee grant. The right hon. Gentleman objects to subjecting this Bill to what he calls the huge difficulties connected with elementary education. I venture to say that there is no difficulty at all; and if the right hon. Gentleman had accepted this Instruction, every Member on both sides would have been grateful to him. There is not a school manager in the country who would not have thanked the right hon. Gentleman, because this has been found to be a crying evil by every manager, whether of a Board school or a denominational, from one end of the country to another. I believe there is not an Inspector who has not complained of it, or a manager who has not advocated a change. An alteration might have been made now without any cost, difficulty, or friction. What is the state of facts? Scotland for 18 years has had a Third and a Fifth Standard for half-time and full-time exemption. Within the last 10 years you have had
    1884
    two Royal Commissions on Education, and both of them have made the identical recommendations adopted in this Instruction. The Technical Education Commission of 1883, the Chairman of which sits behind me, recommended that throughout England and Wales the standard of partial and total exemption should be raised to what it is in Scotland. It is monstrous to say there is any difficulty in raising the standard. When the right hon. Gentleman talks about better educational teaching under the Act, does he suppose that is going to remedy the mischief? It will only intensify it. The right hon. Gentleman has taken the exactly opposite view to that taken by a predecessor of his when the Home Secretary raised the factory ago. In 1876, when Lord Cross's Act, raising the ago from 9 to 10 years, came in to operation, Lord Sandon correspondingly raised the standard. The new Factories Bill has practically passed in another place, and under that measure the age of 11 is to be the lowest for both factories and workshops. Can you say that the Third Standard is too high for 11 years of ago? Has not the tendency been every year to get the children out of school earlier and earlier? We are making our educational system the most wasteful system in the world. We spend vast sums of money in bringing children up to low standards, and then we pass them out of school at such an age that really before you can get them in to a night school they have forgotten more than half they learnt. When I was at the Council Office I received a deputation with reference to the factories and workshops in Derbyshire. The members of the deputation pointed out that there were four or five standards in different neighbourhoods, and actually, while on one side of a street children could go to work directly they had passed Standard IV, on the other side they must first pass Standard V. They stated, further, that parents had been known to cross the street in order to be able to send their children sooner to school. It is time we put an end to this state of things, and we might have done so to-night. I assure the Government that no one on the Opposition Benches desires to protract this Debate. Personally, I would like to see the Bill pass through the House this

    1885
    week. Bat here an opportunity of making this a real educational measure presents itself. The Government are conferring an enormous boon upon the parents of the country by relieving them from the payment of school fees. Why not say to the parents at the same time, "We ask you to make this slight sacrifice in return, and thus improve the standard of education?" The First Lord of the Treasury takes broad views of questions. He has been a member of a School Board and a school manager. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to rise in his place and admit that the request now made is reasonable. The adoption of the Instruction will improve the character of the Bill; it will make the Bill more popular even amongst those clergymen who are now objecting to it, and I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to bring us more into line, and remove some grounds for the assertion that our educational system is most wasteful.
    SIR B. SAMUELSON: I rise to support the appeal which my right hon. Friend the Member for the Brightside Division has made to the First Lord of the Treasury. I believe the Vice President of the Council is as anxious as any man in this House that the education of children in elementary schools should be as efficient as possible. If I want proof of that I should find it in the weakness of the two arguments he has advanced in opposition to the Instruction under discussion. In the first place, he does not wish us to overload the Bill, but to wait and see what the effect of the Bill is before proceeding with the measures suggested. In the second place, he says that parents could evade the higher standards by sending their children to a fee-paying school, as if he did not see that the parents who will make the sacrifice of paying fees are just the ones who would wish their children to remain at school. He tells us that under the Code he can do this and that; but he omitted to tell us, what he knows very well, that he cannot do under the Code what we want him to do, namely, to put a check upon those school authorities who allow children to leave school too early. Does the right hon. Gentleman mean to say he would like to come to Parliament with a now Education Bill two years hence? Have the Govern-
    1886
    ment so little to do, and is it so easy to pass a Bill through the House, that he wants to come before the House with another Bill in two years' time? Surely in the interest of the Department it must be his desire that whatever it is necessary to do, in order to make our elementary education fairly efficient, should be done at once, and not postponed for two or three years. I took an active part on the Technical Education Commission, and I was also a member of the Education Commission. I signed the Minority Report, and did my best to diminish the antagonism between the Minority and Majority Reports. If the minority alone had urged it I would not have insisted to-day, but the majority were equally strong upon this matter. They said that we are throwing away enormous sums on elementary education, that we bring the children up to a certain inefficient standard, and then allow them to walk away and forget all they have learnt. You are now going to give more money out of the taxes, and I say it is your duty to see that an addition is not made to the money which has been wasted. As you are about to relieve parents from the cost of the education of their children, except to the extent of the small pittance they pay through the taxes, you can reasonably say to them, "You must keep your children at school for a longer period; children shall not go to work as half-timers until they have passed the Third Standard and as full-timers until they have passed the Fifth Standard." I earnestly join in the appeal of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield to the First Lord of the Treasury. I beg him to release my right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Council from the trammels now imposed upon him, which I believe no man feels more acutely than he does himself.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,): I will respond at once to the appeal which has been made to me. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella) and the hon. Baronet (Sir B. Samuelson) ask the House to override the discretion and the full and complete responsibility of elected representative bodies—the School Boards—which control and deal

    1887
    with a population of 16,500,000 in England. The School Boards have the actual authority and the full power to raise the standards if they think fit, and they will have the cordial support of the Education Department in doing so. The School Boards and the School Attendance Committees are the authorities by whom this Bill must be enforced, and the Government are asked to say, "We cannot trust you to act according to your sense of responsibility, and we require you to proceed further than you are at present disposed to go." I believe it is wiser to allow this Bill to be in operation for a year, and we should then see fully what the results are before we proceed to the extreme measure of saying to these representative authorities, "You must do a great deal more than you have hitherto thought it right to do; you must carry out the proposals which have been embodied in an Act of Parliament." If the necessity arises, we shall be fully justified in calling upon them to do so, but we ought to wait and see what the operation of the measure is. One of the advantages which the Government hope will result from this measure is a diminution in the number of excuses for irregular attendance. I believe that the School Boards and the School Attendance Committees will rise to a sense of their responsibilities and their duty, and I think it is far better in the interests of education to obtain their sympathy, their goodwill, and their hearty co-operation, than to call upon them to give effect to a law in which they may not personally agree. I am strongly in sympathy with the object which the right hon. Gentleman opposite has in view. It is most desirable that the standard should be raised by common agreement, and I fool that our best method of improving the education of the people is to carry the Local Authorities with us, and not to act independently of them.
    MR. MATHER: I appeal to the First Lord of the Treasury to accept the Instruction on the ground that the raising of the age is consistent with all the legislation which the Government have proposed during the last two or three years. In the New Code provision is made for manual instruction, universal teaching of drawing, and all classes of
    1888
    elementary science; but if some provision is not made by Act of Parliament to enable School Boards and other Educational Authorities throughout the country to keep all children at school beyond the age of 10 years, this admirable legislation will be stultified. It is not necessary that the Government should neglect the Instruction simply on the ground that the form of it is not right, and does not accord with some provisions of the Bill. The spirit of the Instruction is well understood; it is that we desire to give the children of the country a better opportunity than they have hitherto enjoyed of availing themselves of the excellent educational facilities provided. If the Government will only say they are prepared to embody in the Bill the provision that in future the Schools Boards, under the new educational arrangements, shall raise the age of half-time exemption from 10 to 11, and full-time exemption from 13 to 14, we on this side will be quite satisfied. I do not think the Vice President of the Council would of his own motion oppose this Amendment, for I am persuaded he knows the country requires some provision such as that now suggested. I earnestly hope, notwithstanding what the First Lord of the Treasury has just said, that further consideration will be given to this matter.
    MR. TALBOT: The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mather) has raised the question of age, but the raising of the standard is the question raised by this Instruction. This is a matter of very considerable extent, and if these demands are insisted upon, it will be impossible for this Bill to be passed in the present Session, and I would appeal to hon. Members to show a little more practical wisdom in this matter. I take it we are all agreed that, so far as we can, we ought to raise the standard of partial exemption. But may I point out that the power of raising the standards of partial or total exemption now rests in the hands of the Education Authorities elected by the people in School Boards and Committees of School Attendance. It seems, therefore, that, ardent as is the love of hon. Members for local representation and local control, when it comes to be a question of trusting the Local Authorities there is a disposition to throw

    1889
    them over; and this, too, notwithstanding the fact that they are the people who ought to know the needs of the localities. Hon. Members are, in fact, taking away the power already possessed by Local Authorities, and evincing a determination to declare by Act of Parliament that those Local Bodies shall no longer have any option in the matter.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I stated that the object we had in view was to fix a minimum standard, leaving the Local Authority, however, full power to raise it as high as it likes.
    *MR. TALBOT: But you will not trust popular local representative bodies to fix the minimum standard. Where is the confidence hon. Members profess to have in local self-government? I should like to read one sentence in the Report of the Education Commission. It is to be found on page 109, and is as follows:—
    "While we do not desire to see either the standard or range of elementary education unduly restricted, we must bear in mind that, in the case of children preparing for many employments, including agriculture, a prolonged school life is incompatible with the practical instruction of the field or workshop, which must necessarily commence at an early age."
    Now, in the teeth of all that, we are told that we are bound to compel the authorities to raise the age for the standard of exemption, and though, so far as a child is intended for agricultural or commercial pursuits is concerned, the standard may be already sufficiently high, we are to intervene, although we have not that local knowledge which is essential in dealing with these
    MR. SUMMERS: I think the hon. Member will find that the Act of 1876 provides for that difficulty.
    *MR. TALBOT: I know what the hon. Gentleman refers to, but surely if hon. Gentlemen believe such a change as this would be beneficial, it should be made by people who know the needs of particular localities, and who are better acquainted with those needs than those who live in them. If, as I believe they are, hon. Members are anxious to pass this Bill during the present Session, I cannot conceive conduct more insane than to ask the House to agree to this Instruction. The result of the House accepting it will be to lead to one Amendment after another being
    1890
    proposed dealing with various standards of exemption, and in this way a great deal of valuable time will be wasted. This, let it be remembered, is a Bill for giving free education, and the House has decided to accept it; but if it is to pass this Session, it would be very unwise, on this the last day of June to attempt to introduce into it provisions which are not germane to it.
    SIR L. PLAYFAIR: I think the hon. Member who last spoke does not appreciate the contention of hon. Members on this side of the House. If the Government had agreed to this Instruction, a power would have been conferred similar to that in the Scotch Education Act of 1883. In the Education Act of 1890, the Scotch Education Department has the power to raise the standard on its own authority. The First Lord of the Treasury asks how we can place this order to raise the age on elected authorities. The Government have already done this in the case of Scotland, and the scheme has worked with the greatest simplicity. The age of employment has been raised from 10 to 11 in spite of opposition, and I contend that, having raised the age, we ought also to raise the standard. Under the present system, if the child, before he reaches 11 years of age, manages to pass the Sixth Standard, you prevent his being employed, and enforce upon him a year's idleness. Surely it is perfectly absurd, if you raise the age, not to raise the standard.
    MR. J. A. BRIGHT: I would ask the Government even at the eleventh hour to re-consider their position, and to agree to the Instruction, which, after all, is only the corollary of the decision of the House on the proposals of the hon. Member for Poplar as to the employment of children in factories. School Boards will be grateful to the House of Commons if it adopts this proposal, and takes the matter out of the hands of elective bodies. I was a member of a School Board, which was strongly of opinion that the age should be raised; but in consequence of popular clamour we wore, I am sorry to say, frightened out of our decision, and had to yield. Undoubtedly the present system of electing School Boards makes those bodies peculiarly amenable to pressure from outside, for

    1891
    by means of the cumulative vote dissatisfied ratepayers may work havoc among members who have supported unpopular proposal. Now, I am largely interested in the cotton trade, and, at the same time, do not represent a cotton spinning constituency in this House. My experience of the cotton trade induced me to vote for raising the ago of half-timers; and as I look on this proposal as only the corollary of the decision come to on that matter, I urge upon the Government that it would be very unwise on their part to reject this Instruction.
    MR. T. ELLIS: I should like to refer to the argument advanced by the First Lord of the Treasury and by the hon. Member for the Oxford University. It seems to me strange that they should base their arguments upon their trust in Local Authorities.
    *MR. TALBOT: Your trust.
    MR. T. ELLIS: The hon. Gentleman founded his argument upon the fact that if this Instruction were carried it would override the opinion of Local Authorities. We on this side are quite willing to trust Local Authorities, but we hold that there are certain educational matters which can best be administered by a central department. Take, for instance, the question of accommodation, the Department insist on a certain amount of accommodation being provided for each child, and that there shall be a certain number of teachers for a given number of children. No doubt many school managers would be exceedingly glad if those provisions were relaxed, but experience has shown that the system has worked most satisfactorily. When the President of the Local Government Board brought in his Notification of Infectious Diseases Bill, he said he was willing at first to give each Local Authority the option of enforcing or refusing to enforce its provisions, but he intimated that if any number of the authorities proved indifferent, or refused to enforce them, he would be willing to bring in a compulsory Act. Well, in the matter now before the House, we are simply asking hon. Members to take a step which will place backward Educational Authorities on the same level as the best authorities; and we are asking that the limit in Wales
    1892
    shall be the same as now prevails in Scotland. It has been observed that any defects in this measure may easily be remedied by subsequent legislation; but it is useless to hope that we shall have another Education Bill brought in within the next five years, and hon. Members should, therefore, seize this golden opportunity that they now have of making this measure a satisfactory one. I venture to appeal to Her Majesty's Government not to press this matter to a Division, but to accept the Instruction, for by so doing they will immensely improve our system of elementary education, and increase the facilities for promoting secondary education.
    (6.50.) The House divided:—Ayes 133; Noes 186.—(Div. List, No. 311.)
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clause 1.
    SIR R. TEMPLE: I have a Notice on the Paper to move to leave out "shall," in order to insert "may." I placed the Amendment on the Paper in order to raise the question as to whether the operation of this clause should be permissive or compulsory. I am advised, however, that, as the section stands, it is not compulsory, and I also gathered that from what fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council this afternoon. I understand that it will not be compulsory on any schools to accept this grant, and if that is so I need not move my Amendment.
    *SIR W. HART DYKE: That is so.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: If it is not compulsory what will be the consequence? No doubt the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council stated the other day that if the voluntary school in a rural district refused the 10s. grant, then, as a matter of course, a School Board would be set up in that parish. That is a most important point, and I think we ought to have the statement more generally made. We should know what is to be the consequence of a voluntary school in a rural district refusing the 10s. grant.
    *SIR W. HART DYKE: I could better answer the right hon. Gentleman on Sub-section 3 of Clause 3, but if the right hon. Gentleman wants a statement

