Sitting of 15 February 1897

SURVEYORS (COUNTY DUBLIN) BILL.
Second Reading deferred from Thursday till Wednesday, 10th March.
QUESTIONS.

  BRITISH TRADE AND FOREIGN COMPETITION.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if, having regard to the fact that the Turkish Empire took an annual average of £8,000,000 worth of British goods in the quinquennial period 1890–94, according to Papers presented to Parliament, and more than Russia, Belgium, Italy, China, or Japan, and to the admission of British goods on better terms and lighter duties than in any other foreign country, Her Majesty's Government will press forward the conclusion of a new Treaty of Commerce to replace the lapsed Treaty of 1861?
  *THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. G. CURZON,): Her Majesty's Government are not of opinion that any reason exists to press forward on their part negotiations for a new Treaty of Commerce with Turkey. Previous negotiations on the subject have shown clearly that such a Treaty could only be concluded on the basis of some increase in the customs duties at present levied on British goods in the Ottoman Dominions. Unless Her Majesty's Government can obtain full satisfaction on other points of commercial importance which would be included in the Treaty, it does not appear that any benefit would result to British Commerce from its conclusion.

  WINCHESTER ASSIZES (TRIAL FOR BIGAMY).
  MR. E. H. PICKERSGILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the trial of a woman for bigamy at Winchester Assizes on the 6th instant, on the prosecution of a police sergeant at Fareham, with the sanction (as he said) of the Chief Constable of Hants, when the Judge, the prisoner having been found guilty by his direction, ordered her to be at once discharged and disallowed the costs of the police evidence and the costs of the solicitor for the prosecution, on the ground that it was a prosecution which

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  ought not to have been instituted; and whether he would avail himself of the next issue of a Home Office circular to caution the police that they ought to make proper inquiry, and exercise care and discretion, before instituting prosecutions for bigamy?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR TUB HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY,): I have seen a report of this trial in the newspapers, but the circumstances do not appear to me to form a sufficient ground for making a special communication, such as the hon. Member suggests, to police forces generally. I have no reason to suppose that they do not ordinarily exercise the necessary care and discretion in instituting proceedings for bigamy.

  WEIGHING CATTLE (SCOTLAND).
  SIR HENRY CAMPBELL-BAN-NERMAN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he is aware that in certain auction marts where the cattle are placed separately on the weighing machine, and their weight indicated on the automatic dial, and they are afterwards driven into the ring and sold at so much per head, the dial has, owing to the carelessness of the auctioneer in neglecting to balance the machine, been found to be in error to the extent of as much as ½ cwt.; that the public are misled thereby as to the true weight of the animals offered for sale; and that these auctioneers, on being challenged for such inaccuracy, excuse themselves on the plea that they are not selling by weight; and whether it is a breach of the Weighing of Cattle Acts for auctioneers to exhibit any weight but the true one?
  *THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. WALTER LONG,): I am informed that complaint has recently been made with regard to the matters to which the right hon. Gentleman refers, and I would suggest that they should be brought to the notice of the local authority for the purposes of the Weights and Measures Acts. I do not think that the neglect of an auctioneer to keep a weighing machine properly balanced could properly be held to constitute an offence under the Markets and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Acts.

  SAMPLE POST (RUBBER).
  MR. A. F. WARR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he will take stops with a view to the removal of the present restrictions upon the dispatch of rubber samples by sample post?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. R. W. HANBURY,): The Postmaster General regrets that he cannot see his way to remove the present restrictions upon the transmission of rubber samples by sample post. The objections to such transmission were fully stated in the reply to the Question put by the hon. Member for Canterbury on the 11th instant.

  BEAM AND OTTER TRAWLING.
  MR. J. CALDWELL: On behalf of the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. WEIR) I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether, having regard to the fact that the Atlantic seaboard of the Island of Lewis is not included in the North Sea Fisheries Convention, the Fishery Board for Scotland will avail themselves of the powers conferred upon them by the Sea Fisheries Regulation (Scotland) Act 1895, and forbid by bylaws the methods of fishing known as beam trawling and otter trawling in any area under the jurisdiction of Her Majesty within 13 miles of the Atlantic seaboard of the Island of Lewis?
  *THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. GRAHAM MURRAY,): I must refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on the 2nd instant, which is equally a reply to his present question?

  POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANK ACCOUNTS.
  MR. CALDWELL: On behalf of the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. WEIR), I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he will state the number of accounts in the Post Office Savings Bank on the 31st December, 1895, showing a balance of not more than £25, and the total sum represented by such accounts; the number of accounts exceeding £25 and not more than £50, and the total sum represented by such accounts; the total sum represented by the 346,463 accounts exceeding £50 and not more than £100

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  and the total sum represented by the 248,943 accounts exceeding £100?
  MR. HANBURY: I am unable to give the number of accounts of £25 and under, or the amount standing to their credit, nor could the information be compiled without much labour and inconvenience. On December 31, 1895, the total amount on accounts not exceeding £50 was £35,306,192; on accounts between £50 and £100 was £23,967,268; and on accounts over £100 was £38,595,515.

  BRIDGETOWN ABBEY (COUNTY CORK).
  MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether he will direct that the Abbey of Bridgetown, at Castletownroche, in the county of Cork, be added to the list of those Irish ruins that come under his supervision for the prevention of total decay, this splendid specimen of fourteenth century ecclesiastical architecture being sadly in need of preservation?
  MR. HANBURY: The matter will be brought before the Committee consisting of representatives of the Royal Irish Academy and Royal Society of Antiquaries, Ireland, who are good enough to assist the Board of Works with their advice on these questions.

  STORNOWAY MAIL.
  MR. CALDWELL: On behalf of the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. WEIR), I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he will state at what additional cost the Stornoway mail, which is at present delayed 41 minutes at Dingwall, and then sent on to Strome Ferry by a slow train, could be accelerated?
  MR. HANBURY: The only way in which the Stornoway mail can be accelerated is by employing a special train from Dingwall to Strome Ferry. The cost of a special train cannot be estimated, at the lowest computation, at less than £800 or £900 a year, and such an outlay would be far greater than the circumstances would warrant.

  ICELANDIC FISHERIES.
  MR. CALDWELL: On behalf of the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. WEIR), I beg to ask the Under
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  Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will state the nature of the difficulties which have arisen such as to necessitate a British cruiser being sent to Icelandic waters?
  MR. CURZON: The presence of a cruiser in Icelandic waters is desirable during the fishing season, in order that proper advice and supervision may be available for British fishing vessels whose operations are carried on in the vicinity of the territorial waters of Iceland, and for the purpose of supplying Her Majesty's Government with trustworthy reports of any disputes which may arise in regard to fishery questions. The presence of a similar cruiser last year was found to be a great assistance to all parties.

  PARISH COUNCIL ACCOUNTS (SCOTLAND).
  SIR JOHN KINLOCH: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he would grant a Return relating to cost of the audit of Parish Council Accounts in Scotland for the years 1895 and 1896?
  *THE LORD ADVOCATE: It is intended to issue a Return giving the information desired, but it would be premature to do so at this time of the year.

  FRAUDULENT ENLISTMENT (GEORGE SMITH).
  MR. T. LOUGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to a case at the Marlborough Street Police Court, where one George Smith was charged with fraudulent enlistment into the Militia, and sentenced to three months' imprisonment with hard labour; and, whether he can see his way to recommend that the full penalty shall not be inflicted?
  SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY: I have inquired into the circumstances of this case. The offence of making a false answer, with which the prisoner was charged, was aggravated by his also concealing the fact that he had previously been discharged from another regiment for misconduct. In these circumstances the magistrate thought it a case for imposing the full penalty. The offence, he informs me, is of daily occurrence, and gives much trouble; and I do not see my way to recommending any interference.

  IRISH MAIL SERVICE.
  MR. T. J. CONDON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether any arrangements have been made, or negotiations entered into, with the Waterford and Limerick Railway Company, in reference to the proposed acceleration of the mail service to and from the south of Ireland; and, if not, whether it is the intention of the Government to make such arrangements?
  MR. HANBURY: The arrangements for the mail service in Ireland consequent upon the acceleration between London and Dublin are under consideration, but the chief factor in the problem, viz., the hour of arrival of the mail in Dublin, was left undetermined till so late a date that the Department has, up to this time, been unable to arrive at any decision in the matter. It is however the intention of the Postmaster General to call upon the chief Irish Railway Companies to adapt their mail trains to the altered Service, as soon as he has examined all the complicated matters involved in the alteration of the mail service over so large an extent of country.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: On behalf of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. J. PISKERTON): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if his attention has been directed to a resolution passed by the Galway Town Commissioners, asking the Postmaster General to take steps for dispatching the outward Irish night mails immediately on their arrival in Dublin, which would give a delivery in London and all English business centres on the next day at an hour which would enable letters sent from the remotest parts of Ireland to be answered on the day of their delivery, thus saving 14 hours in receiving replies to Irish letters; and, whether he is predared to make such alterations as may remove the difficulties complained of, and prevent unnecessary delay in the transmission of letters?
  MR. HANBURY: The Postmaster General has received a copy of the resolution referred to by the hon. Member, but, as the hon. Member is probably aware, very strong pressure has been brought to bear upon the Postmaster General by Irish representatives to fix not an earlier, but a later, hour for the departure
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  from Dublin of the day mail to England (which of course, carries the night mails from the Irish provinces), and it is to meet this desire that the Department, with some reluctance, fixed 7.10 a.m. instead of 6.40 a.m. as the hour of departure of the English day mail from Dublin.

  RAILWAY RATES.
  MR. LLOYD MORGAN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to a paper read on the 10th instant by Mr. Balfour Browne, Q.C., on the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts, in which it is stated that English railway companies favour Foreign producers of agricultural and other produce as against the Home farmer; that in competing with the Foreign producer, the railway rates in this country are against the British farmer; and that Foreign rates are in favour of his competitors; and, whether the Government will cause an inquiry to be made into the subject of railway rates, with a view to legislation in the direction of so revising the rates as to put the Home farmer and producer on terms of equality with his Foreign rival?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD or TRADE (Mr. C. T. RITCHIE,): No, Sir, I have not read the paper referred to, but I have no doubt the hon. Member's account of what was stated therein is correct. Having regard to Section 27 of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act 1888, which provides:—
  "That no Railway Company shall make, nor shall the Court, or the Commissioners, sanction any difference in the tolls, rates, or charges made for, or any difference in the treatment of, home and foreign merchandise, in respect of the same or similar services,"
  I am not prepared to direct any additional inquiry into the subject of Railway Rates.