    1893
    from me now, I can only reiterate what I said the other day as to what would happen in the event of a school refusing the fee grant. In the event of a school being independent of the fee grant altogether, and of maintaining its independence, no doubt Sub-section 3 of Clause 3 would operate.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: Supposing it was thought lit or desirable to set up a School Board, would there be any power—I take it there would not—to require the voluntary schools to admit free scholars? I assume, of course, that the fee was beyond 10s. Supposing you adopt the alternative of saying—"You shall admit free scholars, but shall not put the parish to the expense of having free schools."
    SIR W. HART DYKE: I cannot imagine a case where it would be necessary to put this pressure on a school.
    SIR R. TEMPLE: I believe that almost every voluntary school has already free places.
    MR. PENROSE FITZGERALD: I beg to move in Clause 1, page 1, line 5, after "paid" to insert "quarterly." I cannot imagine that Her Majesty's Government will do otherwise than accept the words I propose here as an alternative after what fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council in his opening speech. It is of the very greatest importance to our schools both in town and country that ready money should be at hand for the payment of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses. These persons are now paid quarterly, principally with the assistance of the school-pence which is a ready-money fund coming in day by day. The consequence of a deficit at present is that yon have an overdraft at the local bank, or there is some wealthy citizen who is ready to put his hand in his pocket and advance the money necessary to pay the quarterly salaries before the money comes in. This is a hardship to the willing subscriber, but you will intensify it if you do not accept this Amendment.
    Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 5, after "paid" to insert "quarterly."—(Mr. Penrose FitzGerald.)
    Question proposed "That the word 'quarterly' be there inserted."
    SIR W. HART DYKE: There is a difficulty connected with this Amendment which I will do my best to explain. In the first place it should be understood that in all cases a quarter cannot elapse without a payment being made to a school. I wish that to be distinctly understood. It is guaranteed that that shall be done. Hon. Members desire that the guarantee shall take the form of specific words in the Bill, but it would be difficult to do it for this reason. It is absolutely necessary on the close of the school year to close the accounts, and hon. Members are aware that the close of the school year varies in different schools, and it is that variety as to the closing of the school year which makes the difficulty. What we propose is this: the Bill is to come into operation on the 1st of September, and we propose that after one month we shall commence to make these payments, continuing them thereafter quarterly. Supposing the Bill becomes law before the close of the Session, in some schools payments will have to be made as early as the 30th September, and such a payment will necessarily be a payment for one month. Then I go another month forward. There are some schools where the payments will be made on the 31st October, and in such a case there will be two months paid, with quarterly payments from that date. Then, to go another month forward, in the case of schools where the payments are made on the 30th November, there would take place a three months' payment of a general character. I must carry the Committee on to the 31st December. There, again, it may be possible under our proposal that there may be a payment of one month, but in that case the payments thereafter would be made every quarter. As the Act comes so soon into operation, what we wish to avoid is any possible hardship as to the grant coming in at the end of the school year. The whole matter has been carefully considered by the Department, and we believe we shall be able to meet the demands of the schools with justice.
    MR. AINSLIE: The point raised in this Amendment is one I had intended to raise myself by a similar

    1895
    proposal. The only regret I have to express is that the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President has not thought fit to put down some Amendment on the Paper, so that school managers and those interested might see what he intends to do, and not be left to gather it from his statement in Committee.
    *SIR W. HART DYKE: It would save time if I said that there must be some regulation framed in regard to this matter. It is my duty now to say how the Department intend to work the scheme. These regulations, of course, will be made public in the usual way, and will be laid on the Table of the House. Intricate as they are, I think it would be a great pity to put them in the Bill.
    MR. PENROSE FITZGERALD: As the right hon. Gentleman has given us a sufficient guarantee that provision for quarterly payments will be made in the regulations, I will not press the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    MR. MUNDELLA: I think that while the Bill under which this free education grant is to be made is in Committee we should embody in the measure—which in itself is rigid, and would require another Act at any time to repeal it or amend any portion of it—the provision adopted in the Scotch Free Education Act. What was done in the case of that Act? The measure which gave the grant simply stated that the Education Department should, from time to time, lay the conditions on which that grant was made on the Table of the House. Well, why have we in the present instance departed from the wholesome system laid down in the Scotch case? Let me point out how inconvenient it will be, if, having passed an Act of Parliament in which you make conditions on which the grant shall be given, you find after a short experience that you wish to make some changes in it. Suppose, for instance, you adopt the age limit, either the 5 or the 14 years, or whatever it may be, and you wish to change it, you can only do it by a repealing Act. If the Scotch Act had been framed like this Bill, by this time
    1896
    we should have had two or three amending Acts. It is very likely that some of the provisions of this Bill will be found unworkable as it is a tentative and entirely new measure, and one which it may be found difficult to work. Supposing it should be found to militate against education, and it should be considered desirable to change a provision, what can you do? You will constantly have Members coming down to the House desiring that the measure shall be altered, amended, or repealed. Let the right hon. Gentleman take power to put all his conditions in a Code which shall be laid on the Table from year to year. Let me point out what a saving of time there will be in the future if the question can be dealt with in the Code from time to time instead of in Bills which have to pass both Houses of Parliament. I appeal to the Government in the interests of education and of public business to adopt the simple method employed in Scotland.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 1, line 7, to leave out the words "as may be determined by regulations of the Education Department," and insert the words "and in accordance with such conditions as may from time to time be set forth in minutes of the Education Department to he laid before Parliament."—(Mr. Mundella.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    MR. W. H. SMITH: The right hon. Gentleman asks the House to agree to an Amendment which would give the Education Department the power of legislating, subject only to the condition that the legislation shall lie on the Table of the House of Commons for one month, so that the conditions under which free education is granted under this Bill may be extended by the Education Department.
    MR. MUNDELLA: You could not spend more money without the consent of the House.
    *MR. W. H. SMITH: Well, there is one objection to the proposal which the right hon. Gentleman will see at once is a very forcible one. I hope the present Session of Parliament will terminate within 30 days of the time when this Bill goes to the other House. But under this Amendment the

    1897
    Bill would not come into operation until a Minute of the Education Department had lain for 30 days on the Table of Parliament, so that the effect would be that free education would not come into operation until March next, after Parliament re-assembled, instead of on September 1 of the present year. We intend to lay the regulations of the Education Department on the Table as soon as they are framed, but it is quite a different matter to lay on the Table a Minute which would delay the operation of the Act until it bad lain on the Table for 30 days. Besides, I object very strongly to legislation by Minute, and I think I must ask the right hon. Gentleman not to press his Amendment.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I think there is some force in the objection of the right hon. Gentleman in regard to the time at which the Act is to come into force, but if the Amendment were accepted we could very easily introduce an Amendment with the object of obviating that difficulty. But I think the right hon. Gentleman did not see the full force of the objection of my right hon. Friend. Great difficulty has been experienced in Scotland in carrying out the rules and regulations in regard to free education, and there have been constant alterations on behalf of the Scotch Education Department. I want to know why we in England are to be placed in a worse position than that of Scotland in this matter. The Scotch Education Department has the power of practically carrying fresh legislation in the form of new regulations, and all we ask is that the English Education Department shall be placed in the same position as the Scotch Department. It seems to me that the real reason why the Government are not prepared to accept this Amendment is that they desire, if any alteration is to be made, that it should pass through both Houses. I am sure my right hon. Friend does not desire to give a larger discretion to the Department than it ought to have, or than is possessed by the Scotch Department; but he desires to avoid the waste of time that would be involved in having next Session to pass another Act, and, perhaps, in the following Session another, in order to settle these small matters.
    (7.30.) The Committee divided:—Ayes 118; Noes 54.—(Div. List, No. 312.)
    MR. AINSLIE: I now rise for the purpose of moving the Amendment which stands on the Paper in my name, namely, to leave out from the word "the," in line 9, to the word "five," in line 11, inclusive, and insert "threepence for each week's attendance of every child over three."
    *THE CHAIRMAN: I think it right to say a word upon the question of order which has occupied my serious attention. A well-known Standing Order, revised and strengthened on the 20th of March, 1860, prescribes that the House will proceed upon no Motion for a charge upon the Public Revenue unless recommended by the Crown. This has been consistently held, to prevent any private Member from moving an increase of a grant in Committee of Supply. The Committee of Supply being set up, and the Estimates referred to it, no private Member can propose to modify a proposed Vote except by way of reduction. The question is whether the Standing Order extends to prevent a private Member from proposing an increase of grant which is contained in the clause of a Bill where the increase does not go outside the limits of the original Resolution upon the authority of which the Bill is founded, and to which the recommendation of the Crown has been signified. If reference could be made to the Debates upon the Standing Order, as revised in 1886, it would probably be concluded that the House certainly intended to prevent the exercise of such power by a private Member. A ruling, apparently carefully considered, was, however, delivered from the Chair in the year 1881 in Committee on the Irish Land Bill, when it was laid down that any Member could propose any extension of the money provisions of a Bill so long as they did not go beyond the previous authorisation of the preliminary Committee on which the Bill was founded. This declaration seems to have excited attention, and my predecessor was asked by the then Leader of the House to explain the reason of this distinction, and his reply was that in Supply the sums submitted are fixed sums, which may not be the case in

    1899
    Committee on a Bill. I am bound to say that I think this difference is an accidental circumstance, wide of the principle of the Standing Order which should govern our practice; and it must be observed that though the sums proposed in Supply are definite, they are not fixed in the sum that they cannot be withdrawn and replaced by others at the discretion of the Crown. It seems to me that the principle of the Standing Order would require private Members to be under the same limitation in Committees on Bills as in Committee of Supply; but past practice would not justify the Chair in imposing any such disability in Committee on Bills unless supported by all sections of that Committee. I cannot, therefore, rule the Amendment of the hon. Member to be out of order.
    *MR. AINSLIE: I understand from the ruling we have just heard from the Chair that under the restrictions suggested my Amendment is entitled to the consideration of the Committee, but I must say that I find a difficulty in separating one part of the Amendment from the other. I will, however, endeavour to deal to the best of my ability with the case of these little children. Therefore, I venture to ask the Committee to leave out the words from the word "the" to the word "five" in line 11 of the first clause. I desire to point out that unless we do get a much larger grant than is proposed in this Bill, it is hardly possible that the work of primary education can go on in many of the schools. I may refer the Committee to a case which is known to me in which the average attendances run from 32 down to 23 for the whole school, but where the amount of money paid as fees amounts to more than £1 per head. Consequently, it would be impossible for the amount proposed to be given under the grant to satisfy what is required in this particular instance. I cannot conceive that it is the intention of the Committee to insist on a return to the old state of things, where, in many of these schools, the minister was also the schoolmaster. And I ask Her Majesty's Government to consider whether in the out-of-the-way places in which instances such as I have referred to occur, they are not able so to
    1900
    increase the grant as to provide the kind of education which is so much valued in this class of schools. There are some cases where the fees are always fixed at 1s. per family, no matter what the number of the family. But I will better serve my object by not going into details, which I will leave to the Vice President.
    Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 10, to leave out the words "ten shillings a year," and insert the words "three pence for each week's attendance."—(Mr. Ainslie.)
    Question proposed, "That the words 'ten shillings' stand part of the Clause."
    CAPTAIN BETHELL: The grant of 10s. will scarcely meet what I consider to be the legitimate demands of voluntary schools in the country, much less in the towns. The case has been most ably stated in the well known letter of the Bishop of Wakefield. Whatever else is done, it seems to me that it would be most unfair and unjust, unless some arrangements are made by which the voluntary schools in towns receive greater consideration than is proposed. The average of fees paid in voluntary schools is now 11s. 1½d., and in Board schools 8s. 4d. If you give the voluntary schools a 10s. grant they will undoubtedly be placed in a position of extreme difficulty in relation to Board schools—where there are voluntary and Board schools in the same district. You may argue that where there is only one school in the parish we shall not be hit in that way, still, generally speaking it is unfair that where the average of fees has been 11s. 1½d. a grant only of 10s. should be paid. As I understand, the grant is based upon the average of the school attendance for about 40 weeks at 3d. per week. But it is very well known that the real year is 44 or 45 weeks, and not 40, and the managers of voluntary schools ask that the grant should be based upon the calculation of 45 weeks at 3d. per week—which would make 11s. 3d. If the right hon. Gentleman will not do that, let him take, not the average, but the total of attendance. I do trust that the right hon. Gentleman will remove that stain from the Bill

    1901
    which is caused by the year of 40 weeks; it is not the real year, and I cannot see why my right hon. Friend should prefer fiction. If the Bill is carried as it stands, the voluntary schools sooner or later will have to shut their doors. It is useless to ask people to raise their subscriptions when they already pay the heavier part of the taxes. I do urge my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench to give most anxious consideration to this Amendment, and to note carefully how great an injustice is being done to voluntary schools, especially in the large towns.
    MR. G. W. BALFOUR: Two very different points have been raised in the Debate on this Amendment; first, the substitution of a weekly for an annual fee as the standard of the proposed fee grant; and, secondly, the question of average attendance as against total attendance. I do not think it will conduce to clearness to discuss both these questions together: it would be better, in the first instance, to limit the Debate to the question of substituting a weekly fee of 3d. for the annual fee of 10s. To such a change I attach considerable importance. The great difficulty my right hon. Friend had to contend with was the inequality of fees in different localities; and possibly he had no alternative but to strike an average fee. But there are various ways in which an average fee may be struck. I have a twofold objection to the proposal of the Government. It would be reasonable, considering that the time during which different schools are open varies from 40 weeks and 47 weeks in the year to take that difference into account. But this is not all. I maintain also that 10s. is not the average fee. I am afraid this contention will necessitate my going into figures, but the importance of the subject affords sufficient apology for my doing so. I have here a Return of the Education Department in 1891, containing a summary of the statistics with regard to schools in receipt of the annual grant. Table 4, on page 16, gives the percentage of scholars paying certain fees per week. The scholars are divided into nine classes, according to the amount of fee, and the percentages and payments are as follows:—
    1902

    Percentage of Scholars.

    Fees.

    4·8

    Nothing.

    ·05

    Less than 1d.

    15·64

    1d. and less than 2d.

    37·03

    2d. and less than 3d.

    25·82

    3d. and less than 4d.

    12·91

    4d. and less than 6d.

    2·92

    6d. and less than 9d.

    ·78

    9d.

    ·05

    Over 9d.

    Taking the arithmetical mean in those cases where the amount of fee is returned as being between a lower and a higher figure, and working out the data supplied by the table, we get an average weekly fee of about 3d. per child. But then it is necessary to take in to consideration that about 5 per cent. of the children have their fees remitted by the managers of the schools, and this raises the figure from 3d. to 3⅙d. Probably a slight error enters into both of these figures; because where you have a class of children which pays, for instance, 3d. and less than 4d., the probability is that the sum paid more nearly approaches 3d. than 4d. Set off this probable error against the additional one sixth of a penny, and we get 3d. as the true average weekly fee throughout all schools when allowance is made for the fees remitted.
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: Does that include the fees in both voluntary and Board schools?
    *MR. G. W. BALFOUR: Yes; I draw no distinction between the two. It is the average fee throughout the country in all elementary schools. But now let me approach the question from another point of view. Three pence a week for 44 weeks gives an annual fee of 11s. instead of 10s. It can be shown in another way that 11s. is nearer the true average than 10s. Take the average attendance in day schools on the annual grant list. The attendance is 3,732,327, and the total fees paid £1,940,546. This gives an average fee of 10s. 4¾d. But, again, this calculation makes no allowance whatever for children whose fees are remitted. These children constitute 5 per cent. or about 180,000, and to make allowance for them would raise

    1903
    the average from 10s. 4¾d. to about 10s. 11d. Once more we see that a 10s. grant is inadequate, and the same may be shown in yet a third way. On an average attendance of 3,732,327 the grant would amount to £1,866,163 10s. The school managers at present receive in fees £1,940,540, and, therefore, by accepting the 10s. grant in lieu of fees they would lose £74,382 10s. A grant of 11s. on an average attendance of 3,732,327 would be equal to £2,052,775, or £112,229 in excess of the amount at present received in fees. But, taking into consideration the 180,000 scholars whose fees are at present remitted, and allowing for each of them the average fee of 11s., that would practically balance the excess. The proposed 10s. grant is, therefore, less than the true average, and something approaching 10s. 6d. is the true average fee, if no allowance be made for the fees which are omitted, or about 11s., if that allowance is made, as in justice it should be. I should like to know on what principle the Government have arrived at the fee of 10s., and whether the Vice President of the Council will not be prepared to make some concession in this respect. I should be very glad if my right hon. Friend could see his way to basing the payment on the weekly fee of 3d., which certainly represents the average more correctly than the figure he has taken.
    MR. POWELL: I do not wish to follow my hon. Friend in the careful calculations which he has laid before the House, but I desire, on behalf of Lancashire, to express the considerable anxiety which is felt on this subject of the 10s. grant. All indications that have reached me show that there will be a most disastrous loss in the receipts should the Bill of the Government pass in its present form. It may be said that the difference can be made up by means of raising the fees. There may be cases where, by a natural process of selection, different classes of children are separated, but in Wigan and Bradford those who attend these schools are very much of the same social level. In some schools which I have visited I have been struck by the difference in social condition of the children sitting on the same form. I have asked whether any difficulties have arisen from that cause, either between the children or on questions of disci-
    1904
    pline, and I have been told that there is no feeling of that kind. I believe that the same principle will operate in our largo towns, such as Bradford, Leeds, and Manchester. There may be some cases where we shall have high-feed schools, or schools partly feed and partly free; but I doubt whether that will be a permanent condition of things.
    SIR W. HART DYKE: I certainly cannot complain of the points having been brought forward which have been urged, or the tone in which they have been urged. I will not disguise from the Committee that the great difficulty by which the Government have been met ab initio arises from the huge discrepancy which exists in school fees. Reference has been made to the case of a small country school, but I think that it ought to be pointed out with regard to these small country schools that a large addition has been made to their resources by the Code of 1890. The Government have added to the special grant of £10 an extra £10, making an original grant of £20; and have also raised the number of population to 500 with regard to these schools. Therefore, I think that, as regards country schools, hon. Members have been somewhat too prodigal of criticism. I would point out that the Government have increased the resources of these schools, not only during 1890–91, but also in the measure now before the House by which they really hand over the balance to these schools beyond the fees now charged. It is obvious that a great disparity of fees in a large number of schools in the North of England can be pointed out, and that complaints would be made in certain quarters in which it is considered that this fee grant which the Government propose to give is inadequate with regard to the demands of these schools. I would like to point out that the Government have never contended that this fee grant of theirs represents a threepenny fee; it only approximately does so. Questions have been raised as to the average attendance of children at schools; there are a vast number of schools where the fees are paid at the beginning of the week, and where a scholar may be absent from illness or some other cause, and that may mean that there is a loss on the calculation of the average attendance. These

    1905
    objections go to the very root of the proposals before the Committee. I may be told that it is all very well to say that a school may charge fees and yet receive a grant, but that there will be Board schools which are free and will attract all the children. I maintain that that idea is opposed to the habits of our people. The better class of artisans and small shopkeepers, and the class of small farmers in the rural districts, who, to a large extent, make use of our elementary schools, will send their children to schools where fees are paid for the sake of the slight exclusiveness. Another matter which has been quite lost sight of is the grading which goes on everywhere in our schools. Beyond that, the communications which I have received from the North of England lead me to believe that it the scheme of the Government passes through the shoals and quicksands which it has to encounter in Committee the cases will be very rare where any injury would be dune to these schools. I do not think that I need detain the Committee any longer upon that matter. The hon. Member for Leeds has gone into careful calculations with regard to the 10s. grant. For my own part, I am not quite sure whether on the spur of the moment I am willing to enter into competition with the hon. Member, but as far as the calculations of the Department go we believe that the 10s. grant represents very nearly a threepenny fee on the average attendance throughout the country. I do not know whether I should be in order at the present time, but I think it only fair to say that the Government propose to accept an Amendment which appears frequently on the Paper, altering the compulsory limitation with regard to five years. In view of the large relaxation of the Bill which I have just announced, I hope hon. Gentlemen will not press this Amendment. The discrepancy in some schools in the South of England between the existing grant and that proposed by the Bill is very large; in some cases the existing grant is only 8s. 6d. I hope and believe that that fact will induce the managers to be content with the grant which the Government propose to give them. (8.32.)
    COLONEL BRIDGEMAN: I wish to thank my right hon.
    1906
    Friend for having accepted the first part of the Amendment of my hon.
    Friend the Member for North Lancashire. The second part, however, is most important—the substitution of 3d. for each week's attendance for the 10s. grant. My right hon. Friend passed very lightly over some very important remarks from my hon. and gallant Friend (Captain Bethell) as to the difficulty arising where Board schools and voluntary schools stand side by side. If there are only Board schools or voluntary schools in the district, the difficulty is not so great, for in that case we should perhaps be prepared to accept the view of the Vice President that fees could be charged in the voluntary schools. But the difficulty arises where Board schools stand side by side with voluntary schools. In all probability the School Board elections in November next will turn mainly upon the question of "fee" schools or "free" schools. My right hon. Friend mentioned the case of a clergyman with a school where the fees varied from 9d. down to nothing; but whether that is a case in point or not depends upon whether there were any Board schools to compete with. The whole thing rests upon what my right hon. Friend calls the huge discrepancy of fees paid in voluntary schools. In the great towns of the North of England the fee is as much as 13s., 14s., and even 15s., although it is also true that there are agricultural districts in the South of England—Somersetshire particularly—where the foe is as low as 7s. or 6s. It is no compensation to the managers of the high fee school to tell them that 10s. is the average. When they are losing 4s. per scholar, it does not console them to be told that there are schools which are gaining by the arrangement. I hope my right hon. Friend understands the great importance we attach to this matter. Our fear in Lancashire is that the voluntary schools are going to be forced out of existence. I hope it is a mistaken idea, for the House has always upheld the system of voluntary schools, and it would be keenly felt by us if a blow to that system should be dealt by a Conservative Government.
    MR. W. H. CROSS: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to accept the

    1907
    proposal. It has the support, I may mention, of the Liverpool School Board. This Board has expressed a strong-opinion in favour of the proposition now before the Committee, and they point out that the effect of raising the amount of the grant from 10s. a year to 3d. per week on attendances would be, in a school of 100 children, a difference of £5 12s. 6d. a year for these 100 children; under the annual grant it would be £45, and under the 3d. grant £50 12s. 6d. Of course, in larger schools containing several hundred children the balance will be very considerable, and might make all the difference to managers, whether they could make the school free or not. This view has also been expressed by the Liverpool Public Elementary Schools Conference; and quite in harmony with this opinion, and expressing the same thing in another form is the Memorial from the National Union of Teachers, who propose that the amount in the Bill should be raised from 10s. to 11s. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to accept the proposal, which I am sure all Lancashire Members interested in education in the North of England support.
    VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: I think that Members on this side of the House are indebted to the Government for the change indicated by my right hon. Friend a few minutes ago. At the same time, I think my right hon. Friend's speech revealed that he had not a conception of the feeling aroused in the North of England by many of the proposals in the Bill. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bolton (Colonel Bridgeman) said it is no answer to the managers of great schools in the North of England to tell them that agricultural districts will be much better off under the Bill; indeed, it will only make them feel their position the harder. There is no doubt whatever that these northern schools will suffer considerable loss; how great it is difficult to toll. It is right the Committee should know the opinion held in northern towns on this subject. I sincerely hope my constituents are wrong in their anticipations, but I have no doubt that as the Bill stands, without amendment, it will have a very serious effect upon these schools. If the first two clauses stood by themselves the
    1908
    position of the Government would be logical enough, for they say in these clauses, "We give a certain grant in lieu of fees," and they might fairly and properly have said, after the passing of the Bill no new fees shall be imposed; but the effect of the 3rd clause, taken in connection with the clause we are now discussing, is not merely that schools receive a grant in lieu of fees; but they may be absolutely forbidden under the 3rd clause from charging any fees in the future. This makes the question a very serious one. The result may be that these schools will be bound down, so far as their fee income is concerned, to 10s. a year, and nothing more. It appears to me there is only the choice between withdrawing the 3rd clause and enlarging the amount of the grant. Everybody knows, as a matter of fact, that the fee charged in the North is more than 10s.; therefore, if the schools are declared free on consideration of this grant the schools will suffer a large loss of income, and the only remedy is to withdraw Clause 3 or increase the grant. I do not see why these schools should not be allowed to charge a fee, and I sincerely hope that when this scheme is carried out there will still be fee-paying schools; that parents who desire to pay fees may do so, sufficient free places being provided to meet the wants of the district. But I doubt very much, after what has been said in favour of free education, and after the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in introducing his Budget, that it will be possible to charge fees, because there is a feeling abroad that from the passing of the Bill no fees will be charged. I agree with my right hon. Friend in the hope that this will not be the case, for it seems to me an absurdity that those parents who wish to pay should not be allowed to do so. But we must contemplate the possibility of there being no fee-paying schools, and in that case I wish the Government to see the extraordinary position in which schools in the North of England will be placed. In my own constituency of Darwen one school will find its income reduced to the extent of £65 a year, another to the extent of £33, another of £148, and another to the extent of £100 a year. A school in Blackburn will have its income reduced to the extent of £130. Therefore, unless