  ST. JAMES' SCHOOL (BRADFORD, YORKS.).
  MR. ALFRED HUTTON: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he is aware the St. James' School, Bolton, Bradford, has been closed by the managers; what sum they received as building grants; whether

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  he is aware that, although the trust deeds require the premises to be used as a day school, the managers declined to lease the school to the Bradford School Board at a suitable rent; and whether the terms of Section 23 of the Act of 1870 had been complied with; and, if not, whether the Education Department can and will enforce the provisions of that Section?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir JOHN GORST,): This school, which received building grants amounting to £399 6s., and was held under the usual trusts for establishing a school for the poorer classes, was closed in 1893. The Committee of Council have no information as to the alleged refusal of the managers to lease the school to the Bradford School Board, but Section 23 of the Act of 1870 does not require any managers to transfer their school to a Board unless they wish it.
  MR. ERNEST FLOWERasked if the right hon. Gentleman was aware that on Friday last the Bradford School Board concluded satisfactory negotiations with the managers of this school.
  SIR J. GORST: No, Sir; I am not aware of that.

  NORTH GERMAN LLOYD STEAMERS.
  MR. J. M. MACLEAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether the Government of India has decided to place the steamers of the North German Lloyd line on the same footing as those of British companies in respect to the exemption from penalties of Officers overstaying their leave through delay in the arrival of the vessel in which they return to India; and whether any North German Lloyd steamers now run on the mail lines to India?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON,): The answer to the first part of the hon. Member's question is in the affirmative. So far as I am aware, the North German Lloyd steamers run to Aden and Colombo, but not to any port in India.
  *MR. MACLEAN: Is not this concession an invitation to the North German Lloyds to start competition
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  against British steamers running to British ports?
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: I think the concession could hardly be refused.

  OUTRAGE AT BALLIANA (REPORTED).
  MR. W. FIELD: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has been informed that a lawless chief fled with seven followers from Cairo to Balliana, about 380 miles up the Nile, and took refuge in a Copt's barn; that the Egyptian police and soldiers, under British orders and officers, besieged the fugitives, who refused to surrender alive, being provided with arms and ammunition; that the soldiers and police obtained petroleum and saturated the roof, and burned to the ground the barn, the chief, and his associates; and whether, if this was the fact, he will prevent such occurrences in future?
  MR. CURZON: A statement to the effect mentioned in the question has appeared in a French newspaper. Although the report is manifestly in the highest degree improbable, the extract has been sent to Lord Cromer for inquiry and report.

  SUN YAT SEN'S DETENTION.
  SIR EDWARD GOURLEY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) if he will be good enough to inform the House when he first heard of the alleged kidnapping of Sun Yat Sen, and what measures he adopted for the purpose of obtaining his release; (2) whether his capture and detention at the Chinese Embassy was contrary to International Law; if so, what representations has he caused to be made to the Chinese Government: and (3) whether Sir Halliday Macartney, as a British subject, is to be held responsible for the capture and detention?
  MR. CURZON: In answer to the first paragraph, the first intimation of the subject was received at the Foreign Office on Sunday, the 18th of October. Steps were immediately taken to ascertain the facts of the case, and as soon as trustworthy evidence was received a note was addressed by Lord Salisbury to the Chinese Minister pointing out that

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  Sun Yat Sen's detention was an abuse of the diplomatic privilege enjoyed by the Chinese Legation, and requesting his immediate release. This request was complied with on the 23rd October. In answer to the second paragraph, Sun's detention was certainly not warranted by International Law, and was regarded as a serious abuse of the privileges and immunities which are granted to foreign representatives, and the Chinese Government were so informed through Her Majesty's Minister at Peking and requested to give strict instructions to their Minister in London to abstain carefully for the future from any acts of the kind. In reply to the third paragraph of the Question, the act was that of the Chinese Minister, and he must be responsible for it.

  AUSTRALIAN MAIL CONTRACT.
  MR. J. P. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he will explain in what way it is intended to provide that under the new contract for the conveyance of the mails to and from Australia a saving of four days will be effected; will there be an alteration in the existing route, or does the contract provide for a much higher rate of speed than heretofore; is there any provision in the new contract for accelerating the overland passage of the Australian mails from Naples or Brindisi to London, and averting the delays on this section that have occurred in the past; and will the sea carriage of the Australian mails be in the hands of one Company under the new contract?
  MR. HANBURY: The saving of time in the conveyance of the mails to and from Australia under the new contract will be effected by acceleration at sea. There will be no alteration in the existing route, except that the port of call in Western Australia may be changed to suit the wishes of the Colonies. The new contract will necessitate a considerable increase of speed on the part of the mail packets. There will be no provision in the new contracts as to the conveyance of the mails overland, that being a matter with which the steamship companies are not concerned. The sea carriage will be in the hands of the Peninsular and Oriental and Orient Companies, as at present.

  ROYAL ENGINEERS (DISCHARGE).
  MR. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether he can state the circumstances under which Sapper Cormack, 23 Company, Royal Engineers, last stationed at Aldershot, was discharged on 26th November; and, was he convicted of any offence or misconduct that would justify discharge?
  *THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. POWELL-WILLIAMS,): This man was discharged by the General Officer Commanding at Aldershot for misconduct. His records fully bear out the charge.

  SAMOA.
  MR. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what are the latest reports in his possession with reference to the condition of the exiled Samoan chief Mataafa; is Mataafa still detained under German guards in the island of Jaluit; and, is there any immediate prospect of his being permitted to return to Samoa? The hon. Member further asked whether the Under Secretary had received any official information corroborating the telegraphed statement that King Malietoa had given permission to Mataafa and the other exiled chiefs to return to Samoa, and that opposition to their return had been raised by the British, German, and United States Consuls; and, if so, whether he can state the grounds on which such opposition is based?
  MR. CURZON: No report has been received with reference to Mataafa since the hon. Member put his Question in the House on February 20th, 1896; and we have not hoard either of permission having been given to Mataafa to return to Samoa, or of opposition having been raised by the foreign Consuls. Mataafa is still on Jaluit, and there is no immediate prospect of his being permitted to return.

  PARLIAMENTARY PUBLICATIONS (MEMBERS' POSTAGE).
  MR. CHARLES BILL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether, for the future, Members of this House may be

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  allowed the privilege of sending Blue Books and other official publications from the Vote Office by post free of charge to libraries and other public institutions?
  MR. HANURY: At present the only Parliamentary papers entitled to the privilege of transmission free of postage are Bills and Votes which are posted in the proper official bag at the Vote Office; and the Postmaster General regrets that he does not feel justified in recommending that the privilege should be accorded to other classes of Parliamentary papers such as those referred to by the hon. Member. The hon. Member is not perhaps aware that Official Publications are already supplied to Free Libraries applying for them from Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

  HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION (SIERRA LEONE).
  MR. BILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether the additional hospital accommodation proposed in the Military Works Bill to be provided at Sierra Leone is in connection with the existing hospital, or whether another hospital is to be built elsewhere?
  *MR. POWELL-WILLIAMS: The question of where the additional hospital accommodation for Sierra Leone shall be located is still under consideration. An increase to the garrison of Sierra Leone is provided in the Estimates and additional hospital accommodation will be required for the force thus added. It has not yet been decided where, at Sierra Leone, the whole of the necessary accommodation which will now be required, can most advantageously be provided.

  EDUCATION VOTES.
  MR. LOUGH: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the total increase in the Education Vote between 1889–90 and 1895–96 was about 80 per cent., and whether the increase in the amounts allotted to England and Scotland respectively were over 90 per cent., while the increase in the sum allotted to Ireland was only about 25 per cent.; and, under these circumstances, how he estimates that Ireland has latterly got more than her due proportion of public money for purposes of education?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir MICHAEL HICKS BEACH,): My statement, to which I think the hon. Member refers, was that "Ireland already received a larger proportion of the total cost of national education from the Exchequer than either England or Scotland," and the statement is undoubtedly correct. Taking the figures given in the last yearly reports of the three Education Departments for the year 1895 it will be seen that in England and Wales and in Scotland more than one-third of the" total school income "is supplied from sources other than moneys voted by Parliament, whereas in Ireland only between one-seventh and one-eighth is so supplied.
  MR. LOUGH: Has it not always been the ease that a much larger grant has been provided with regard to Ireland than the other two countries?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Yes, Sir; I believe that is the case. [Laughter.]

  LAND TAX COMMISSIONERS.
  *SIR CHARLES DILKE: I bog to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether it is intended to propose legislation with regard to the appointment of Land Tax Commissioners (the appointing body of the Income Tax Commissioners), or whether they are to be allowed to the out, except the county magistrates who act ex-officio?
  MR. HANBURY: I hope during the Session to reintroduce the Bill of last year, which was the Bill usually introduced in each new Parliament, but which was opposed by the hon. Member for the Eye Division. It is of course only four years since a large number of Land Tax Commissioners were appointed.
  MR. F. S. STEVENSONasked whether the Bill would include a provision for the total abolition of the property qualification for Land Tax collectors?
  MR. HANBURYreplied in the negative.

  TRUCK ACT (RAILWAY COMPANIES)
  MR. R. W. PERKS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is

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  aware that some of the principal railway companies have declined to adopt the Truck Act of last Session, and have decided to abolish the system of fines altogether; and whether he will consider the advisability of making a general Order exempting railway servants from the provisions of this Act?
  *SIR C. DTLKE: I should like to ask the Home Secretary a question of which I have given him private notice, namely: Whether, before making any such exceptions he will wait for the representations of the workers affected, and whether the two companies mentioned—the South Eastern and North Western—have abolished fines which existed before the Truck Act passed or came into operation?
  SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY: The hon. Member's question is based on a misunderstanding of the Act. There can be no question of a company adopting or declining to adopt an Act which is universally applicable, and compulsory on all employers except where special exemptions are granted. What I presume the hon. Member means to ask is whether I am aware that some railway companies have preferred to relinquish altogether the right to impose fines rather than carry out the stringent conditions which the Act imposes. This I understand is the case. As regards the general exemption of railway servants, I should of course consider any application that I might receive from them; but does the hon. Member understand that the effect of such an exemption would be not to abolish the fines, but to restore to the companies the power which they possessed before the Act was passed of imposing any fines, reasonable or unreasonable, which they might think fit? I should require very strong evidence indeed that the railway employés really desired this before granting exemption.
  MR. PERKSasked whether, under these circumstances the Home Secretary would grant facilities for the Bills of which his hon. friend the senior Member for Leicester had given notice for the total abolition of all fines.
  SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY: No. Sir; I am not prepared to do anything of the sort.