    1909
    some way is found out of the difficulty, it will be quite impossible to keep these schools going. I know hon. Members opposite will say, "There are rich towns in the North of England; why should they not contribute?" I say at once that there is no charge can be sustained against the North of England towns that they have not subscribed to these schools, because up to this time the parents of the district have been quite willing to pay high fees, and the schools have done very well without subscriptions. No doubt when the demand comes subscribers will come forward, but it must be remembered that this enormous financial change is to take place within the year—from September 1st, 1891—and no time is afforded to meet the new financial position, and the relentless character of the Bill is such that there is good reason to fear that those schools which stand on the border line of solvency and bankruptcy will go under in the struggle. My argument is that it is necessary to enlarge the 10s. limit, because it may be impossible for those schools to charge any fees, partly on account of the public feeling which has been aroused, and partly because of Clause 3. If the schools find it impossible to charge fees, the annual loss to the whole diocese of Manchester will nearly approach £36,000 a year. That is an enormous figure. Now, on what principle does my right hon. Friend fix on the 10s. limit? To judge from his speech to-night no one can find any principle. I shrewdly suspect that the surplus of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was taken and the limit was fixed according to the fees the gross amount would cover.
    SIR W. HART DYKEintimated that that was not so.
    VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Well, if the Government were reckless then as to what the amount would be, I hope they will be a little more reckless now. I do not see how my right hon. Friend can prove that 10s. is the average fee. It would appear that the average fee in England is 11s., not 10s. I do not ask for this change merely on the ground that it would give an extra grant to the voluntary schools, but upon a far better principle. At present the annual grant is a most rough-and-ready standard. I quite admit the extraordinary difficulty
    1910
    of finding a method upon which the fee grant should be varied according to the particular needs of the particular school. But in respect of the number of weeks these schools are open, there is a very obvious distinction. Some schools are open 41 or 42 weeks, others 47. The schools of Darwen belong to this higher class; they are open for 46 and 47 weeks, and might well receive an increased grant. The schools ought to have a weekly instead of an annual grant. I find that 44 weeks is the average number that schools are open, and 3d. a week for 44 weeks would be 11s. a year. Therefore, 11s. turns out to be the average fee, and the proposal I am making is that schools open for the average number of weeks should receive the average fee, and that schools open longer and doing better work should have a larger grant. That would be the case if the weekly system were adopted instead of the annual. It is no use for my right hon. Friend in that attractive way of his which lures the House out of its better judgment to say that he is convinced from letters he has received that there will be no strain upon the schools in the North of England. I quite realise that my right hon. Friend will say that this is proposing a large addition to the expenditure. Well, I have another scheme, which, under the Rules of the House, I cannot bring forward. But I have found from the calculations I have made that this would be only giving the average fee to the average school, and I do not see that this Amendment should be rejected. In Scotland the annual grant in lieu of fees amouuts to 12s. Therefore, Scotland is ahead of this country, even if the Amendment were accepted. The Government are living absolutely in a fool's paradise if they think that the feeling in the country on this subject will calm down. The feeling will become stronger and stronger as the effect of this Bill is fully realised. I earnestly hope Her Majesty's Government will accept this Amendment, which is fair in itself, and which will do a great deal to save these very important schools which have done such good work in the cause of education, and which I and many of my Friends who sit around me have been sent here to defend.
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: There is one remark of the noble Lord in which I heartily concur—that in which he expressed his thanks to the Government for having given way in reference to the limit of age. He said it had given great gratification to hon. Members on that side of the House, and I hope he did not mean to exclude hon. Members on this side of the House in that statement. I also agree with the noble Lord in what he has said as to the delightfully courteous manner of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council, who has given us during these Debates so much evidence of his desire to advance the cause of education. The noble Lord based his case on the ground that the Bill will bear very hardly on the voluntary schools in the North of England, and he also complained of the basis of calculation on which the 10s. fee grant has been fixed. As to the first part of his case, namely, the strain on the schools in the North of England, the noble Lord begs the question at once, because he assumes that the provisions in the Bill which allow an extra fee to be charged where the school fee is over and above 10s. will be nugatory. I do not think he is entitled to take for granted that in Manchester, Liverpool, and other towns in the North, where the fees in the voluntary schools ranges from 13s. to over 15s. and the Board school fees are somewhere about 14s., no further calls will be made on subscribers.
    VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Under Clause 3 they will he compelled to become free schools.
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: No; they will have to find free places, or see that provision is made for free places in the district. I am not going to defend the position of the Vice President of the Council; but what I say to the noble Lord, when he says that there will be a heavy strain on the voluntary schools of the North of England, is this: if the subscribers to these schools act in 1892 as they did in 1876, and give at the same rate, the difficulty will be overcome. They contributed at the rate of 4s. 3d. per head, and that amount, over and above the 10s. fee grant, will meet all the requirements of the Northern schools.
    *MR. AINSLIE: The right hon. Gentleman has omitted to notice the rates.
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: Not so. You were paying rates in 1876. No doubt the Bill will hit some of the schools of the North very hardly; but the generosity of the people of Lancashire and Yorkshire and of other large towns in the North is such in the cause of education that I have no doubt whatever that where it is necessary that increased subscriptions should be given in order to keep up schools, the devoted advocates of denominational schools will make up the deficiency and maintain them in a state of efficiency. But there is a more important question than this—as to the basis on which the Vice President of the Council has calculated the fees. I have been very much amused to hear the doctrine of averages. Averages are pleasant things when they give an advantage, but when they give the reverse it is said that to adopt the law of averages is to treat the schools hardly. I can understand the attitude of the noble Lord the Member for Darwen, who pleads for the schools in the North of England, and who thinks that the average will impose a heavy strain on those schools; but I cannot understand the position of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who pleads for the rural schools. As the Bishop of Wakefield pointed out, in the North of England the average is about 14s., while in the South it is only 6s. If some plan could be arranged by which the 10s. grant would be allocated to such schools according to their average fees, I should have no objection, the case of Wesleyan schools, whose average fees were 16s., being also considered; but I desire to point out that the Church of England schools will not be the greatest sufferers. The average fees in the Church of England schools is 10s. 7½d.; in the Wesleyan schools, 16s. 1d.; in the Roman Catholic, 9s. 5d.; and in the British schools, 13s. 2d. Therefore, it is impossible for any one to contend with success that the Church "of England schools will lose. The hon. Member for Leeds adopted that argument.
    *MR. G. W. BALFOUR: My argument had nothing whatever to do with the difference between the Board schools and the denominational schools, as I

    1913
    expressly stated in answer to an interruption from the right hon. Gentleman himself. What I said was that the Government professed to strike an average as between all schools throughout the country, but that they had not calculated the average correctly.
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: The average the Government have arrived at has been made up by including the 16s. 6d. fee of the Wesleyan schools. That goes to make up for the low average of other schools. I am astonished that such a mathematician as the Member for Leeds does not recognise that the figures he gave the other day are not sound. The Government have taken an average of all schools throughout the country.
    *MR. G. W. BALFOUR: But their average is not the true average.
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: The Chancellor of the Exchequer has worked the figures out as an average for the purposes of his estimate. If you recede from the principle adopted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer you will be unable to give the schools of the South of England a penny more than 6s., and, so far as this side of the House is concerned, if you can devise a scheme whereby the schools of the South of England shall receive 6s., and those of the North 14s., I shall have no word of opposition to raise. But that, hon. Members know, is impracticable. The Bill proceeds on the principle of fixing one definite amount for all schools alike, and though the figure fixed on will be very hard on the Wesleyan schools, I shall support the Government in opposing any increase of the grant. If the grant were increased to 10s. 6d., as is suggested, this would mean an extra £200,000 a year. If the Government were to accept such a suggestion, I and my friends would have to consider it very carefully; but if the Government, as I believe, are resolved to stand by the present proposal of 10s., I shall certainly support them.
    COLONEL NOLAN: I must say the noble Lord the Member for Darwen has quite converted me, having proved that a fee grant of 10s. is not enough for the schools of the North of England. I hope the noble Lord will recollect all he has said when the House comes to deal with the case of Ireland, and the Chief Secretary proposes that the grant shall be 7s. I trust the
    1914
    noble Lord will then rise in his place and say all he has uttered to-day over again. I was struck also by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, and I hope he will make the same speech over again when we come to deal with the case of Ireland. He has held that you cannot have one rule for the North of England and another for the South, and I hope that when we come to deal with the 7s. fee for Ireland the right hon. Gentleman will raise his voice in favour of the principle he has laid down. Ireland will owe a debt of gratitude both to the noble Lord and the right hon. Gentleman, if in the case of Ireland they act on the principle which is guiding them to-night.
    CAPTAIN BETHELL: The right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council always makes an agreeable speech. He has done so to-night, and has almost succeeded in inducing me to vote for him instead of against him in the event of a Division. I think, however, that we are entitled from the Government to a more complete vindication of their policy with regard to these voluntary schools in towns. Such a vindication is looked for and expected. We have a right to it, seeing that the proposal of the Bill will be, as the noble Lord the Member for Darwen has pointed out, an immense strain on the financial condition of the schools.
    *MR. W. H. SMITH: I would appeal to my hon. Friends not to divide on this proposal. The Government have given the most careful consideration to this question, and in adopting the fee grant of 10s. they have come to the conclusion that they are taking a figure which will, on the whole, enable every school to carry on its operations, with the assistance of the other provisions of the Bill. The hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken has referred to the condition of the voluntary schools in towns. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton has referred to the condition of the Wesleyan schools, which are also chiefly in large towns. The Government have never contemplated for a single moment that the grant would free every kind of fee school. They distinctly contemplated that the conditions which are to be found in the large towns would admit of the

    1915
    continued existence of fee-charging schools. We hope and believe, and we are confident, that will be the result. We know already that there are managers of schools in which high fees are charged who say they are not prepared to accept the grant, because they are confident they can stand against the competition of perfectly free schools, and that the parents in many instances prefer fee-paying schools to schools which are entirely free. We have made a largo addition to the proposals first put forward by us in including children between throe and five in the 10s. grant, and this will lead to a considerable increase in the resources of the schools of which hon. Gentlemen speak. I trust gentlemen opposite will feel I am not using any language which is intended to be in the slightest degree miniatory, when I say it is impossible for us to go beyond the 10s. grant.
    MR. DE LISLE: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is anything in this Bill which will prevent the managers of schools reducing their school terms to 40 weeks, if at the end of the year they find themselves out of pocket?
    *SIR W. HART DYKE: What we demand is the minimum required by the Act, namely, 400 attendances.
    *MR. AINSLIE: I think after the appeal that has been made by the First Lord it would be somewhat unbecoming on my part to press this Amendment, and I therefore ask leave to withdraw it.
    VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Mr. Courtney, if this Amendment be withdrawn, shall I be precluded from moving mine?
    THE CHAIRMAN: If the Amendment be withdrawn, it will be competent to the noble Lord to move his.
    Permission to withdraw the Amendment refused.
    (9.55.) The Committee divided:—Ayes 145; Noes 30.—(Dir. List, No. 313.)
    Another Amendment made.
    MR. MUNDELLA: I beg to more, in page 1, line 11, to leave out the words "and under fourteen." Under the pressure
    which was put on me while in office to adopt an age limit I made inquiries with regard to the matter, and I found that there were practically
    1916
    three classes of these children. The first was that of children who had distinguished themselves by their application and acquirements, and whose parents were proud of them and were anxious that they should remain and qualify themselves to be pupil teachers or clerks, so that they might reach a better position than that which their parents enjoyed. The testimony of all connected with elementary schools goes to show that the presence of this class of children gives a good tone to a school, and they set an example to the mass of the children by their acquirements and good behaviour. The second class is that of children who are afflicted, many of them from early childhood, by spinal disease, or some other ailment, which has confined thorn to the house for years, and who have to remain longer than other children at school. The third class is that of blind, deaf, and dumb children. In all our large towns the School Boards are forming classes for these children, and excellent work has been done in connection with their education both in London and other School Board schools, in which they are taught to make themselves useful members of society capable of earning their own living. It is necessary for these children to remain at school till the age of 16 at least. The whole amount of the grant necessary for the purpose at which this Amendment aims will not be large, and the opinion of everyone with whom I have consulted on the subject is in favour of the proposal. I trust there will be no difference of opinion among the Committee on this question, and that, considering the importance of the matter and the small amount of expenditure involved, the Government will not exclude children of over 14 years of age.
    Amendment proposed, in page 1, lines 10 and 11, to leave out "of the number of children over five and under fourteen years of age."—(Mr. Mundella.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    SIR W. HART DYKE: It will certainly be admitted on all sides that the Government have already made a very considerable concession with regard to the extra number of young children to be admitted under the operation of the