  UGANDA RAILWAY COMMITTEE.
  MR. PERKS: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the first Report and Statement of accounts of the Uganda Railway Committee will be presented to Parliament, and up to what date such accounts will be brought?
  *MR. CURZON: The first Report and the Statement of Accounts of the Uganda Railway Committee, which will cover the period extending to March 31 next, will be presented as soon as possible after that date; I hope by June.
  MR. PERKS: Arising on that, may I ask the Under Secretary if he will kindly read the undertaking given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the 30th July last on this subject?
  *MR. CURZON: Yes, Sir; I will read it. [Langhter.]

  TELEGRAPH EXTENSIONS (SCOTLAND).
  MR. J. G. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether, having regard to the fact that a certain sum is allocated to the Secretary for Scotland each year for the purpose of telegraph extensions in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, he can now state whether he has yet come to any decision as to the advisability of earmarking a portion of the grant so as to provide guarantees for telegraph extensions?
  MR. HANBURY: The hon. Member I will see, on referring to Class VII. of the Civil Service Estimates for 1897–98, which I was circulated on Saturday, that it is not proposed to ask Parliament to continue; the grant for telegraphs. The taxpayer has already contributed some £10,000 for this purpose in addition to the heavy future charges for maintenance, and, now that the most pressing cases have been disposed of, it is impossible to justify the continuance of this very exceptional boon, which is not shared by the poorer districts elsewhere in the United Kingdom. If the localities whose claims the hon. Member is supporting, cannot themselves guarantee new telegraph extensions in the ordinary way, I may remind the hon. Member that a special grant of £15,000 a year from local taxation moneys has recently been allocated to congested districts purposes in Scotland.
  MR. J. McLEODasked whether the £15,000 was only the due proportion to the district under the Agricultural Rating Bill?
  MR. HANBURY: That may be, but it has received £10,000 as well.
  MR. McLEOD: Is that not money due from the Herring Brand fees?
  MR. HANBURY: No; I think not.

  RAILWAY CARRIAGES (CONSTRUCTION).
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade what was the result of the promise he made on the 21st July 1896 to place himself in communication with the Railway Association, with the object of effecting an alteration in the form of those railway carriages whoso present structure affords facilities for the perpetration of murder and outrage?
  MR. RITCHIE: At present my communications with the Railway Association have had no practical result. The hon. Member, however, will no doubt have observed that some of the Companies are trying the experiment of corridor trains, and that others are building saloon carriages in place of those of the old pattern.

  REGIMENTAL TERRITORIAL TITLES.
  MR. W. F. B. MASSEY-MAIN-WARING: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if he is aware of the great unpopularity with both officers and men of the present regimental names; and, whether he will consider the restoration to the battalions of the line of their time-honoured numbers?
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: Before my hon. Friend answers, I should like to ask him if it is not a fact that when infantry regiments of the line had numerals, they almost invariably tried to discard them in favour of their national or territorial titles, and if such national and territorial titles are not of infinite advantage in promoting local interest in regiments and stimulating esprit de corps?
  *MR. POWELL-WILLIAMS: There is no reason to think that the territorial titles of regiments are unpopular, though
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  the old system of numbering regiments like all old traditions does not die easily. With the territorial system, which has now become firmly established, a return to the old system of numbering regiments is impossible. With regard to the supplemental question, I have only to say I believe there is some accuracy in the description which my hon. Friend gave of the difficulty that there was in getting soldiers absolutely to adopt the numerical system. There is a consensus of military opinion that any return to the old system is not only undesirable but absolutely impracticable.

  CRETE.
  MR. F. S. STEVENSON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is able to communicate any further information with regard to the situation at Heraclion?
  *MR. CURZON: Our information on Saturday was to the effect that many native Christian families had left Heraclion without hindrance under the protection of the foreign ships of war, that pillaging in the town had ceased, and that British subjects were not molested. Yesterday we heard that the Greek Vice-Consul had embarked and requested the British Vice-Consul to take charge of his archives and to protect Greek subjects.
  *SIR EASHMEAD-BARTLETT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Great Powers, in view of the fact that by their action the authority of the Sultan and the Turkish garrison in Crete have been reduced, will at once take effective steps to put an end to slaughter and outrage in that island, and especially to protect the helpless Mussulman population of the interior?
  *MR. CURZON: The Great Powers, who are acting in complete harmony, are taking" every step that lies in their power by the intervention of their Consuls, and by the presence and co-operation of the commanders and crews of their ships of war, to check the spread of disorder in Crete; but in the present state of the island it is almost impossible for them to communicate with the interior.
  *SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: I must ask my light hon. Friend whether we are to understand from his answer that no practical steps are being taken by the Great Powers to protect, in some effectual way, the Mussulman inhabitants of the interior. Are they still being exposed to massacre and outrage as they have been for the last fortnight?
  *MR. CURZON: No, Sir; so far as our information goes that statement is not correct. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. C. J. MONK: I beg to ask the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether he will lay upon the Table or otherwise communicate to the House the note from the Greek Government presented to the, Foreign Office on the 11th inst by the Greek Charged' Affaires, in reference to the action of the Greek Government in respect to Turkey and Crete?
  *Mr. CURZON: The document in question contains allegations winch will be much disputed, and cannot properly be laid on the Table except in conjunction with other Papers on the same subject.
  Mr. H. LABOUCHERE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Government had, alone or in conjunction with any other Power, announced an intention to interfere in any way with any possible action of the Greek fleet in Cretan waters? The hon. Member, in putting the Question, said perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would also say whether the statement in The Times of that day was correct, that three Powers had agreed to land troops in Crete?
  *MR. CURZON: Her Majesty's naval officers have received instructions to take no isolated action. It would not be proper for Her Majesty's Government to publish at this stage the communications that they have had with other Powers without the consent of those Powers. No announcement of their intentions has been made by Her Majesty's Government. ["Hear, hear!"]
  Mr. JOHN DILLON: Can the right hon. Gentleman inform the House whether, if any attempt be made to land Greek troops, the British Fleet will interfere?
  *Mr. CURZON, No, Sir; that is just one of the questions which I have already stated I cannot answer.
  Mr. LABOUCHERE: Then I understand the right hon. Gentleman is not prepared to say that orders have not been sent to the English naval or other commanders—[cries of "Oh, oh!" and "Hear, hear!"]—not to interfere if Greek troops do land?
  *MR. CURZON: No, Sir; I cannot consent to have any inference drawn one way or the other from my reply. I have made a statement. To that statement and that alone I adhere. [Cheers.]
  Mr. JAMES O'KELLY: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether instructions will be issued to the British Consuls not to permit any British vessels to carry Turkish troops?
  Mr. SPEAKER: Order, order! That does not arise out of the Question on the Paper.
  Sir W. HARCOURT: I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury (1) whether he is in a position to make any statement of the present position of affairs in Crete—[cheers]—and (2) whether he can lay on the Table Papers relating to the arrangements made by the Powers last summer for reforms in the administration of that island?
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman at the same time to answer a Question which arises out of a telegram in one of the newspapers this morning, which states that the Greek cruiser Miaulis fired on a Turkish transport, and that afterwards the commander of one of the British men-of-war informed the captain of the Miaulis that in future he would use force, if necessary, to prevent any such action? Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether that statement is correct or not?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I am not able to give the hon. Gentleman the information asked for. If he will put it down on the Notice Paper, the Under Secretary will reply to it to-morrow. With regard to the Question put to me by the Leader of the Opposition, I have to say that, in the opinion of the Government, it would not be at all expedient, in the public interest,

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  that at the present moment any statement should be made in regard to the affairs of Crete beyond the statement already made by the Under Secretary, to the effect that Her Majesty's Government are working in most cordial cooperation with the representatives of the other Powers.
  MR. DILLON: That is what we have heard for the last six months. [Opposition cheers.]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: And it has been true for the last six months. [Cheers.] With regard to the second Question put to me by the right hon. Gentleman, namely, as to the Papers, it has been the hope of Her Majesty's Government that they would have been able to lay on the Table Papers relating to Crete at a much earlier date, and the delay has been no fault of theirs. My right, hon. Friend informs me that he hopes that within a week he will be able to lay a Blue-book on the subject of Crete on the Table. In that Blue-book will be contained the programme of reforms which was decided upon by the Great Powers last year.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: How late will the Papers come down to?
  *MR. CURZON: The Papers which will be presented, are the Papers of which I laid a dummy on the Table at the end of the Session of last year—[Opposition laughter]—and therefore the Papers will only come down to that date or about the end of August.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: We have been informed that certain arrangements were made by the Great Powers for the reform of the administration of Crete so long ago as last August. As I understand, those arrangements have never been laid before the House in the form of Papers, so that we do not know specifically what those arrangements were. What I desire to say is that we should have now a statement of the arrangements so made with the Powers, and also a statement of the action taken since last August up to the present time.
  *MR. CURZON: The Blue-book will contain a full statement of the arrangements agreed upon last August. But the right hon. Gentleman must be aware that the laying of Papers before the House involves considerable delay, owing to reference having to be made to all the
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  various parties and Governments concerned, and therefore the Papers will not contain the narrative of facts up to the present moment.
  MR. DILLON: Will the right hon. Gentleman give a return of the number of men killed and women outraged since these arrangements were made? [Opposition cheers.]
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the Under Secretary a question—of which I was fortunate enough to be able to give him private notice—whether he is aware that the Papers which he laid on the Table of the House in dummy, on 10th August last, have not yet been distributed? Is he also aware that that is contrary to the Order of this House of March 20th 1871, which prescribes that Papers should always be so laid on the Table as to insure their speedy delivery amongst Members? Is he aware that in this instance the delivery has not taken place for six; months, and will he undertake—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member is going beyond the limits of a Question. He is arguing a question of procedure.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: May I ask, to conclude my Question, whether he will undertake that obedience shall be paid to the Order of the House?
  No answer being returned from the Treasury Bench,
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESrose, amidst loud Opposition cheers and cries of "Move the adjournment." He said,—May I ask for an answer to my Question? [Renewed Opposition cheers.] I have a right to have one. Mr. Speaker, I gave the right hon. Gentleman notice of this Question, and arranged for an answer. [Opposition cheers.]
  *MR. CURZON: I am quite ready to answer the Question, but I understood from Mr. Speaker that it was not in order. I believe the hon. Gentleman's statement as to the Orders of the House is perfectly correct, and that there has in this case been an infringement. But it has been due to very exceptional circumstances, which I would like, in a few words, to explain. This Blue-book contains a narrative of the proceedings up to the end of August. We sent the whole of these Papers out to Crete to Sir Alfred Biliotti, our Consul there, in September, with the request that he would look

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  through them and return them at the earliest date. Owing to the enormous preoccupations of his post during the last few months, he was unable to return them until the second week in January. Our next step was, in accordance with invariable practice, to secure the assent of various foreign Powers, to whom reference has been made. Their replies have come in one after the other, and the assent of the French Government only reached us last week. That concludes the requisites for the final publication of the book. It is in print, and I hope it will be laid before the House, in the course of a week. ["Hear, hear!"]

  INDIAN LOAN.
  MR. MONK: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether a loan is about to be issued in London on the security of the Nizam's revenues; and whether the Secretary of State's approval has been obtained; and, if it has not, whether the issue will be in contravention of an existing statute?
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: I have received no information from India as to the raising of such a loan, nor has my consent or that of the Government of India been asked, as required under the terms of the Statute 37 Geo. III. c. 142, s. 28. I am advised that any British subject directly or indirectly concerned in raising any money by way of loan for a native State in India, without the consent of the Secretary of State in Council or of the Governor-General or one of the Governors in Council previously had and obtained in writing, commits a misdemeanour, and the bonds and securities held or taken become null and void.

  SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS (SCOTLAND).
  MR. J. CALDWELL: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether his attention has been called to the provisions of Sections 6, 26, and 30 (d) of The Elections (Scotland) Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act, 1890, regarding scrutiny, striking off of certain voters, and as to whether a candidate was duly elected by a majority of lawful votes; and to Section 5, Schedule B of the General
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  Order regulating the triennial election of school boards in Scotland issued by the Scotch Education Department in October last, wherein no provision is made for marking the number of the elector or otherwise identifying the elector on the counterfoil; and if he can explain how it will be possible, in the event of a scrutiny, to determine how the elector voted and the effect of the vote on the election?
  *THE LORD ADVOCATE: In burghs, proceedings at the poll take place under the provisions of the Ballot Act, so that the question of the hon. Member does not apply. In parishes, proceedings take place under the General Order of the Department, and the question does apply. But the subject has been more than once under review, and it is still considered unadvisable to alter the terms of the Order.

  EGYPTIAN GOVERNMENT (GRANT-IN-AID).
  MR. JOHN DILLON: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he will lay upon the Table the details of the expenditure of the grant in aid to the Egyptian Government; and whether the revenue and expenditure of the Egyptian Government, including grants in aid, will, as in the case of Cyprus, be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: The Foreign Office hope to lay on the Table in the course of the next few days a Blue-book containing the information asked for. The Comptroller and Auditor General will satisfy himself that the directions of Parliament with regard to the grant in aid have been carried out; but the expenditure of the Egyptian Government will not be audited by him. Egypt is not in the same position as Cyprus.

  BOARD SCHOOLS (FINANCIAL AID).
  MR. E. J. C. MORTON: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he can now state when the Bill to provide for further financial aid to Board Schools will be introduced; and whether he can promise on behalf of the Government that the Bill shall be read a

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  First time and printed before the Division on the Second Reading of the Voluntary Schools Bill is taken?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I have to say, as I before indicated in reply to some observations of the hon. Member for Northampton, I cannot give any promise as to the exact date when this Bill will be brought in, nor could it be before the Second Reading of the Voluntary Schools Bill.

  CLONBAIN "WHITEBOY" CASE.
  MR. J. C. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Attorney General for Ireland (1) in reference to the Clonbain "White-boy" case tried at the last Winter Assizes in Cork, whether he will state why the Crown did not produce the constabulary at the trial; (2) whether District Inspector Cosgrave seized the notebooks of the constabulary bearing on the case; and is 12 o'clock (noon) the time specified in the diary kept in the barrack as the hour at which the complainant reported the outrage; and (3) in view of the fact that it was on a matter of time one of the prisoners, Daniel Buckley, was convicted, will further inquiry be made by the authorities into the case, or will a constabulary inquiry on oath be ordered into the connection with or knowledge of the case by the local police?
  *THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. ATKINSON,): Three members of the constabulary were in attendance in court as witnesses for the prosecution in this case, and two of them were examined. Two other members of the police, to whom I presume the question specially refers, were summoned as witnesses for the defence and were present at the trial, but were not examined on behalf of the prisoners. It was of course open to the accused to have examined, not only those witnesses summoned at their own instance, but also any witnesses in attendance on behalf of, though not examined by, the Crown. The defence, however, did not adopt this course. Following the practice established for the necessary protection of the public interest, I must respectfully decline to state reasons why any particular witness was not examined on behalf of the Crown. It is true that the District Inspector took up the note
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  books of the two members of the constabulary, who were summoned for the defence, as he was entitled to do. I decline to state what were the contents of these books; they were not given in evidence, and any relevant facts noted in them could have been deposed to by the constables who made the notes, if within their knowledge, had they been examined. It is not intended to direct any further inquiry into the case, as suggested in the last paragraph of the Question.

  PRIVATE LUNATIC ASYLUMS.
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether any regular inspection regarding the management of private lunatic asylums and their inmates is made and reported on by responsible Government officials; and, whether the system and working of private lunatic asylums will be inquired into and reported to the House?
  SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY: All licensed houses are regularly visited by the Lunacy Commissioners, those in the metropolitan area six times a year, those outside that area twice. The latter are also visited six times a year by three justices and a medical practitioner appointed for that purpose by Quarter Sessions. I am not aware of any necessity for such an inquiry as the hon. Member suggests.

  USURY LAWS.
  MR. R. A. YERBURGH: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the widespread prevalence of usury, as evinced by recent disclosures, and of the misery and suffering it entails upon the poorer industrial classes, and of the fact that under its present form usury has never been the subject of Parliamentary Inquiry, he will grant the Select Committee to inquire into the question, the Motion for which stands upon the Paper to-day?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I cannot, on the part of the Government, assent to an inquiry into what are called the usury laws, for that would be taken to mean an inquiry into the propriety of limiting by Act of Parliament the amount of interest

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  on loans, which I am sure is not my hon. Friend's intention or the object he has in view. But a more limited inquiry might with advantage be instituted, and if he will draw up a more limited reference than that indicated with regard to the fraudulent practices which are alleged to exist, I think much advantage might accrue from the appointment and labours of such a Committee. ["Hear, hear!"]

  VOLUNTARY SCHOOLS (RATING).
  MR. C. HARRISON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, with regard to the fact that local rates levied upon Board Schools are paid out of funds made up of Imperial grant and Board School rates, and levied over the whole of the School Board area, and that by exempting Voluntary Schools in boroughs and counties respectively from local rates the burden of making up the deficiency will be thrown, not on the borough or county generally, but upon the particular parish in a borough or county in which the school may be situate, whether the Government will adjust the burden so that the same shall be borne by the whole of the borough or county in which the schools so excepted may be situate?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I hope the hon. Gentleman will defer any discussion of an argumentative character on the details of the Education Bill until we get to the Committee stage.

  CRIMINAL LAW AMENDMENT (IRELAND) ACT, 1887.
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the continued tranquillity of Ireland, he will this Session introduce a Bill for the repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment (Ireland) Act, 1887?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I think there is no probability of the Government introducing a Bill of this kind.

  SUPPLY (SCOTCH ESTIMATES).
  SIR HENRY CAMPBELL-BAN-NERMAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will
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  put the Scotch Votes down for an early Friday, in consideration of the fact that last year they were brought on shortly before the completion of Supply, when adequate discussion was impossible, and that an undertaking was then given that a fuller opportunity would be afforded this year?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I will endeavour to have the Scotch Votes put down for an early Friday, in compliance with the wish of the right hon. Gentleman.

  MILITARY MANŒUVRES BILL.
  MR. A. M. BROOKFIELD: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether it is the intention of the Government to proceed with the Military Manœuvres Bill?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I think it improbable any time will be taken up this Session in connection with the Manœuvres Bill. The House will be asked to deal with a great many military matters in connection with another Bill, and the Manœuvres Bill will probably not be proceeded with for the present.

  SUPPLY (ARMY ESTIMATES).
  DR. FARQUHARSON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether it is not the fact that progress is usually reported after Vote 1 of the Army Estimates has been passed, and whether he is aware that, acting on this understanding, hon. Members interested in Vote 2 had left the House before it came on; and whether, under these circumstances, he will take the Report stage of Vote 2 at such an hour as to admit of moderate discussion?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I think the hon. Member is not correct in saying it is contrary to the practice of the House to take more than Vote 1 in Commiteee. It is not often the Government have to go beyond Vote 1 at a single sitting. We should not be acting in accordance with the principles we laid down when Fridays were devoted to Supply if we moved the Adjournment directly Vote 1 was obtained. What happened was—the Chairman put the succeeding Votes from the Chair on Friday, and directly the Under Secretary for

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  War signified that he thought it convenient that the Adjournment should be moved, I at once assented on the part of the Government.
  *SIR G. DILKEasked what Supply would be taken on Friday, and whether the Leader of the House would move that the Speaker leave the Chair on Thursday or Friday.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: On Friday we shall take the Civil Service Estimates for the year and go into Committee upon them. The first Business on Thursday will be the First Reading of the Military Loans Bill. [Opposition cries of "Oh!"] That is my intention at present.

MOTION.
  METROPOLITAN AND OTHER POLICE COURTS.
  Bill for transferring the Expenses of Police Courts to the Metropolitan Police Fund, and for making provision with respect to the Courts of the Stipendiary Magistrate of Chatham and Sheerness, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Jesse Collings and Secretary Sir Matthew White Ridley; presented accordingly, and Read the First time; to be Read a Second Time upon Tuesday, 23rd February, and to be printed.—[Bill 134.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  VOLUNTARY SCHOOLS' BILL.
  Order Read, for resuming adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [11th February], "That, the Bill be now Read a second time":—
  And which Amendment was, to leave out from the word 'That," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "no Bill will be satisfactory to this House which does not provide for Board Schools as well as Voluntary Schools."—(Mr. McKenna.)
  Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question." Debate resumed by—
  *MR. F. A. CHANGING, who had upon the Paper the following Amendment to the proposed Amendment—at end to add the words,
  "and which does not provide for local representative control in the case of all schools receiving the aid grant."
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  He said that Education was the one question on which the people held clear and definite convictions, and had a right, to know what was being done, but the Bill of the Government was most obscure and indefinite, and withheld from the public the details with which they had a right to be acquainted. They had a right also to extort from the Government full time for the consideration of the details of this Measure. He thought they were indebted to the noble Lord the Member for Rochester and the hon. Member for Tunbridge for the light which they had thrown upon, the intentions of this Bill. The noble Lord was identified with, the Church House scheme which, though rejected with scorn by the Tory Press last autumn, was at least a complete scheme to secure not denominationalism but the future of the Voluntary Schools. But the present Bill, as a temporary Measure, was wholly inadequate to fulfil the intentions which the noble Lord had at heart. It could only be accepted by him because it gave a fighting fund—a sort of secret service money to be administered at the discretion of irresponsible bodies to further his object. It was accepted, not on its merits, but avowedly as the initial step in legislation designed to attack the principle of the popular control of education. The Bill was meant to mask the main attack. The hon. Member for Tunbridge had tried to identify the friends of the Board Schools with opposition to religious teaching; but let them remember the words of the late Archbishop of Canterbury, who had said that they would get on a great deal faster if people would cease their futile denunciations of Board Schools, in a great number of which, he was persuaded, very good religious teaching was given. What hon. Members opposite wanted was specific denominational, dogmatic teaching. When they looked at the syllabus of the Board Schools in London, or in his own Division, they found that the children were instructed in what was most suited to their tender years, they were taught not any cut-and-dried catechism, but the tender, sympathetic words of the Bible: the Sermon on the Mount, the moral lessons of the Parables, and the pathetic and infinitely eloquent words of our Lord. These were things which appealed directly to the highest instincts of child life. They