    1917
    Bill. It is impossible to make any further demand on the Exchequer. It may be true, as the right hon. Gentleman has just said, that the Amendment will not involve any very large additional expenditure, but there is, after all, a limit to everything. As far as the financial operations of this scheme are concerned, it would be very unfair to further press the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman opposite mentioned three classes of children who would benefit by this proposal. But as to the blind, deaf, and dumb children it is hardly fair to press their case as an argument in favour of the Amendment. A Royal Commission sat for some time, and passed an excellent Report with regard to the difficulty of dealing with those unhappy children; and not only last Session, but this Session also, a Bill has been introduced in the other House dealing exceptionally with them.
    MR. MUNDELLA: In the Bill referred to the age is 14, and that is one of the objections to it.
    *SIR W. HART DYKE: I do not think that is a valid objection; at any rate, it is one that might easily be met. As to the bright and quick children, it might be assumed that at the age of 14 they had passed the standards, and while it was true that they could remain at school, yet after the age of 14 their attendance is not counted by the Department in the school attendance, and they are therefore shut out from the scope of the present proposals. As to the children who are neither quick nor bright, I urge that, in the circumstances, it would not be fair to press the Government to include them, and I cannot see what special good, educational or otherwise, would result from the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman. Moreover, by its application we should tend to encroach upon the domain of secondary education, which is altogether above and beyond the system of elementary education that the Bill deals with. Therefore I trust the Amendment will be rejected.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: There can be no doubt that the concession made by the Government with regard to the infants will be generally recognised and appreciated, but on the same grounds that we have admitted children between three and five years
    1918
    of age, we ought to pay the fees for children over 14. I agree with the axiom laid down by the Vice President of the Council that there must be a limit to everything, but hon. Members on this side of the House can accept no limit in regard to the Bill short of this: that every child in attendance at an elementary school shall be able to attend that school free of the payment of fees. Why do not the Government make a complete work of this free school question while they are about it? Why do they stand out against this paltry increase of £15,000 or £20,000 a year for the 40,000 children above 14, when they are about to dispose of such an immense sum of the ratepayers' money? Let them not "spoil the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar," but free elementary education from top to bottom. It maybe fair and reasonable to put aside the case of the deaf, dumb, and blind children, and also that of the quick and bright children who will have passed the 6th or 7th standards at 14 years of ago; but I think a strong case can be made out in favour of the children who are backward, perhaps through lack of opportunities. It is important that the parents shall be induced to keep such children at school as long as possible, and I fear that the Government, by the course they have adopted, will encourage a very vicious system on the part of many managers, especially in voluntary schools—that of charging higher fees in the higher standards. If supporters of the Government repudiate the resolution of the National Society in favour of paying-fee grants for older children as well as infants, it shows me clearly that they vote for the freeing of those young children, not from an educational point of view, but from a denominational and Church point of view, and because they are afraid the children will go to the Board Schools. They urge the freeing of these infants because they are afraid they will be sent' to free Board schools, instead of getting their education in the voluntary schools. I earnestly appeal to the Government with regard to this matter. They are giving the enormous boon of free education; left them make the gift complete; let the schools be free from top and bottom; let them be free to the older as well as to the younger children.
    MR. BARTLEY: I am, as the House knows, not in favour of free education, but if we are to have it, it seems to me it would be most unfortunate to limit it to scholars under 14. I should prefer to see the limit of 15 retained, and that of 11 removed. You are by this Bill teaching the people of this country that they are entitled to have their children educated free of cost, and yet you are also placing difficulties in the way of a child going to school when he is 14 years of age. At that age it is a great tax on the resources of a family to keep a boy at school, and parents ought to be encouraged to make that sacrifice. If education is to be of any value to the country the number of scholars over 14 must continue to increase. As we have to swallow this unpleasant pill, let us put on it as much sugar as we can.
    MR. RATHBONE: I appeal to the Vice President, and would appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he were present, to make a concession which I believe would yield a larger return to the country, perhaps, than any other part of this scheme. No doubt the number of children over 14 at school is not very large, but I have received a letter from a gentleman who for 18 years has been chairman of a School Board in a largo town, and is at the same time interested in voluntary schools, who urges that this limitation is the greatest blot upon the Bill, because it will force out of school the very boys who give a tone to it. He goes on to say that the recent strikes for shorter hours and higher wages have shown that the working classes are beginning to appreciate the benefits to be secured by united action; that they value their political rights. It is, therefore, more than ever important that they should have intelligent leaders. I do urge the right hon. Gentleman not to spoil his Bill by refusing this concession, for the outlay it will involve will be a cheap insurance premium for the greater safety of the country. This is not a question affecting School Boards only, for the majority of these older scholars are in the voluntary schools. The practical effect of the limitation will be to prohibit parents from keeping these elder scholars at school at their own expense.
    1920
    I do not think the Government can have considered the effect of passing the Bill as it stands. I hope that in the interests of education he will take this wretched little blot out of his Bill.
    MR. SYDNEY GEDGE: I hope the Government will not give way. This Amendment is being advocated on different grounds. First, we are told it is put forward in the interests of clever children, and then Ave are informed it is necessary it should be carried in the interest of the dull and backward boys. With regard to clever children, it is no doubt most desirable that every encouragement should be given them to proceed to a higher education; and in connection with the London School Board a good example has been set in that direction by founding scholarships for such children; and they, in my opinion, ought to pass into secondary schools instead of staying in the elementary schools. As to dullards, in public schools the boys who do the most mischief and give a bad tone are those who are backward, and who have been outstripped in their studies by the younger boys. It is found that when they remain in a class of younger lads these big boys do a good deal of harm, and therefore they are got rid of as quickly as possible. I hold that if a boy is a dullard and cannot get into a sufficiently high standard, the sooner he is sent out to earn his living the better both for himself and for the school.
    MR. JESSE COLLINGS: I do not agree that this is a question of clever boys; it is time we thought of average boys, and of those who are merely backward and slow in learning. Now they can be kept at school beyond 14 by the payment of a fee; but if the Bill passes as it stands managers will not have them, because they will not be able to charge more than 3d., and there will be no other schools to send them to. The slow progresser very often is difficult to teach, but very retentive, and the last year may be the year that gives him what is necessary to make all that had gone before of permanent value. If this concession means any large sum, I do not think, looking to the liberality of the Government and the excellent way in which they have met the demand for lowering the age, that the House ought

    1921
    to press them. But, in view of the comparatively small sum involved, I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to take pride in making the Bill without a flaw as a Free Education Bill.
    SIR W. HART DYKE: There appears to be a misapprehension as to the precise position of these children. I thought I had drawn a clear distinction between the clever child, who, though he remains in school after 14, cannot be counted on in average attendance, and his slower brother, who, though he has arrived at the age of 14, but has not passed the Seventh Standard, will be counted as in average attendance, and for him the ordinary grant will be paid.
    MR. JESSE COLLINGS: No matter at what age?
    *SIR W. HART DYKE: Yes; I would suggest that, as the concessions the Government have made would destroy the first half of Section 4, the remaining half should be allowed to disappear.
    MR. MUNDELLA: I think it a monstrous thing that for the clever boy there is to be neither the fee grant nor the education grant at 14, but that for the dull boy there is to be the education grant up to 16 or 17, and no fee grant whatever. For the Government the thing is not worth fighting, and I hope they will make the concession. In fact, no one but the hon. Member for Stockport appears to object to their doing so.
    SIR J. COLOMB: I should like to say, in the first place, that I believe the great concession of the Government in reducing the age from five to three will be hailed with satisfaction throughout the country. But with regard to the Amendment now before us, there is one point which has not been touched upon. I am enabled to state, on the authority of an excellent head master of a Wesleyan school in the East of London, that a boy who has not qualified under the present elementary education system at 14 years is better out at work than continuing in school, and that the change now proposed would probably involve an increase of the teaching stall, or prejudicially affect the brighter boys in the school. I do not think, in the interests of the taxpayer and of preliminary education,
    1922
    that this Amendment should pass.
    MR. J. ROWLANDS: I have listened with amazement to the speech we have just heard. For a number of years past I have taken interest in educational work, and I have recently visited a number of Board Schools. I could take the hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just spoken to a school in London where they already separate the dull boys and actually put a special teacher over them, and this has been done at the request of one of the best Board schoolmasters in the borough of Finsbury. I do not look aghast at the prospect of an increase of the teaching staff, and I do not agree with the hon. Member for Stockport that dull boys should be sent out to work as soon as possible. Our object should be to give children the largest amount of education we can. We frequently talk of children continuing their education after they go to work by attending the technical schools. If we wish technical education to advance, we must give all the facilities possible for those children to remain at school, in order to get the largest amount of education at the preliminary schools. I know of many cases in which parents are making great sacrifices in order to keep their children at school, for they know that a good education will be of immense value to them in after life. The case of the Government was given up by the Vice President of the Council in the second speech he delivered on this Amendment. He showed us how small was the difference between the hon. Gentleman who are supporting this Amendment and himself, and if his argument showed us anything at all it showed us the necessity of removing the limit of age. I trust the Government will reconsider their decision.
    SIR J. PEASE: I desire to add another to the many earnest appeals made to the Government to give way upon this point. As one of money the matter is hardly worth speaking about, for only some £20,000 is involved. If there is one greater blot upon our educational system than another it is the age at which children leave school. If parents are ready to keep their children at school after 14 years of age they

    1923
    ought, in my opinion, to be encouraged to do so. There are about 41,000 or 42,000 above 14 years of age, and it seems to me you are going to spoil a good and great work by refusing this Amendment. There is no principle involved, because you have agreed to the three years' amendment. I think the Government would do well to give way to the very strong feeling that has been expressed by some hon. Gentlemen around me who have spent their lives in educational work.
    MR. HENEAGE: Perhaps I may be permitted to make a practical suggestion. One thing is perfectly clear, and that is, that the question of compulsion and free education going hand in hand is now at an end. The Government have acceded to the request of a number of Members by extending the age from five to three It is now proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Brightside Division that the operation of the Bill beyond 14 years of age shall be almost limitless. I am not prepared to support such a proposition. I do not think that the taxpayers of this country are prepared to pay the fees of children of any age, but I would suggest that it might be possible to extend the limit by one or two years. Personally, I should be perfectly content if the limit were fixed at 15 years, and I think the Government might fairly consent to the fixing of such a limit. I believe there are many Members on this side of the House who would be willing to accept that limit as a compromise. Its adoption would not entail much expense, while an extra year at school would be of the greatest advantage to many a child.
    MR. DE LISLE: I should like to add my appeal to the Government to make the desired concession. The Bill came into the House as an Assisted Education Bill; it will evidently go out as a Free Education Bill. It appears to me that as the sum involved will only amount to £20,000 a year, while 40,000 children may be benefited, it would be better for the Government to make the concession, and let the Bill go forth as a Free Education Bill.
    MR. BROADHURST: I have been so anxious to see the Bill pass that I have not hitherto sought
    1924
    to trespass on the attention of the House upon the Bill. I should like to remind the House that it is only a week ago that some of us were lamenting the fact that parents are desirous of taking their children from school at too early an age. There now appears to be a fear on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite that parents will desire to keep their children at school until too great an age. There need be no fear of the kind. It is a fact that there is too great an anxiety on the part of parents to take their children from school as soon as they become of value as wage earners. Everything that can be done to lesson that tendency ought to be done. I hope earnestly that the Government will make a concession, and raise the ago from 14 to 16, or at least to 15. Many hon. Members on the opposite side of the House who are engaged in the skilled industries of the country know full well the advantage of a good education to the artisans of the country. The better artisans are educated as boys, the greater will be the profits and prosperity of our skilled trades.
    MR. A. DYKE ACLAND: I only want to allude to one remark made by the Vice President of the Council. The right hon. Gentleman has said that these children under 14 years of age ought, under certain circumstances, to become fit subjects for secondary education. The right hon. Gentleman, I hold, has no right to say that. He might say it when the State has provided a system of cheap secondary education for the children to take advantage of, but until then they will not deserve the implied taunts of the right hon. Gentleman. The only present alternative to the establishment of a system of free secondary schools, such as exists in Switzerland, is a system under which masters will be encouraged, as in Scotland, to retain their best scholars at school and to give them a quasi- secondary education. I hope the Government will make the concession asked for, and not whittle away the boon which the Bill is supposed to confer upon the children of the poor.
    MR. PICTON: I was astonished to hoar the hon. Member for Stockport and others say that children of 14 years of age are better at work than at school. How would those hon. Mem-

    1925
    bers like anyone to say that of their children? In my native town in Lancashire there is a saying, "Try a barrow full of it thysel.' "I invite hon. Gentlemen to try a barrow full of it themselves. Hon. Members say," Oh, the circumstances are different; we have plenty of money to send our children to school." Just so; the circumstances are different, but the object of the Bill is to level up the circumstances as much as possible. To stop short at the age of 14 years is, to my mind, as amazing as it is unjust and unfair. It is said these children may go to school if they pay fees. Just fancy half a dozen children over the age of 14 going to a school where there are in all 200 or 300 children. Up to 14 they have not paid fees, but directly they turn 14 they are required to bring fees in their pockets. By the rest of the children they will be regarded as strangers, as foreigners, as interlopers. Every other child in the school will feel that the half-dozen have no right there. Besides, I do not see how the system is to be worked in detail. At the present time the collection of fees is a very serious business. To keep fee books for half a dozen or a dozen children will be a very cumbrous matter indeed, and not worth the trouble. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Brightside Division said, very truly, that there are 25 or 30 children over the age of 14 in the Leicester Board schools. Is it likely that the Leicester School Board will attempt to charge fees? I understand the Bill really admits such children free: if so, the Board will certainly not charge fees: they would not go to the trouble of collecting fees from 25 or 30 children. I imagine a good many voluntary schools will act in the same way. Reference has been made to Switzerland and Germany. I wonder how it is that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are so anxious to keep their own country so far below the educational level of other countries. Do they think that skill and knowledge is of less importance to England and Wales than it is to Switzerland and Germany? They know well enough that it is only because of the immense care that has been given to education, and of the immense sums that have been spent both upon elementary, secondary,
    1926
    and technical education in Switzerland and Germany that many of the manufacturers in those countries are running us hard at the present day. This is a shabby, peddling way of dealing with the highest interests of our nation. I have this much appreciation of the character of the Government that I am sure they are ashamed of the business they have to do to-night, and I yet hope they will see their way to combine, as a famous predecessor of theirs did on a previous occasion, peace with honour.
    MR. KENRICK: I wish to make an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council, if he cannot accept the Amendment, to at all events accept the compromise suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage). That, to me, would be a reasonable arrangement. It would be easily met from a financial point of view, and its educational effect would be of the highest value. It has been truly urged that the parents of boys of 14 have every inducement to remove them from school, and nothing but their strong sense of the importance of education would induce them to make the sacrifice they do in keeping them at school. It seems to me that any one who cares for education and believes in it, as I am sure the Vice President of the Council does, will be inclined to do everything he can to encourage that feeling in parents. I would appeal to anyone who has boys of his own whether he does not find that after the age of 14 their minds develop in a way that never developed before. The right hon. Gentleman has passed through Parliament a measure of technical education which I believe will prove of great importance to the country; but if the country is to derive the full measure of advantage from that Act it will be necessary to see that the clever children take advantage of it. We know from the public prints that everywhere there is a consensus of opinion that this limit of age is a most dangerous thing, and I appeal to the Government to remove what has, in my opinion, been justly called a blot in their Bill.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,): An appeal has been made to my right hon. Friend

    1927
    to remove what is called a blot on the Bill. I am quite sure my right hon. Friend is as anxious about education as, any other Member of the House, and has given plenty of evidence of that anxiety. I do not wish to speak of myself, but I may say that ever since I entered public life I have given every proof of being anxious for the educational progress of the country. It has been a special subject of interest for me, and everything that would tend to develop the progress of the education of the people of the country generally has always appealed to my sympathies and convictions in every possible way. But I am the representative in a special way of the taxpayers of the country at large. Hon. Members opposite say it would be a shabby thing to refuse this additional money. But they should remember that the Government have met the Committee, to a great extent, by devoting to the cause of education a very large extra sum of money, a sum as to which I do not know at present how it is to be found. We estimated to the full the charges to be put on the finances of this year. We had gone as far as we thought we were justified, and yet to meet hon. Members opposite we have included children between the ages of three and five at a very considerable charge. Now we are asked to go a step further, and I am entitled, in the interest of education itself and in the interest of the general community, to ask how far we ought to go in the direction of the education of one class, namely, the class which takes advantage of primary education? I know there are classes in the country who think we have already gone far enough in taxation for education—people who are not relieved by that taxation, and who see the whole of the relief given by it going to the education of the children of other classes. Bight hon. Gentlemen opposite have added up the millions on millions already given for the education of the working classes. It is now said that, even when the age of 14 has been reached, we are still to give free education at the cost of the State. There are other persons, too, who are interested in the education of their children; there are other small taxpayers, not belonging to the working classes, but to the class just beyond, who would have to pay for the education
    1928
    of their children from five years upwards, at a very considerable sacrifice to themselves, and are they to be told that after the ago of 14 free education is to be given to the children of the working classes, partially at their expense? These children, thus educated free, will compete with their own children, whom they send to schools at considerable expense——
    MR. PICTON: No; let them send their children to the Board schools.
    *MR. GOSCHEN: Ah, it is very well to say that, but it is not everybody who wishes to send his children to a Board school. Do hon. Members send their own children to Board schools? Do not hon. Members opposite understand that there is a class a little above, in a pecuniary sense, those who send their children to the primary schools? I wish to put it with all moderation and as a friend to education, but I think hon. Members are rather unfair to the feelings of the lower middle classes in the matter, who wish to have the selection of their children's schools. If the country had adopted the American system of sending all the children to the primary schools, then free education could be carried to any point. But at present the country has not arrived at that system, and the Government have to consider whether it is right to go to an unlimited extent in giving free education to the children of one class at the expense of the general taxpayers of the country. Hon. Members may not agree with me, but it is right that I should put forward these considerations. As responsible for the finances of the country, and as responsible for raising the money by which the additional charge will have to be met, I must warn the House of what they are doing. There is a strong feeling now in favour of free education; we are going forward step by step and finding money for free education, but the time will very soon come when it will be my unfortunate duty to propose the ways and means by which this additional expenditure must be met—this additional charge upon which hon. Members seem to insist. What support will the Government then receive for the additional taxation which may have to be imposed? What will be the attitude of the great portion of the community who have

    1929
    derived no benefit from the additional taxation, but who find that those children who have been educated at the cost of the State come into competition with their own children? The House has now decided to go to the extent of hundreds of thousands of pounds beyond the sum originally contemplated by the Government, I see no means of providing that sum except by additional taxation, and I know that the attitude of hon. Members opposite will be very different when that additional taxation comes to be imposed to what it is now, when, in a generous and praiseworthy enthusiasm in the cause of promoting education, they press this proposal on the Government. What would hon. Members say if the sum placed at the disposal of the County Councils for technical education were to be withdrawn to meet the additional expenditure now proposed? I do not know whether that suggestion would commend itself to the general sense of hon. Gentlemen opposite. What new taxation is to be imposed? Is it to be taxation on the classes who will derive the benefit, or is it to fall on the community at large? I venture to warn the House that it is possible to go too far in a special anxiety for the continued education of children attending only one class of schools. If it is right, at the expense of the State, that children should continue their education between the ages of 14 and 16, I ask why that privilege should not be extended to all classes? I do not wish to lay down a hard-and-fast line, but I do think that we are embarking on a dangerous course. It is not dangerous to hon. Members opposite, because they are not responsible for raising the necessary taxation. If we wish to be just to all classes of the community we must feel that the small tradesman who sends his son to schools just above the primary schools is entitled to consideration.
    *MR. RATHBONE: Those are the very people who send their sons to these superior primary schools.
    *MR. GOSCHEN: Yes, but only a small proportion do so, and it is not that class for whom the general argument this evening has been advanced. What I am contending for is a considerable class who are just as anxious about education, who are a struggling class, and who do not send their children to
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    the primary schools. It is hard to say to them that they must either send their children to the primary schools or else suffer the competition of the children who are educated free and partly at their expense. I will give an instance. There are a large number of people in the Metropolis who send their children to the Middle-class Corporation Schools, where the fees are about £4 a year. These parents scrape and make sacrifices from their scanty earnings, scarcely better than those of the artisan, in order to give their children the somewhat better education given in this middle-class school. They will find that while they are paying somewhat heavily for education of their boys, another class of boys are being educated at the cost of the State——
    MR. J. ROWLANDS: Does the right hon. Gentleman know what endowments these middle-class schools have?
    *MR. GOSCHEN: These schools have endowments which have been got together with great difficulty from private persons who wished to provide a good education for a class badly educated before. In this way £50,000 were collected.
    MR. J. ROWLANDSasked whether it was not a fact that some charities belonging to the parish of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, and St. Luke's, Middlesex, had not been taken to endow these schools?
    *MR. GOSCHEN: For 20 or 30 years these schools have been mainly maintained by private effort, but parents have had to pay for the education of their children. I hope hon. Members on this side will not interrupt the interruptions, for I do not wish to neglect any of these questions. I have laboured to secure education for the working classes, but there is another class deserving our consideration. It is rather hard that those who have been obliged to educate their boys and girls, and have done so with difficulty between the ages of 5 and 14, should find they must withdraw their children from school because they cannot afford to keep them there any longer, while those whoso children are educated in primary schools have their children's education paid for by the State until the age of 16. The House must not be carried away by enthusiasm for the education of one particular class, but should look to the interests of the

    1931
    community as a whole. There is possibly already a feeling on the part of a large proportion of the community that we are concentrating too much of the legislation of the country upon a particular class, and that there is too much of the taxation of the country expended on that particular class. It may be wrong on their part to entertain such a feeling, but I have thought it right that one voice should be raised to put the case of the other classes before the Committee. Hon. Members who intend voting for this Amendment, and have pressed other Amendments on the Government, must recollect that a day of reckoning-will come when the bill will have to be paid, and I trust that when the financial proposals to meet the additional demand come before the House there will be the same alacrity to vote such additional taxation as may be necessary. [Cries of "Hear, hear!"] Hon. Members say "Hear, hear" now, but my experience has not been that when new taxation is proposed the Government receive much support from hon. Gentlemen opposite. It appears to me we are embarking upon a very difficult task, which may commend itself to one class of the community, but which will create a great deal of heart-burning among other classes also engaged in the struggle for life, and whose children are not educated in the primary schools.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not wish to stand in the way of a Division if the Committee desire it, but I still hope a Division may be avoided. I am encouraged in that hope by the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman has reduced the issue to a very small point indeed, in fact I could not help thinking that the whole of his speech was an argument between dual personalities—the Chancellor of the Exchequer arguing against the individual and defending the Treasury against a new inroad. Undoubtedly the House is prepared for this extra expenditure. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has called upon us to consider whether we can afford this additional expenditure. Here is a Government who in order to secure free education in primary schools originally brought in a Bill contemplating the expenditure of £2,000,000 a year. To-night, in answer to arguments coming from both
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    sides of the House, from their Friends as well as their political opponents, the Government agreed to add an additional sum of £200,000 a year in order to include children between the ages of three and five. The Government have given up already any attempt at principle in this matter, because the principle the Bill went upon when introduced was that it should follow the compulsory attendance, but when we went below the age of five we gave up that principle, and now when a proposal is made to add to this expenditure a sum of from £10,000 to £20,000 a year to complete the proposition, then the conscience of the Chancellor of the Exchequer finds itself altogether too tender——
    *MR. GOSCHEN: I must demur to the figures of the right hon. Gentleman. This estimate is upon the present attendance, but according to the arguments of hon. Members on both sides, with free education there will be a much larger attendance, and the greater the effect of the Bill, the greater will be the expenditure.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: As regards the figures I must maintain my position, but I am talking of the proportion; the position I am putting before the Committee, is a question of the proportion between the sums already agreed to and that now asked for. The Government have agreed to an expenditure of £2,200,000 a year, and having swallowed that camel, they are now straining at the gnat of £10,000 or £20,000. The right hon. Gentleman says the £20,000 may become a larger sum; so may the £2,000,000 and the £200,000. This is altogether a disproportionate resistance on the part of the Government; and it is my confidence that this is only over-strained conscientiousness on the part of the official Chancellor of the Exchequer that induces this resistance, that causes me to make an appeal to the Government, even at the last moment, not to put us to the trouble of dividing, but to enable us to complete the work we have undertaken. There is an old proverb, vulgar perhaps, but containing a truth, "Don't spoil the ship for a hap'orth o' tar." 1s that not what we are in danger of doing F There is a good deal to be said about the evil of giving a smattering of education to a large part of the population, and in old days that was an argu-

    1933
    ment against all elementary education. But here is an opportunity of scouring real results, because there can be no doubt whatever that those children who remain longest at school receive a more thoroughly grounded education, and give the best return for the national expenditure. Yet it is precisely these children you are going to handicap. Yon are going to say to their parents, "keep your children at school until 14, and we will pay for their education, but if you make a great sacrifice and keep your children at school a year or two more we shall refuse to continue the grant, and you must pay for the education in those two years." The argument of my right hon. Friend that the recipients of this boon are nearly allied to those who still pay for education is an argument that undoubtedly may be used in objection, but it is also an argument against all free education, and, therefore, against the Bill applying equally to scholars of all ages. The right hon. Gentleman must have convinced himself that the argument has no real foundation, or he never would be supporting a Bill which gives free education between the ages of 5 and 14. This is not a time to argue the point at length, but I do appeal to the Government to accept this proposal. I am sure they will find that every educationist in the country, whether he favours voluntary schools or Board schools, is in favour of a proposition to make education free in elementary schools for children of all ages. On economical ground the proposal may be sustained. It has been urged that it is an advantage to relieve the teachers from the trouble of collecting the school pence, but if they collect it from children of some ages, then they will still be taken up, though not to the same extent as under the existing system. I cannot believe that even my right hon. Friend would regret to be defeated on this point, but I hope the Committee will be saved the trouble of a division.
    MR. W. H. SMITH: I am sure my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer would greatly regret to sustain a defeat; the right hon. Gentleman will give him credit for the sentiments he has expressed out of a full sense of his position. I believe a suggestion has been made from the other side of the House that the age of 15 should be substituted for
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    that of 14, and under all the circumstances of the case the Government will be prepared to accept that compromise. I hope that offer will indicate that the Government are ever ready to go as far as they possibly can.
    MR. MUNDELLA: Although I feel some reluctance, because of the exclusion of the children just over 15, I feel I should not be justified in refusing to accept the offer just made, and I therefore ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Amendment agreed to:—In line 11 to leave out "fourteen" and insert "fifteen."
    Committee report Progress; to sit again to-morrow.

  LOCAL REGISTRATION OF TITLE (IRELAND) BILL.—(No. 189.)

    COMMITTEE.
    Considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clause 1.
    MR. SEXTON: Of this Bill, which is one of importance, we had no explanation on the Second Reading, and I think on this first clause we may ask for a brief statement of the essential principle and scope of the measure, which concerns, or may concern, a large number of tenant farmers and occupiers.
    *THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,): I gladly accede to the hon. Member's request. There has been in Ireland for nearly two centuries a general system of registration of deeds somewhat similar to that existing in the County of Middlesex. That system has worked well, but it is too expensive and cumbrous a system for small properties, such as have recently been created and are expected to be created in still greater numbers under the Land Purchase Act. Short leases and tenancies from year to year are excluded from the operation of the system, but the moment a tenant purchases the fee simple it is brought within the provisions of the registration law. I may, without egotism, claim to have some acquaintance with this question. At a very early period of my professional career I wrote a book on the subject of registration, and I have given a great deal of attention to it. I have

    1935
    served on a Royal Commission, and I, have been examined as a witness before a Committee of this House on this question. The result of my study and of my practical experience is that it would be an incalculable disaster to purchasing tenants if they were loft under the present system of registration, the expense of which is altogether disproportionate to the requirements of the owners of 10, 20, or even 50-acre holdings. The object of this Bill is to develop and localise throughout Ireland a system of registration of titles, as distinguished from registration of assurances, similar to that which has been in operation with great success in the Colonies. My proposal is to absorb the present system of recording of titles into a general system of registration, compulsory as regards tenant-purchasers, but optional as regards others, and to localise it by having an office at a moderate distance from every holding. There will be a central office in Dublin, presided over by the very able gentleman who is now Recorder of Titles, and carried on under the control of the Land Judge. If any question or difficulty arises locally it will be referred to the central office. The expense of carrying out the Bill will be extremely trifling. The Ashbourne Act of 1885 contains a clause under which the Commission is bound to send down a copy of each vesting order to the Clerk of the Peace for the purpose of local registration. It was evidently intended to supplement that Act by a system of local registration, but from that time to this no such system has been established. I have made this proposal; the matter has now been before the public for three Sessions, and has been canvassed by the legal profession; and I believe the principle of the proposal has been generally accepted, and the details of the Bill now before the Committee have met with general acceptance.
    MR. SEXTON: I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for the statement he has been good enough to make. Everyone in Ireland knows that he is the most competent man in the House to deal with the question. We believe that his Bill deals with a necessary purpose in a useful way.
    Clause agreed to.
    COLONEL NOLAN: The question of registering land below high-water mark is very complicated. Will the right hon. Gentleman take care that the cost of registering such land will not be greater than that of registering other land?
    MR. MADDEN: Certainly.
    Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Thursday.