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  had a right to challenge the hon. Gentle-man as to what was the scope of the religious teaching which he wanted this Bill to extend. That House was a temple of fairplay. They were reluctant to believe in oppression. But he had a right to ask whether the hon. Gentleman approved of teaching questions and answers such as were inculcated in the notorious catechism of Dr. Gace? Would he approve the words of a Canon in the West of England, who said:—
  "We cannot, we dare not, go to chapel; it is against God's will that the chapel exists." "The place itself exists in defiance of God's design. … Dissent is a state of things which God abhors"?
  He was sorry to inflict such quotations on the House, and he thought hon. Members opposite would regard them with the same contempt as he did, but he had the right to challenge them to say whether this was the sort of teaching which was to be forced on the simple minds of our English children. In the Church Lad's Brigade, a monthly paper, he found these words:—
  "It is simply sinful for any Churchman to become a Dissenter. God has shown us in His Word that Dissent is no part of His plan, but distinctly against His will."
  The hon. Member opposite disclosed his view—he wanted to get rid of that bogey of the extreme Church party (but not of the moderate Churchman), the Cowper-Temple Clause. He distrusted the ethics of infallibility. The man, or the Church, who claimed infallibility advanced stage by stage from proselytism to persecution. They were not unfamiliar with this phase even in the Church of England. Only a few days ago three capable women teachers had been dismissed at Willesden because they would not agree to attend the Communion at an Anglican church. They had seen in London the determination of the extreme Church party to force upon teachers in Board Schools as well as in Voluntary Schools the strictest tests as to their religious opinions. They knew the men who were behind this movement. All these things were indica
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  tions of the temper and character of the movement with which they had to deal. The Bishop of Chester and Cardinal Vaughan had shown their policy in arrogant threats towards the Government. The First Lord of the Treasury had treated the Bishop with a certain amount of ironic contempt, but they must remember that Bishops like the Bishop of Chester represented an enormous organisation—an organisation to which this Bill was practically given as a blank cheque and as a charter without conditions. The Bishop of Chester spoke of the combined action of Anglo-Catholics and Roman Catholics for the emancipation of denominational schools from the disabilities under which they had laboured since 1870, and declared that the object of the alliance was to exclude the endowment of what was practically a new creed—undenominational religion. That was the whole secret of the movement. It was to destroy the Cowper-Temple Clause, which excluded denominational formularies from the elementary schools. He looked upon the Cowper-Temple Clause as a truce to sectarian passions, which had rendered immense service to education. Could they never eliminate the paralysing poison of sectarian differences and sectarian animosities, and set education free from proselytism and sectarian tyranny? The Bill was bad educationally, bad politically, bad morally, had economically, and it was worst of all in its dishonest and dissembling draftsmanship, One of the great evils of the Bill was touched upon by the Amendment now before the House, in the preferential grants to one class of schools. A greater evil still was that the Bill would create a revolution in the Government of the schools of the country, for it would hand over the control of the education of three-fifths of the children of the country to an unknown body with an unknown constitution, unknown powers, and unknown policy. The question of association was undoubtedly the most important question raised by the Bill. He agreed very largely with a letter

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  by a well-known London Churchman, Canon Barker. In The Times last November Canon Barker protested against—
  "the proposal that the Government should hand over the proposed new grant in aid to a committee of confederated schools for them to deal with as they think best. This is a most alarming proposition. Imagine the confusion and friction which would be caused by each confederated school having to plead, as it would, before such an unrepresentative and irresponsible body for a portion of the 'new grant in aid,' and for such a body, according to its sweet will, to dole out grants according to its idea of what a school ought to have. It would simply be robbing Peter to pay Paul. No, if there is to be discrimination in the amount granted to schools, let the impartial Education Department be the body to determine. But, if the Government see fit—which I do not think it will—to admit into its new Bill the principle of confederation, I devoutly hope that it will be permissive."
  But the Bill before them was compulsory. He also asked the House to consider an important expression of opinion by The Birmingham Daily Post, a newspaper which supported the Government:—
  "There is great distrust, as to a scheme so entirely new, so entirely doubtful in its working, and so largely left without explanation in the Bill. As it now stands, all we know is that the distribution of the new grant will be left to some arrangements to be made at some time and in some way undefined, between the Education Department and a large number of denominational councils, which must chiefly consist of ecclesiastics; and in the nature of things it is certain that these councils ultimately if not immediately, must practically got into their own hands the control of the denominational schools generally…Before such an enormous power is conceded we want to know clearly how it is to be exercised, and how the State, as represented by the Education Department, is to check it, and prevent mischief being done."
  Those were the words of the chief organ of the Colonial Secretary, which represented some of the most influential Liberal-Unionist opinions in the Midland Counties. The Government had not been left without light in this matter. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dartford and the Vice President of the Council had given the Government excellent advice. In a letter to The Times in November last, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dartford contemplated as an absolute certainty that if the Government introduced a Bill it
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  would be a Measure dealing with necessitous Board Schools as well as Voluntary Schools. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out that the real crux of the question was the distribution of the grant, and he insisted that the distribution should take place upon lines and under conditions clearly laid down by Act of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman evidently never contemplated the extraordinary manœuvre by which the Government were to hand over powers without conditions to the extreme Church party, and they had all heard—not without amusement—the speech in which the right hon. Gentleman had accepted the Bill. The Government were in this matter sending out a fleet with sealed orders. But they had done more. They had also sealed the mouth of the only man who was capable of telling them what the orders were, what the Education Department could do, what lines it would lay down, what powers were to be given, how they were to be exercised, and and what checks were to be placed upon the proposed associated bodies. He referred to the Vice President of the Council. That right hon. Gentleman had also seen that the crux of the difficulty was the discrimination to be used in the distribution of the money between the various schools. "It must be obvious," said the right hon. Gentleman,
  "that a distribution of that kind could only be made by a local authority. The central Government, out of 20,000 schools, could not undertake the task of discriminating which were necessitous and which were not. Therefore they must relegate the distribution to some kind of local authority which knew the circumstances of the schools, or had, at all events, the means of ascertaining easily the circumstances of the schools, and which would be or might be able to give to those that required, and not to squander the money in gifts to those who were already sufficiently well off."
  The right hon. Gentleman continued:—
  "There was a proposal made in the Bill last Session to create such local authorities, and there was a good deal of discussion and of objection, and ultimately the proposal had to be withdrawn. But he thought they would find,

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  upon reflection, that they had no choice between one of two things—either they must have a grant all round, all round to Voluntary Schools if they pleased, or to Voluntary Schools and Board Schools; but they had no choice between a grant all round, in which the Imperial Government could exercise no discretion, and the creation of some local authority which could receive the grant and undertake to distribute it according to discrimination amongst schools, not because they were Voluntary or Board, but because they were necessitous and wanted further aid from the Imperial Exchequer to enable them to give a satisfactory elementary education."
  That advice had fallen on deaf ears. The right hon. Gentleman appealed to the House and the country to deal with the question in a candid and philosophic spirit; but this Bill was absolutely silent as to any of his proposals. That is the, answer to his appeal to be candid and philosophic. In the face of these facts, hon. Members had a right to challenge the action of the Government. They had a right to ask why, instead of adopting the right hon. Gentleman's suggestions, the Government had insisted on the principle of compulsory federation, and were handing over the control of the whole denominational system of schools to a secret, self-appointed, unrepresentative, and irresponsible sort of Vehmgericht, to whom was left without restrictions the delicate decision between the claims and wants of various schools. The First Lord of the Treasury in his opening speech confirmed the contention that this was not merely a temporary expedient for the distribution of a few pounds now, but that it would be a system for the distribution of these grants in future, and would tend to consolidate the Voluntary Schools under the rule of these irresponsible bodies. The right hon. Gentleman said
  "the Department would have the power to reject or modify the schemes submitted to it; but in all probability he anticipated the schemes would usually guide the Department."
  What were the checks the Department had at its disposal? The only real power given to the Department was the iniquitous proposal of forcing a Voluntary
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  School to join an association which it did not want to join. Even the audit check was permissive. In the Bill of last year the federations had to satisfy the Education Department, that they represented the managers, and they were not to be scattered all over the country ; they were confined within the area of a single county, and might even be in a smaller area. And, still more important, there was no forcing of all the schools of one denomination into' one association. The present proposal was a monstrous one. It was a question not only for men who felt strongly, as he did; but it must appeal to hon. Members opposite who would not be willing to yield the share they had taken in the provision and management of schools in their neighbourhood, and to hand over their powers thus blindfold to a body as to which they knew nothing. Would they permit him now to say a few words upon the question raised by the Amendment immediately before the House? This Bill, as he had said, proposed one educational revolution in handing over the whole control of the Voluntary Schools of the country to religious and secret organisations. It proposed another revolution in subverting the principle of equality in the Act of 1870. That Act established the right and duty of the people to make provision for education, and at the same time it tolerated the existence of every school on the distinct understanding that the grants to both classes of schools should be on equal and identical principles, and that those who wished to keep up Voluntary Schools should contribute from their own resources in order to maintain them. He attached more importance to the principle involved in this change than he did to the actual amount of the money which was to be handed over. He protested against the State departing from the position of toleration which it took up in 1870 and now, for the first time, giving a preferential grant to the Voluntary Schools—an iniquitous pledge that the

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  Government will find funds to carry on this war, and to enable these schools to struggle against and battle down what was erroneously called the competition of the Board Schools. He protested against that, not only as an injustice, but, still more, because it tended to the waste of national resources. He represented a Division where there was a much larger number of children in Board Schools than in Voluntary Schools, and therefore he felt it his duty to lay one or two points before the House. In one of the towns in his constituency—a town of 3,000 inhabitants—there were a Voluntary School and a Board School. The subscriptions to the Voluntary School amounted to 2s. 3d., and a Board School rate of nearly 6d. in the £ was raised; £60 was to be given to the Voluntary School, and nothing to the Board School, which was, on equal terms, entitled to a grant of £75. In another town of 10,000 inhabitants the subscriptions to a large Voluntary School were 2s. 6d., and that school was to receive nearly £160; whereas four splendid Board Schools, erected at great expense, for which the people rated themselves at 1s. 4d. in the £, were to receive nothing, though they were entitled to £250. In his Division there were 30 Voluntary Schools, some of them old endowed schools, many of them inferior schools, one or two of them only fairly efficient schools; they had an average attendance of 5,240 children, and their subscriptions amounted to £943, or 3s. 7¼d. per child in average attendance. There were 19 Board Schools, and two or three of them were as fine as any Board Schools in the kingdom. They had 7,293 children in average attendance, and the authorities levied, with the constant approval of the people who returned them, in rates £9,310. What was the result? The Voluntary Schools, whose supporters only contributed £943, were to get £1,310 a year in return for that local effort, whereas the Board Schools, for which the local effort was very nearly ten times
  424
  as great, were to receive absolutely nothing, though they were clearly entitled, on equal terms, to £2,000 a year. The Bill was hopelessly bad in its financial aspect. He intended to strenuously oppose the abolition of the 17s. 6d. limit, because he thought it was absolutely inimical to the economical interests of the country as well as of the educational interests. In conclusion, he asked what was the Liberal policy in regard to the Voluntary Schools? There were now 2½ millions of children in Voluntary Schools. Those schools were, by the introduction of this Bill, admittedly inferior in equipment, teaching power, and the opportunities they gave to the children of the country. ["No, no!"] Was the Liberal policy towards those schools merely a negative policy? It was not. A double duty lay on the Liberal Party to deal broadly and generously and in a statesmanlike spirit with this question, because the position in which they now stood, and the fact that 2½ millions of children were in these inferior schools—["Oh, oh!"]—were largely due to the fact that Liberal statesmen had not risen to the occasion in former years. The Act of 1870 was marred by the timid and hesitating policy in which Mr. Forster refused, not from a Radical like the hon. Member for the Edgbaston Division, but from a Moderate man like Mr. Walter, who was then in the House, proposals which would have introduced in 1870 the principle of universal attendance at school, and also the principle of universal elective school authorities throughout the country, avowedly with the intention, as Mr. Walter said, of the Voluntary Schools being absorbed, and in order to prevent the further development of the dual system, which was felt to be contrary to the interests of education and of the taxpayers. The fact that Liberal statesmanship was so largely responsible for this system having remained so long, threw on them a double obligation to do their duty on this question. He did not think hon. Members

  425
  had as yet thoroughly realised the effect of subsidising the Voluntary Schools in order to keep up this dual system of schools. He ventured to predict that, before many years were over, the result of this policy of subsidising denominational schools would be that the country would find that they were paying £5 for two or three bad and inferior schools instead of £3 for a consolidated and effective and simple system. This Measure was purely temporary. No Government, whether it was a Tory or a Liberal Government, would ever venture to place the whole educational cost of this country on the taxation of the country. It was an impossible task, and nibbling at it by the abolition of the 17s. 6d. limit was a merely temporary expedient, which could not guide them to a future solution in that direction. The ultimate result must be that these schools must come upon the rates, and the result of that would be the acceptance of the principle of public, local, representative control of all schools receiving Government grant. One of the ablest Unionist papers in the country, The Scotsman, had, a few days before, warned the Government that
  "the sooner they recognised that the dual system cannot be a permanent system the better.…one of the two classes of schools must ultimately disappear, and there can be no doubt as to which must succumb in the end.…So long as this system lasts, educational reform in England will be dangerous to the party which attempts it, and peculiarly perilous to those who attempt it in the special interest of the denominational schools."
  That was wise advice, and if Members would consider the question dispassionately, in the interests of education and of taxation, they would come to the same conclusion he had. He had placed an Amendment to the Amendment on the Paper, but he understood that it was not competent for him to move that Amendment at the present time. He regretted he was unable to do so, but he did not regret that the Amendment appeared on the Paper, because it affirmed in clear and definite words the cardinal principle on which the Liberal
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  Party in the country, whatever their Leader's might say or do, was determined to stand and to fight on this question to the last. The Bill was, in its intention, a mockery on the cause of religion, a wrong to the children of the country, and a wrong to the nation, which they should resent.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY,)said he thought the House must have listened with some surprise to the quotations from several clergymen with which the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down entertained the House at the commencement of his speech. Did the hon. Gentleman suggest that those extracts fairly represented the teaching in denominational schools. He was sure he could not do so. ["Hear, hear!"] Then why read them? For the purpose of creating a prejudice which he knew to be illegitimate. [Cheers.]
  MR. CHANNING: I asked the hon. Member for Tunbridge whether that was the sort of religious teaching he was prepared to encourage and wanted this Bill for.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERALasked why, if the extracts did not represent the teaching of Voluntary Schools, the hon. Member should have troubled the House with them. ["Hear, hear!"] He thanked the hon. Gentleman for the candour with which, in the latter part of his speech, he declared war against Voluntary Schools. If he would forgive him the expression, he would say that a great part of his speech illustrated what they might call the intolerance of those who preached toleration. ["Hear, hear!"] Not the least interesting feature of this Debate had been the clear recognition it had elicited from the most influential Members that schools in which there was distinctive religious education were an integral and essential part of the educational system of this country. [Cheers.] The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose Burghs stated this point with his usual complete frankness. He said his views had been and now were that the State

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  should not recognise any educational institutions which to any extent partook of a sectarian character," but," said the right hon. Gentleman," the country had declared against this view," and he must accept the fact. The country had indeed declared against that view. In England the growth of Voluntary Schools was the most emphatic testimony that could be borne to the fact that distinctive religious education was demanded by the people of this country. ["Hear, hear!"] He need not say what were the feelings of the representatives of Ireland, while in Scotland the question of Voluntary Schools had not attained to that importance which it had in, England, simply for the reason that the Board Schools there were denominational. ["Hear, hear!"] In every Board School in Scotland the standards of the Presbyterian Church were taught, and it was only for that reason that the question of Voluntary Schools had not come to the front as it had in, England. The country had indeed declared against the views which the right hon. Gentleman had held and now held. What, under these circumstances should be the attitude of a statesman? The right hon. Gentleman opposite seemed to meet the attitude of the country on this question with what was at least an attitude of sombre acquiescence on his part. He had no policy to propound. He listened to the right hon. Gentleman's speech from beginning to end to find any definite proposal put forward by him for dealing with the situation, but the right hon. Gentleman seemed to be possessed by a spirit of mere negation. He subjected the Bill to a series of minute and detailed criticisms, but one waited in vain for any declaration of positive and practical policy upon this great question. ["Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Gentleman referred to the attitude of the Colonial Secretary upon this matter, but surely the attitude of the Colonial Secretary was more worthy of a statesman. He frankly accepted the declaration which the country had made upon this point, and endeavoured to deal
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  with the situation as a statesman should by keeping up the efficiency of the Voluntary Schools, on the maintenance of which the country insisted. [Cheers.] The State at present was not neutral as between Voluntary and Board Schools. The Board Schools had at their back the rates, on, which the State had enabled them to draw as far as they wanted to draw for the, purposes of education. Had the Voluntary Schools such an exchequer at their back? In face of that great fact—he did not stop to refer to other instances of preference—how could anyone assert in his place in that House that the attitude of the State was impartial as between the Board Schools and the Voluntary Schools? ["Hear, hear!"] They were told that the Measure the Government proposed was not final. It would require boldness indeed on the part of the statesman to get up and say he regarded himself as the author of what would be a final settlement of this question. Surely it would be mere pedantry, because it was recognised on all hands that the opinion of the country was not ripe for a final settlement, not to do what was wanted at the present time—["Hear, hear!"]—not to take steps which, as they believed they could show, would solve this difficulty for many years to come. They had listened to a series of elaborated excuses on, the other side for doing nothing at all in aid of the Voluntary Schools. One excuse was certainly somewhat astonishing. It was said that the Voluntary Schools represented the laggards of the educational ranks, and they were told that they should first help, or help at the same time, more forward districts in which there were School Boards. But were the Voluntary Schools laggards in the educational race? Who was it that bore the burden of the education of this country until the Act of 1870? [Cheers.] If any one was a laggard it was not the Voluntary Schools. [Cheers.] It was the Voluntary Schools who did that work which the Act of 1870 was passed to supplement in those districts which were backward and not so forward as those in which

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  Voluntary Schools were at work Then it was said:—
  "The Voluntary Schools are in no danger at all. You may trust to the zeal of Churchmen. They will not only go on paying rates to maintain Board Schools in which their neighbours are given a religious teaching which does not satisfy Churchmen, but they will also pay subscriptions to keep up their own schools."
  He gladly acknowledged the work that had been done by the friends of denominational schools in furnishing subscriptions to keep them going under stress of severe competition, but Voluntary Schools were in very great danger. The standard of education in this country was rising—he rejoiced in that fact; and it had been raised by the competition of Board Schools having the rates at their back and never being stinted for money—he rejoiced at that. But the consequences to Voluntary Schools must be recognised; they had no such unlimited Exchequer to draw upon while making every effort, to comply with the ever increasing demands of the Department, which had in its eye the completely efficient and thoroughly equipped schools which Boards with unlimited power of drawing on the rates could provide. Was it to come to this, that parents desirous of distinctive religious teaching for their children were to have inferior secular training? Was religious teaching to be penalised in this way? Yet that was the effect of the present state of things. ["Hear, hear!"] Voluntary Schools would suffer from this cause, and a parent would have to ask himself the question, "Am I prepared to sacrifice the best possible secular training in order that my child may get the religious teaching I desire he should have?" ["Hear, hear!"] In a great many cases parents would be attracted from these Voluntary Schools, which, other things being equal, they would prefer, and would send their children to Board Schools. ["Hear!"] Surely this was not a right state of things. The State should hold the balance even between these schools. [Opposition cheers.] Yes, but those hon. Gentlemen who cheered wanted to keep it uneven. ["Hear, hear!"] The State should hold the balance even between those schools which gave a distinctive religious teaching and those which did not. If Voluntary Schools were kept under the strain of this competition they
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  would die; attendance would dwindle, and school after school would close, and the state of things would be such that a parent, however he might desire religious teaching for his child, could not get it. ["Hear, hear!"] It was said this was a skeleton Bill. ["Hear, hear!"] There was not much superfluous fat about it, but he thought it would be apparent that all the bones and sinews were there, and experience would show the Bill to be in thoroughly good fighting trim and that it would give a good account of itself before the round was over. The object of the Bill was to increase the efficiency of Voluntary Schools; it was introduced in the interests of parents who desired such schools for their children. It was not a subscriber's relief Bill, it was a Bill to provide and increase the efficiency of Voluntary Schools, the subscriptions the schools now receive being maintained. This was the object of the Bill, but in effect it did help the ratepayers. ["Hear, hear!"] If Voluntary Schools were to be condemned to a lingering death, as some hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed to desire, school rates would be doubled. ["No, no!" and "Hear, hear!"] That was the inevitable conclusion. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Morley) took the case of Newcastle, and he said there were 12,000 children in the Board Schools and 12,000 in the Voluntary Schools there. If the Voluntary Schools ceased to exist there the ratepayers of Newcastle would have to support schools for 24,000 children. ["Hear!"] The rate at Newcastle was 7½d. in the pound, and the amount raised £31,000 a year for maintenance, current charges, and interest and sinking fund for money borrowed. Was the right hon. Gentleman prepared to see this amount doubled? Then it was said the relief which was to be given to Voluntary Schools would come from the taxpayers who already paid the school rate. That was true, but the sum required to keep Voluntary Schools in an efficient condition was a very great deal smaller than the sum that would be required to replace them if they disappeared and Board Schools had to be provided. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. A. H. DYKE ACLANDsaid in some districts there were no Voluntary Schools at all.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid he was dealing with the country as a whole.