  TURBARY (IRELAND) [EXPENSES].
  Resolution reported.
  "That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of the amount of purchase money and costs incurred in the purchase of hogs under the provisions of any Act of the present Session to provide for and regulate the user by purchasing tenants of rights of Turbary."
  Resolution agreed to.

  TURBARY (IRELAND) [EXPENSES].

    CONSULAR SALARIES AND FEES BILL.
    On Motion of Sir James Fergusson, Bill to amend the Law relating to the Salaries and Fees of Consular Officers, ordered to he brought in by Sir James Fergusson and Mr. Jackson.
    Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 398.]

    RANGES BILL.
    On Motion of Mr. Brodrick, Bill to facilitate the acquisition of Ranges by Volunteer Corps and others, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Brodrick and Mr. Secretary Stanhope.
    Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 390.]

  CROFTERS' COMMON GRAZINGS (SCOTLAND) BILL.—(No. 287.)
  Order for Second Reading read.
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON,): I cannot say I think this Bill is in all respects what it might be, and it may require some Amendment in Committee. At the same time, I think it would be respectful to the Resolution recently adopted by the House, that the measure should be read a second time.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for Thursday.

  METROPOLITAN WATER COMPANIES' CHARGES BILL. (No. 25.)
  Reported from the Select Committee on the London Water Commission, &c, Bills [Parties do not proceed]; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
  House adjourned at twenty minutes after Twelve o'clock.

COMMITTEE OF SELECTION FOR STANDING COMMITTEES.
Report from, that the Committee have added the Lord Abinger to the Standing Committee for the consideration of the Roads and Streets in Police Burghs (Scotland) Bill. Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
FISHERIES BILL [H.L.]—(No. 17.)
Reported from the Standing Committee with an amendment: The Report thereof to be received on Thursday next.
ROADS AND STREETS IN POLICE BURGHS (SCOTLAND) BILL—(No. 161.)
Reported from the Standing Committee with amendments: The Report thereof to be received on Thursday next.
CORK (COUNTY AND CITY) COURT HOUSES BILL.—(No. 194.)
House in Committee (according to order); Bill reported without amendment; Standing Committee negatived; Then Standing Order No. XXXIX. considered (according to order), and dispensed with: Bill read 3a: Amendments made: Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.
MARKETS AND FAIRS (WEIGHING OF CATTLE) BILL—(No. 185.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (Earl CADOGAN): I have to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading to this Bill to amend the Markets and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Act, 1887. The main objects of this Bill are to transfer the authority as stated in Clause 1:—
  "As from the passing of this Act the powers under section 9 of the principal Act of the Local Government Board, as to England and Wales, and of the Secretary for Scotland, as to Scotland, shall be transferred to, and vested
  1826
  in, the Board of Agriculture, and the powers under the same section of the Local Government Board for Ireland shall be transferred to, and vested in, the Irish Land Commission."
  The other objects of the Bill are to provide adequate accommodation to the satisfaction of the Board of Agriculture for the weighing of cattle. By the Act of 1887, it was provided that weighing machines were to be provided in all markets and other places for the sale of cattle; but it has been found that those machines have been placed in inconvenient positions, and that there has not been adequate accommodation provided in the shape of pens and otherwise. Generally it will be found that there are amendments in the Act of 1887, and there is a provision that returns are to be provided compulsorily, but only in the places which will be found mentioned in the Schedule. A Royal Commission on Market Rights and Tolls sat in 1888–9; and this Bill has been drawn with the view of carrying out the main provisions recommended in the Report of that Commission. I beg to move the Second Reading of the Bill.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Earl Cadogan.)
  THE DUKE OF THE RICHMOND AND GORDON: My Lords, I am not going to raise any objection to the Second Reading of this Bill; but I could have wished that the noble Lord had given us some more cogent reasons for this Bill being introduced. He says it was to amend the Act passed in 1887, and I dare say that, in so far as it amends it, in the first place there is no great objection to it, because it transfers the powers of the Local Government Board, and vests them in the Board of Agriculture. The noble Lord has not alluded to various clauses in the Bill.
  EARL CADOGAN: If the noble Duke will forgive me, I mentioned Clauses 2 and 3.
  THE DUKE OF THE RICHMOND AND GORDON: I believe my noble Friend did allude to Clause 2, but I think he left out a part of Clause 3, which, to my mind, is one of very serious importance, I mean that part of Clause 3 that the prices at which cattle are sold in the market shall be given to the Board of Agriculture. I want to know whether the noble Lord by that clause intends

  1827
  that if I go to a market and sell my stock to anybody I choose, without having them weighed, the price of the cattle is to be given to the authority, and by the authority forwarded on to the Board of Agriculture. I am quite aware that the measure applies only to a certain number of places which are named in the Schedule; but I am very much afraid that, if the measure is passed with those places named in it, it will not be long before we are told that there is an excellent precedent in this measure for the proposal that it should be made to apply to all markets throughout the country. I quite understand that if the cattle are weighed in the market, the weight of the animals and the price at which they are sold should be stated, because that may be for the benefit of the public, and it may be quite right that information should be given to the authority to be sent up to the Board of Agriculture; but I think it would be excessively despotic to step in and say that the price of all the animals I sell at that market is to be made public, and that I must give it to the authority for that purpose. The title of the Bill refers to the weighing of cattle, but it goes further than that in its provisions, because it directs that the price of the cattle shall be sent up to the authority in London. I daresay my noble Friend will say that this applies only to a certain number of places, namely, those mentioned in the Schedule, but perhaps he will forgive me if I call his attention to Clause 4, which says:—
  "Every auctioneer who sells cattle at any such mart as aforesaid shall, unless exempted as aforesaid, make the like Returns to the Board of Agriculture with respect to cattle entering, weighed, and sold at that mart as are required by this Act to be made by a market authority, and shall be subject to the like penalty for making any false or fraudulent statement in any such Return."
  Therefore, although in certain points it is confined to the towns named in the Schedule, every auctioneer throughout the country—not confined to the towns mentioned in the Schedule—is bound, when he sells these animals, to make a Return to the Board of Agriculture.
  EARL CADOGAN: I beg the noble Duke's pardon; it is unless he obtains an exemption from the Board of Agriculture.
  THE DUKE OF THE RICHMOND AND GORDON: Yes, but I know perfectly well what that means. I should like my noble Friend, if he is agriculturally inclined, when he objects to having his stock included in these provisions, to go up to the Board of Agriculture and make out his case. I think I can be pretty near certain what the answer would be. He would be told that it is for the general interests of the country and that, surely, he would not stand in the way of so great a public benefit. The noble Lord may certainly go and remonstrate to the Board of Agriculture if he pleases, but I do not think his remonstrance will have much effect. If he desires to have the weighing done in the market, that is all very well; but what I complain of here is that by this section you are compelled to give the prices of the animals you sell, whether they are weighed or not. I will not trouble your Lordships any longer, nor, as I before said, should I oppose the Second Reading, but I think the noble Lord will agree with me, and see that in Clause 3 it is necessary to put in words to meet the objections I have indicated. If he really means that this is a Bill to deal with the weighing of cattle, I think the noble Lord will see-that it is necessary at the end of Clause 3 to add the words, after "cattle," "and the price of cattle so weighed sold thereat."
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My. Lords, I am very glad Her Majesty's Government have seen their way to introduce this Bill, which appears to me a very useful measure. The practice of weighing cattle has, under the operation of the Act of 1887, been largely extended throughout the country, and especially in Scotland and Ireland, and I know as a fact that many persons who have taken to weighing their cattle have found that they have derived great advantage from the practice. I do not share the apprehensions of the noble Duke that we shall be brought under a despotism in consequence of the Clauses introduced into this Bill. No doubt the Bill does go a little further in regard to the practice of weighing cattle than the Act of 1887 did, but it is in consequence of inquiry made into the subject, and the Report of the Royal Commission on Market Rights and Tolls, and their re-

  1829
  commendations that the new provisions have been embodied. I admit that under Clause 3, for the first time, the practice of giving Returns is made compulsorily. I submit it is very desirable, and for the advantage of all farmers and of agriculturists of all kinds, that we should have as complete Returns as we can, and I do not think there is any reason for any person who has sold cattle, whether they have been weighed or not, to object that any great secret is disclosed, or, that they are injured in any way by the fact that the price given for the animals is to be returned for the advantage of the public. I think noble Lords connected with Scotland especially will constantly have seen in all the principal papers, price-lists, giving the weight, price, and quality of cattle.
  *THE MARQUESS of WATERFORD: And in Ireland also.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Those Returns are given most fully in the newspapers every day. And I would make this remark, that the advantage of weighing cattle is greatest for the purpose of buying store cattle. People find out by comparing the price of store cattle with the price of fat cattle what they may have to give, and by going very much on the arithmetical figures they can often buy fat and store cattle in the market. In that way the agricultural interest has derived very great advantages from the operation of the Act of 1887, and I am glad to see that those advantages are considerably extended by this Bill. I think if the noble Lord will look at Clause 3 he will see that in the last words of it there is some ambiguity. There are Returns to be given.
  "With respect to the number of cattle, entering, and the number and weight of cattle weighed at the marketer fair, and the price of the cattle sold thereat."
  I admit that if a man sells beef apparently to a butcher it would be a very great hardship if he were compelled to pay a fee for having it weighed; but I do not myself see why if the market authority were called upon to weigh the animal it can do the animal any harm to be weighed, provided the market authority pay the fee, so as to be able to send the necessary information to the Board of Agriculture. Clause 4 no doubt
  1830
  does impose an obligation, I believe for the first time, upon auctioneers; but I happen to know that the large auctioneers in Scotland now send this information of their own free will, and I believe that considerable advantage is derived from the practice. I hope this Bill will be passed into law, and I believe it will be an improvement in its operation and effect even upon the present practice, which undoubtedly has been of great advantage.
  A noble LORD: Perhaps the noble Earl who has charge of this Bill will allow me to ask why in Ireland the weighing authority has been transferred to the Land Commission?
  EARL CADOGAN: I really cannot say. It was considered the proper authority to transfer it to. Has the noble Lord any objection to raise?
  A noble LORD: No. I would only remark that there does not seem to me to be any connection between the Land Commission and market affairs.
  *THE MARQUESS OF WATERFORD: Perhaps I may be allowed to give the noble Lord an answer with regard to the Land Commission. The Land Commission were employed to collect statistics throughout Ireland, and they have done so, in order to be able to fix what are called fair rents, and they have, in fact, inaugurated an Agricultural Department. The original market authority in Ireland was the Local Government Board, and they have consented to hand their duties over to the Land Commission, who, as I have said, have established an Agricultural Department. The Land Commission have done very useful work throughout Ireland by the publication of the prices to-be obtained in the different markets. I think great credit is due to them for what they have done in this respect, and I think this Bill will be of the greatest advantage to Ireland, as it will enable the farmers in the different districts to ascertain the prices of store cattle, and also of fat cattle. The noble Duke objected to a Return being required, without the consent of the owner of the cattle, but I would point out that it could not hurt the noble Duke or any other person, if the Returns were given without his name being attached to them. The Returns would merely state that a certain num-

  1831
  ber of cattle were sold at a certain price, and nobody could possibly ascertain that they were the noble Duke's or anybody else's cattle. I hope the noble Earl who has charge of the Bill will ask the House to pass it in very much the form it is at present.
  On Question, agreed to.
  Bill read 2a (according to order), and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.

BRINE PUMPING (COMPENSATION FOR SUBSIDENCE) BILL.—(No. 131.)