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  One must look at the subject broadly and not lose oneself in details. The rates for the ready maintenance of Board Schools, and not including interest and sinking funds for loans, amounted in England and Wales to two millions. If Voluntary Schools disappeared the country would have to face the expenditure of another two and a quarter millions for additional maintenance, and in addition there would have to be provided a large capital expenditure for the purchase of Voluntary School buildings or for new buildings. ["Hear, hear!"] Hon. Gentlemen opposite talked about the rights of citizens, but the British citizen must be a very peculiarly constituted being if he preferred paying in his capacity as ratepayer two and a quarter millions a year for the maintenance of additional Board Schools, besides all the cost of providing the buildings, to the expenditure of £616,000 a year for the purpose of keeping alive and efficient those Voluntary Schools which would make that larger expenditure unnecessary. [Cheers.] It was an unjust taunt against the noble Lord (Lord Cran-borne) that he spoke, not with the voice of a citizen, but of a. Churchman, but it was a perfectly fair observation to many hon. Gentlemen opposite to say that their dislike of Voluntary Schools blinded them in this matter to the true interests of citizens. ["Hear, hear!"] What was this cry for equality of treatment and demand for 5s. all round for Board and Voluntary Schools? Take the case of London, where there were a great many Board Schools and not one necessitous, for, however poor the district might be, there were the school rates of the whole Metropolitan School Board area to draw upon. A grant of 5s. a head on account of every child attending a Board School in London would amount to £100,000 a year, and something in the same proportion might be said of every large town. Did hon. Gentlemen propose that £100,000 should be annually paid out of taxation to London in order that it might be wasted on additional expenditure—[cries of "No, not wasted!"]—or take the alternative, applied to the relief of London ratepayers. ["Hear, hear!"] With what accents of scorn would right hon. Gentlemen have spoken if such a dole had been proposed by the Government; what forcibly expressed criticism would not unjustly have been directed
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  against the eleemosynary relief. The Government had brought forward no such proposal, for the Government recognised that the case to be dealt with in reference to poor Board School districts would not be met in such a manner. These poorer Board Schools had lately excited a vast amount of new-born enthusiasm on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite, but who first proposed to do anything for these schools? The Government, in their Bill of last year. ["Hear, hear!"] It was a little too bad that, having been the first to recognise their need, the Government should now be accused of being blind and deaf to the claims of poorer Board Schools. ["Hear, hear!"] The relief of poorer Board Schools was an object quite distinct from that the present Bill had in view; it was a ratepayers' question, and the machinery required would be wholly different to that contemplated in the Bill. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite were curious in their inquiries about, the Board School Bill, and he appreciated the spirit of their demands. It meant that they found their ammunition in reference to this Bill running short, and they wanted a fresh supply in order that they might keep up the Debate, discussing two Measures instead of one. ["Hear!"] He would not stop to remind the House that a good deal had already been done for poorer Board School districts by the Agricultural Rates Act of last year. This Bill was to promote the efficiency of Volurtary Schools, and right hon. Gentlemen complained that the Government did not define efficiency, and they dropped a pensive tear over the Bill of last year. He said that Bill defined efficiency. It was extraordinary the affection right hon. and hon. Gentlemen had developed for the Bill of last year. [Laughter.] No epithets were too severe for it while it was alive, but now that it was dead the praise of that Bill had served to vilify the Bill of this year, and Gentlemen opposite were warm in their commendation of several of the clauses of the former Bill. What was the use of putting in a clause defining what the efficiency of a school was? Everybody knew. Efficiency meant a good teaching staff and proper equipment for carrying on the business of the school, and to insert a clause such as the right hon. Gentleman had desiderated would only have supplied

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  him and his friends with material for a good many Amendments of a more or less unnecessary character. ["Hear, hear!"] Then they were told that in another respect this Bill compared most unfavourably with the Bill of last year. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Bill of last year at least admitted the principle of local control, but this Bill contained nothing of it. There were in the Bill of last year some expressions which referred to a somewhat attenuated local control, which had now assumed considerable proportions in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman. What was the only effective local control? It was the power of appointing and dismissing teachers. ["Hear, hear!"] If they retained that they retained everything; but he ventured to say that no religious body which desired distinctive religious teaching would for one moment dream of accepting any local control of that sort. ["Hear, hear!"] On this point they had been furnished with a most excellent and conclusive authority in a speech made by the right hon. Member for the Montrose Burghs. In 1890, in the Debate on the Address, a Motion had been brought forward in favour of free education, and in connection with that Motion the question of local control was started. What did the right hon. Gentleman then say?
  "Our position, I think, is this: that where a school is intended for all it should be managed by representatives of the whole community. When, on the other hand, a school claims to be for a section of the community, as, for example, the Roman Catholics or Jews, it may continue to receive public support as lone; as it is under the management of that sect. That, of course, is the Scottish system. It works well there, and without any friction."
  With regard to the allusion to the Scottish system, he would only say that the right hon. Gentleman was now a member for a Scottish constituency, and he thought he must recognise by this time the fallacy which lurked in that sentence. [Laughter.] The reason he cited that passage was this. The right hon. Gentleman laid down in the clearest terms that where a school was intended for a section of the community it might receive public help, and that public help while it retained the management of its schools. [Cheers.] The right hon. Gentleman gave the two illustrations of the Roman
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  Catholics and the Jews. Would the right hon. Gentleman extend treatment to these two sects that he would not extend to other religious bodies? He was perfectly certain he would not. [Cheers.] The fact that he mentioned only these two bodies gave rise to a well-founded suspicion—
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: Ill-founded.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL: Well, an ill-founded suspicion that those utterances represented a sort of concordat, and that in return for these utterances the right hon. Gentleman's supporters were to have the help of hon. Gentlemen sitting below the Gangway opposite. According to the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, it was perfectly compatible with sound principle that a school should receive public money while it was under the control of those who represented the Church with which that school was identified. ["Hear, hear!"] The control the Government proposed to give was the control of the Department. They were now told by Gentlemen opposite that the Education Department was utterly unfitted for such functions; that it was a centralised body, did not know local wants, and that it was vital to the Measure that they should give control, not to the Department, but to some locally elected body. Last year the proposal made was to set up a local body to deal with these matters, and then right hon. and hon. Gentlemen had nothing that was too strong to say in praise of the Department by way of depreciating the Government proposal to set up local bodies. The right hon. Member for West Monmouth, on the 18th of June of last-year, in Committee on the Education Bill, said:—
  "It is' said you must have this new authority to dispense the 4s. grant, and you assume that the local authority will know better the local conditions. Will it? You create a new authority which, perhaps in 20 years, may know half as much as the authority already existing, and you say it has to discriminate—rather a difficult thing—between schools which are and those which are not to have the grant. But the Education Department knows that already; knows it a great deal better than any new body can know it, and will deal with that question, in the opinion of those communities, with much more impartiality. It is owing to the creation of this unnecessary, inexperienced, and, in my opinion, utterly incompetent authority in the place of the experienced and capable

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  authority which is now dealing with the education of this country, that we mainly resist to the utmost of our ability the provisions of this Bill."
  [Cheers.] Last year hon. Gentlemen opposite resisted mainly on the ground that the Bill proposed to set up a local authority. This year they were told by the right hon. Member for the Montrose Burghs that the absence of local control was the most important feature which disparaged this Bill. [Laughter.] It was really impossible to please the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen, and all one could do was to endeavour to find that machinery best adapted to do the work, and he very much preferred the opinion of the right hon. Member for West Mon-mouth as expressed last year with reference to the efficiency of the Education Department to the opinion expressed this year by the right hon. Member for the Montrose Burghs. [Cheers.] Discrimination, of course, was necessary, and that discrimination on questions of subscriptions and aid grant could better be exercised by a central authority than by any locally elected body. ["Bear, hear!"] They could not attempt to set up a hard-and-fast line and say, for instance, that the subscriptions were to represent a certain figure, otherwise no help was to be given from the aid grant. Except in the case of a few infant schools, managed under very exceptional circumstances—in many cases the teaching being gratuitous—it was perfectly impossible for any Voluntary School to get on without extraneous help, whether in the form of regular subscriptions, occasional help, endowments, or fees paid by the parents of the children. Those fees were as much subscriptions as the yearly sums paid by richer people. ["Hear, hear!"] It was said that the Department which undertook this task would be overworked. It would, however, get very great help from the associations to be formed tinder the Bill. The right hon. Member for Montrose complained that the associations were introduced by a mere "if," but they were purely Voluntary bodies. They already existed in many places, schools having now the right to combine. It would be a mere platitude to insert a clause in the Bill saying that schools might combine in future as they did now. All the Bill
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  had to do was to encourage the formation of such associations by saying that the schools forming them should have two privileges. First, that there should be allotted to each association which the Department recognised a sum in proportion to the number of children in all the schools forming the association. Secondly, the governing body of the association should have the light to advise the Department as to the distribution of the lump sum among the different schools; and the scheme prepared by the association would be acted upon unless the Department saw that the purposes of the Act were not carried out. The Government hoped that these encouragements would lead to the formation of associations throughout the country. As to their areas, they will not necessarily be the same for all denominations. In the ease of the Church of England schools, the dioceses would form the natural divisions, [Ironical cheers.] But in the case of other denominations, hard-and-fast divisions which might suit one and not another need not be laid down. In ordinary cases, an association would consist of schools of the same denomination; but it would be a great advantage if the schools of denominations nearly approaching one another in teaching and doctrine should combine. The right, hon. Gentleman had asked how the case would be dealt with of a refusal to join an association on the ground that to join would kill local interest in the school. The right hon. Gentleman had overlooked the fact that joining an association did not mean that all the subscriptions would be thrown into a common fund. It merely meant that the group of schools forming the association secured to themselves the allotment of a sum of a money equal in the aggregate to a grant of 5s. per child in all the schools, and each school secured a voice in the division of that total sum according to its necessities. He did not believe that to join such an association would (diminish local interest in the schools, or that that fear would be recognised as an adequate ground for refusing to join. It seemed to be forgotten that no school would have any absolute right to receive a portion of this aid grant. Whether a school got the grant or not depended on a number of circumstances, and the main factor in the case