  COMMITTEE.
  House again in Committee (according to order).
  Clause 50.
  Amendment again proposed, To leave out sub-section (1.)—(The Lord Stalbridge.)
  *LORD STALBRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to remind your Lordships that the object of this Amendment is to leave out the sub-section which excepts Railway and Canal Companies, Gas and Water Companies, County Councils and Municipal Corporations, Local Authorities and Brine-pumpers, from the right to receive compensation under the Bill.
  *LORD BRAMWELL: My Lords, it does seem to me that this Clause 50 is very unreasonable and unjust, and I ask your Lordships to let me make my protest against it. I shall not be long about it. Your Lordships had the other day a denunciation from my noble and learned Friend, Lord Grimthorpe, of the common-law of the land for this: that a man may find his wells dried up by his neighbour digging to a greater depth than he has sunk. Now that decision was come to by your Lordships' House a good many years ago, and, perhaps, something might be said in favour of it upon principle, and one might put this simply; it is very hard that I may not dig 100 feet deep because my neighbours have only dug 50. That indicates what is the principle of that decision. But whether the law is right or wrong in that matter has no bearing upon the case before your Lordships, because by the law of the land everyone is entitled to the support of what I may call neighbouring or adjacent land, whether it is underneath
  1832
  or alongside; and if anybody by any contrivance excavates what is underneath my land, and lets me down, or cuts away that land which is by the side of mine and deprives it of the lateral support to which by law it is entitled, that makes a wrong against me, and it is an actionable wrong for which I may sue him. But the difficulty in the case of the brine-pumpers is, that you cannot trace who it is that has taken away the support to which your land is entitled. It may be the pumper to the north or the south of you, to the east or to the west; and what in reality this Bill' is, is this: it is not a Bill to alter the law, but it is a Bill of procedure, a Bill to enable those who are wronged to get at those who have done them that wrong. Well, that is true, and if it is true it is a right thing to provide a remedy for one man who is so injured and so wronged; it is a right thing to provide it for everybody so injured and wronged. But this first sub-section of Clause 50 provides that there are certain persons and bodies who shall not be entitled to this, which I say is simply a measure of procedure—to participate in the benefit it gives against those who have wrongfully abstracted the support to which their land is entitled. Your Lordships know that Clause 50 says that—
  "Nothing in this Act shall entitle the following persons or bodies of persons to compensation from any compensation board, namely, (1) Any Railway or Canal Company."
  I need not read the rest of that subsection.
  "(2) Any Gas or Water Company. (3) Any County Council."
  I would not stand up for them.
  "Or Municipal Corporation. (4) Any sanitary highway or other Local authority. (5) Any brine-pumper."
  Now, why are they not included? If instead of the support being taken away by brine-pumping, any man had managed to get at the support to which a railway is entitled, and had excavated the salt from underneath and let the railway down, the Railway Company would have had an action against the wrongdoer. But what happens in these brine-pumping cases, as I understand, is that the abstraction takes place, but you cannot say who has abstracted, because, as I

  1833
  said before, it may be one set of brine-pumpers or another. That, I believe, is the case. This is the case which I present to your Lordships on behalf of these people. I may say, as a matter of right and justice, they are entitled to compensation from those who wrong them; and when a procedure such as is in this Bill, which seems to me, I must say, to be admirably drawn, is brought forward for the purpose of getting at the wrongdoers. I cannot tell why one set of sufferers, in particular, should be left out of it. I understand there are two reasons assigned. One is that, if these Railway and Gas Companies and others are to participate in the fund that is raised, there will not be enough for an adequate compensation of the other people who would be entitled, not merely the poor people, but, if a man's land, worth many thousands, is let down the owner of it will be entitled to compensation. Well, I daresay, that 3d. is not enough to provide for everybody. What is the remedy? Why, not to take away from the people entitled—some of the people—but to raise the 3d. If the 3d. will not do, make it 6d. Why not? If your principle is right, it should be carried out to its legitimate consequences; and a sufficient sum of money ought to be raised to compensate the sufferers. Then the other reason is, to my mind, a very curious one. It is this: that the Railway Companies have made a great deal of money out of carrying the salt which the brine-pumpers have taken from under their railways, and from under other people in the neighbourhood, and, therefore, that they ought not to receive any compensation. How far that is true of a Gas Company or a Canal Company, I am sure I do not know, or of some others who are mentioned here. What is the answer to it? The Railway Companies have made no more then they have a right to make by the Statutes which called them into existence; and, I suppose, the same thing might be said of a great many other people in the neighbourhood. The small shop-keeper who has sold goods to the "poor people," of whom my noble Friend spoke so pathetically the other day, has got on tolerably well by the help this brine pumping has brought him, but he will be at liberty to come in and make his claim
  1834
  upon the fund. I am pretty sure it is hopeless, but I felt bound to make this protest against what seems to me, for the reason I have mentioned to your Lordships, a great injustice to those whose land has been let down by what may be called the excavation of the brine-pumpers.
  *LORD HENNIKER: My Lords, this Bill is not a Government measure, but perhaps your Lordships will expect me, as representing the Local Government Board, to say one or two-words upon it. There is no doubt whatever that there is something to be said from the point of view of the noble Lord (Lord Stalbridge), as expressed in his Amendment; but on the other hand the Local Government Board think that, as the question has been brought before a Select Committee of the other House, by whom it was considered with the greatest possible care, and as the decision of the Select Committee was accepted by the House of Commons, it would be wrong not to adhere to the clause. I must remind your Lordships of this: that in a matter of this kind the result arrived at is generally somewhat in the nature of a compromise. The President of the Local Government Board is of opinion that the omission of these various properties, or classes of property, that are mentioned in the 50th clause as excepted from the operation of the Bill, is, to a certain extent, a compromise, and that it would be much better not to disturb what has been agreed to in the other House. Therefore, I hope, speaking' for the Local Government Board, that your Lordships will accept the clause as it stands in the Bill.
  *LORD STALBRIDGE: My Lords, I will not put the House to the trouble of dividing, as I am sorry to see that Her Majesty's Government oppose the amendment. With regard to what has just fallen from the noble Lord who represents the Government I would simply say that in the Select Committee of the House of Commons, before which this Bill came, the members on this point were even and the question was only decided by the casting vote of the Chairman. There can, therefore, be no doubt that in the Committee of the House of Commons by whom the matter was very carefully considered their opinion was equally divided upon this

  1835
  question. Their decision was no doubt freely accepted by the House of Commons, because naturally that House, having sent a matter for the consideration of a Committee, would not trouble itself afterwards with the Committee's decisions, and they accepted them en bloc. But I think this Government and succeeding; Governments will find this an exceedingly awkward precedent. I may truly say that I have all the legal opinion in your Lordships' House in my favour; but the weight of opinion of other noble Lords—those who are not lawyers—will no doubt carry the day. All Governments seem to govern more by expediency than upon principles of political economy, and I suppose we may assume that is the case now.
  *THE DUKE OF WESTMINSTER: I am exceedingly glad that the opposition to this clause has been practically withdrawn, for I am sure if this Amendment had been carried the whole operation of the Bill would have been greatly affected, and practically the Bill would have been of no effect whatever. If the Railway Companies had come in there is no doubt that all the other Companies and classes enumerated in the clause would have had to come in against the wishes even of the bodies interested themselves. For instance, the Local Boards of Northwich and Winsford have petitioned against their admission, but they would have had to be let in if this amendment had been carried. I will say no more, for anything I might say would only be a repetition of the argument I used the other day. I have only to again express my satisfaction that this Amendment has not been carried.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Preamble.
  LORD HERSCHELL: My. Lords, I suggest that it would be better to take out the preamble of the Bill. I think preambles never do any good, and this one is not an exception. It recites that the remedy given under this Bill is applicable in all cases of injury to property; but it appears from the discussion on clauses which has taken place that that is not the case, and, therefore, the recital in the preamble goes somewhat beyond the provisions of the Bill; and the more so, as I understand
  1836
  the Bill, as it stands, leaves open to any Railway Company, or anybody else such rights of action as they have at present. That really is the answer, to my mind, to a great deal that has been urged by way of objection to the exclusion of these public bodies and others. They are only excluded from the new remedy. The Bill does not prevent them having any right of action which they have at the present time.
  Preamble omitted.
  LORD THURLOW: Your Lordships will recollect that the consideration of Clause 38 was postponed.
  THE CHAIRMAN (the Earl of MORLEY): The preamble has been passed; the noble Lord should have called attention to it before.
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Viscount CRANBROOK): It will probably be remembered that I objected to the postponement, and suggested that the noble Lord might take his objection in the Standing Committee. I did not understand that there was anything postponed for your Lordships.
  *THE DUKE OF WESTMINSTER: That is quite right. It was to be taken in Standing Committee.
  Bill re-committed to the Standing Committee; and to be printed as amended. (No. 203.)

SCHOOLS FOR SCIENCE AND ART BILL. — [H.L.] (No. 193.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  VISCOUNT CRANBROOK: I have to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading to a Bill for enabling the managers of schools of science and art to transfer them to the Local Authorities when it is desired to do so. There have been several occasions on which Local Authorities could have come to an arrangement with managers of schools of science and art, but the difficulties and impediments thrown in the way of the transfer were found to be very great. There would have been necessary a refunding of the money given in the original grant, and as regards the Charity Commissioners, the process is long and tedious. The mode in which I propose to deal with the question in

  1837
  this Bill is to allow these schools to be transferred in the same way as ordinary schools can be transferred to the School Board. I need not go further into the matter, and I ask your Lordships to read the Bill a second time.
  LORD HERSCHELL: A point has been called to my attention in regard to this Bill which, perhaps, the noble Viscount may think ought to be considered. It is this: under the second Sub-section of Section 2, the provisions of Section 23 of the Elementary Education Act are made applicable. That clause says that where there are trusts concerned the arrangements shall be made in the manner and with the consent there provided. In the case of a particular art school which might be transferred under this Bill there is a trust for alienation; but it is obviously only a trust for alienation by way of sale; and a fear has been expressed where the transfer would be otherwise than by way of sale, whether this would be sufficient to enable the school to be transferred in the manner proposed by this Act, which, of course, is not a transfer by way of sale. Perhaps, the noble Viscount would consider that.
  VISCOUNT CRANBROOK: I will look into it.
  Bill read 2a (according to order), and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Friday next.

TRAMWAYS (IRELAND) ACT (1860) AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 162.)

  COMMITTEE.
  Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee, read.
  THE EARL OF BELMORE: My Lords, before this Bill goes into Committee perhaps I might make one or two observations upon it. I regret that, owing to my absence from town during the whole of last week, this Bill escaped my attention until to-day. I was not, therefore, able to give notice of an amendment, as I would otherwise have done, and which I now hope to move in the Standing Committee when it goes there next week. I have nothing whatever to object to in this Bill, but there is one matter which I should have been very glad to have seen included in
  1838
  it, and to which I should be glad to call the attention of my noble Friend who represents the Irish Office in this House. Rather more than a year ago an extension of the South Clare Light Railway came before the Committee of the Privy Council in Dublin on one occasion when I was present, and the opposition to it was solely on the ground of the incidence of the baronial guarantee. The Committee of the Privy Council advised the Lord Lieutenant not to let the Bill proceed; and, although, of course, I had no right to say anything about what might have influenced the Committee if they had had the power themselves in the matter, yet, I think it is a fair inference from what took place, and from the course of evidence that as nobody objected but everybody wished this Light Railway to go on (and that certainly would have been my view) if there had been power with regard to the guarantee it would have been done, and all the expense of sending the Bill back to the Grand Jury, with all the attendant expenses of retaining legal gentlemen to argue it, would have been avoided. I hope to have an opportunity of moving an amendment in that direction, and I should be glad if the noble Lord representing the Irish Office in this House will consider the point.
  EARL CADOGAN: I will undertake that the point suggested by the noble Lord shall be considered.
  House in Committee (according to order): Bill reported without amendment; and re-committed to the Standing Committee.

FORGED TRANSFERS (No. 2) BILL.— (No. 147.)

  COMMITTEE.
  House in Committee (according to order).
  Clause 1.
  LORD HOBHOUSE: In Sub-section (2) of Clause 1, I have an amendment to move of a very simple character. The object of the Clause is to enable the directors of companies or the other authorities mentioned, to provide funds to meet the losses upon transfers. The object of the Bill is to facilitate transfers, and it seems a fair thing that the

  1839
  fund for compensation should be provided by a charge upon transfers. As the law at present stands, by the Companies Clauses Act, the charges which they can make upon transfers are limited to 2s. 6d. per transfer, and the charges which the other authorities can make under the Commissioners Act are limited to 5s. per transfer. What is now proposed is that the companies or authorities, as the case may be, should be empowered, among other modes of raising the compensation fund, to charge an additional fee upon transfers, being an ad valorem amount not exceeding 1s. in £100—that is 1s. in 2,000 shillings. It is obvious that is a very trifling fee and it seems to fall upon the right shoulders. It falls upon persons who can never feel it because it is so small.
  Amendment moved.
  In Clause 1 (2), line 13, after ("income") insert ("or by fees not exceeding the rate of one shilling on every one hundred pounds transferred, to be paid by the transferee upon the entry of the transfer in the books of the company or authority.")—(The Lord Hobhouse.)
  LORD HERSCHELL: The second Subsection of the 1st Section enables the company to provide the fund either by insurance, reservation of capital, accumulation of income, or in any other manner they may resolve upon; but a doubt has been expressed that this Bill might be so restrictive as to exclude this particular charge, which is certainly regarded by some of the leading railways, who are probably the best judges, as the most suitable way of raising this fund. I have only heard, I may say, from one or two of them,—but I see no objection to this amendment. Of course the matter will become public, and I shall have no objection to accept the amendment.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Bill re-committed to the Standing Committee, and to be printed as amended. (No. 204.)

COMMISSIONERS FOR OATHS ACT (1889) AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 123.)
House in Committee (according to order): Bill reported without amendment, and re-committed to the Standing Committee.
SLANDER OF WOMEN BILL.—(No. 111.)

  COMMITTEE.
  House in Committee (according to order).
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I do not propose to move any amendments at this stage of the Bill, but I propose, when it goes before the Grand Committee, to move some amendments. As I do not propose, at present, to do so, I shall not make any further opposition to the Bill at this stage of it. Probably, the Standing Committee will not avoid the labour of making the alterations which I foresee will be necessary in the direction I have indicated, but, if it is not satisfactorily amended, I shall certainly reserve to myself the right of moving that the Bill be read a third time six months hence.
  Bill reported without amendment; and re-committed to the Standing Committee.

LAW AGENTS (SCOTLAND) BILL, non LAW AGENTS AND NOTARIES PUBLIC (SCOTLAND) BILL.—(No. 198.)
Read 3a (according to order) with the amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
PENAL SERVITUDE BILL.
Brought from the Commons. Read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 205.)

LAND REGISTRY (MIDDLESEX DEEDS) BILL.
A Bill to transfer the Middlesex Registry off Deeds to the Land Registry, and provide for the conduct of the business thereof—Was presented by the Lord Chancellor; read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 206.)
House adjourned at twenty five minutes past Six o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter past Ten o'clock.