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  was whether the Education Department considered the school to be necessitous, and one in which the voluntary subscriptions had been adequately maintained. Another misconception was the idea that the proposed distinction between town and country affected the distribution of the grant to unassociated schools. The distinction between town and country had nothing whatever to do with schools which were not in association. In the case of association—and in that case alone—the amount of the allotment depended upon a difference of rate. There was nothing in sub-section 2 about a difference between town and country schools. It was only in dealing with the amount to be allotted to each association that the rate per scholar was to differ if the Department fixed different rates for the town and country schools. It was a case of individual discretion with respect to non-associated schools. The right hon. Gentleman thought it very unreasonable to give the Department power to fix a higher rate for urban than for rural schools. The right hon. Gentleman cited the cases of the counties of Durham and Staffordshire as mainly urban counties, where the expenditure was 34s. and 32s. 6d. per child; and then he took three rural counties—Dorset, Shropshire, and Herefordshire—where the expenditure is from 37s. 6d. to 42s. per child: and said what an extraordinary thing it was that preference should be given to the urban schools, where the education cost less and where the subscriptions were less than in the rural schools. The right hon. Gentleman had not taken the Board Schools into account in those figures. It was obvious that with respect to Voluntary Schools the measure of the expenditure was not at all what was wanted for the efficient conduct of the school. The Voluntary Schools in urban districts were often tied down to a lower scale of expenditure than efficiency demanded, owing to want of subscriptions. Unfortunately, subscriptions were lower in urban communities than in rural. There were, many causes for that fact. In the country there were greater local interests, there were local proprietors; while in the towns there were poor districts with no rich neighbours. And yet the right hon. Gentleman thought that because the subscriptions to urban schools were
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  lower, it was a reason for giving them less help. He should have thought it was a reason for the very opposite course. The thing desired was to give help to those who needed it, and not to those who had enough already from local subscriptions. [Cheers.] This was not a subscribers' relief Bill, but a Bill for promoting the efficiency of the schools. [Cheers.] If the right hon. Gentleman had taken the Board Schools as well as the Voluntary Schools into account he would have arrived at a fair standard of what was wanted in the urban and rural schools respectively. The Board Schools had unlimited resources to draw upon. [Cries of Oh!"] The School Boards had regard to educational efficiency, and they raised the rates adequate for maintaining that efficiency. A second reason for the distinction was that the fee grant, on the whole and speaking roughly, benefited the country schools much more than it benefited the town schools; and for this reason, that the fees in the country were much lower than 10s., and in the town were much higher. For instance, in Herefordshire, where the fees were 6s. 5d. per child, the gain from the fee grant had been £2 17s. 4d.; while in Lancashire, where the fees were 1.3s. 9d., there had been, after all allowances, a loss in one year of £20,000. Surely that was a good reason for giving power to the Department to establish a differential rate between town and country. True, it did not apply to London, which had profited slightly by the fee grant. But there was a third reason for the differentiation which did apply to London most forcibly. In large towns the cost of the schools was much more than in the country. The teachers had to be given a larger salary to pay the higher rent, and, again, there were more children in the higher standards. Very little had been said against the clause which abolished the 17s. 6d. limit; and it really would have been extraordinary if there had, been any objection to a clause which had the effect of removing the restriction by which efficiency, if combined with economy, was penalised. The right hon. Member for the Montrose Burghs gave his unqualified approval to the clause for exempting Voluntary Schools from rates. He did not think that one objection had been made in that

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  Debate to that proposal of the Government. But the right hon. Gentleman asked what where they going to do in reference to the Board Schools, and he urged that, if the reason for exempting institutions from rates was that they were of a meritorious character, this applied to Board Schools as well as Voluntary Schools. But that argument certainly did not apply to Board Schools, which had no difficulty whatever in paying their rates. The case of Luton Borough had been referred to, which had a population of 30,000, and the union of which the borough formed a part had a population of 40,000. The right hon. Gentleman said that at Luton the Board Schools would go on paying their rates for the benefit of the 15,000 people who inhabited the other portions of the union in which there were only Voluntary Schools. The right hon. Gentleman was really mistaken in his facts, for as a matter of fact there were a considerable number of Voluntary Schools in the Borough of Luton, whilst in that portion of the union which was outside the borough there were a good many Board Schools.
  MR. J. MORLEY: I do not see that that is material.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid it was extremely material, because the right hon. Gentleman said the Board Schools in the Borough of Luton would be paying their rates for the benefit of the 15,000 people outside the borough in the union where there were only Voluntary Schools.
  MR. J. MORLEYwill you explain how it matters whether there are Board Schools or not?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid it mattered very much indeed, because in the non-borough part of the union there were persons who would be paying their rates to the benefit of the whole union. ["Hear, hear!"] He thought if he gave the right hon. Gentleman the figures he would see their bearing. In the Borough of Luton there were 2,163 scholars in Voluntary Schools, as against 3,338 in Board Schools. In the rural part of the union there were 1,337 in Voluntary Schools, as against 931 in Board Schools.
  MR. J. MORLEY: I am sorry to interrupt, but it is a question of the poor-rate we are considering, not the school rate. ["Hear, hear!"]
  THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid the rates paid by the Board Schools in the rural part of the union went to the poor rate of the whole union. ["Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Gentleman had entirely ignored the fact that the rural part of the union had Board Schools as well as Voluntary Schools. He would not dwell further upon that. [Opposition laughter and Ministerial cheers.] He would ask the right hon. Gentleman seriously to consider what was the effect of his proposal to exempt Board Schools from the rates as well as Voluntary Schools. He would point out what the effect of this would be in London. The total rateable value of London was something like 35 millions; the Voluntary Schools according to their present assessment represented about.31,000, which was a good deal less than one-thousandth part of the rateable value of the whole of London. The effect of the exemption of the Voluntary Schools was really almost inappreciable, and was still further diminished by the fact that the greater part of the rate was distributed over the whole of the metropolitan area. So that the relief of the Voluntary Schools would not bear hardly upon any single parish in London or upon any other part of the country.
  MR. J. MORLEY: You proposed it last year.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid the proposal of last year was not to exempt Board Schools from rates, but that the rates both for Voluntary Schools and Board Schools should be paid out of the school rate, which was a perfectly different proposal. [Cheers.] What would be the effect of exempting Board Schools in London? If the Board Schools were exempted Bethnal Green, for example, would lose annually from the rates about £4,592, whereas by the exemption of Voluntary Schools it would only lose £98; Camberwell would lose £6,533 if Board Schools were exempted, but only £87 if Voluntary Schools were exempted; Shoreditch would lose £3,436 if Board Schools were exempted, but only £145 if Voluntary Schools were exempted. There was one portion of the metropolitan area which would profit enormously if the views of the right hon. Gentleman were carried out—that was the City. The City would gain a very large sum annually, because there were few schools in it, and it contributed to the

  441
  school rate levied within the metropolitan area. It was rather novel to find that the right hon. Gentleman was a champion of the City, and asked them to relieve the City from that burden by which its poorer neighbours were relieved. [Laughter.] The equalisation of rates used to be a principle of the Liberal Party, and the fact that the Board Schools were rated, coupled with the fact that the rate was paid out of the rate levied over the whole metropolitan area, went far in the direction of equalising the metropolitan rate, and yet the right hon. Gentleman calmly said that the Bill was defective because it did not exempt Board Schools as well as Voluntary Schools. To exempt Board Schools, which did not need exemption, would inflict an intolerable hardship upon many of the poorer parts of the metropolis. The real issue in this matter had now become clear amid all the smoke and dust of conflict, and the question was whether these Voluntary I Schools were to be maintained or not. [Cheers.] They had listened to elaborate objections and excuses for doing nothing, but all this only veiled an hostility to denominational education in these schools. ["Hear, hear!"] The country was now in a position to appreciate at their true worth the professions which were made last Session of readiness to help through any Measure which was confined to the relief of Voluntary Schools—[cheers]—and he did not think the country would be deafened by the high-sounding and hollow phrases which had been used in opposition to this Measure. The enemies of the Voluntary Schools were united in their opposition for various reasons, but the real ground of their opposition was that they desired that the process of what they called the "painless extinction" of these schools should go on. But if the enemies of Voluntary Schools knew what they wanted, so did the supporters of the Voluntary Schools. [Cheers,] They were alive to the fact that, although this Bill could not be considered as final in its character, it; would enable Voluntary Schools to keep up the fight for many years to come, and they meant to carry this Measure through. [Cheers.] In spite of all opposition, the Government hoped before many weeks were past to put this Measure of rebel to religious education on the Statute Book. [Cheers.]
  MR. W. S. ROBSONsaid the hon. and learned Gentleman had said there could be no effective control over schools unless it included the right to dismiss teachers. He gladly accepted that definition. He went on to say that the merit of this Bill was that it gave control to the central Department. Did he mean to say that the Education Department was to have that effective control of which he spoke—the right of dismissing at its own will teachers of whom it did not approve. ["Hear, hear!"] They on the Opposition side demanded that there should be effective local control, and there was absolutely no inconsistency between the position taken up now and on the Bill last year, except in the imagination of the Solicitor General. The hon. and learned Gentleman denied that this was a subscribers' relief Bill, but if it was not why did it abolish the 17s. 6d. limit? ["Hear, hear!"] The Solicitor General had ingeniously and very carefully ignored the definition, which was vital to all discussion of this Bill, certainly with regard to the hardship on those who supported Voluntary Schools. He had entirely ignored the distinction between the case of Voluntary Schools in School Board districts, and the case of Voluntary Schools in non-School Board districts. In the case of Voluntary Schools in School Board districts it might well be that subscribers were able to show a ease of hardship. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that they had a right to take money from the State to teach their specific doctrine.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): No, I do not think they have an abstract right.
  MR. ROBSONsaid the right hon. Gentleman then seemed to regard it as an academic and quixotic question. He thanked the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, because he should show that the Bill was one for sectarian endowment, and which, for the first time in our history, put upon the Statute Book that the State was to grant money, not merely for State purposes, but for the teaching of doctrines which were no concern of the State. ["Hear, hear!"] His view was that there was no hardship on a subscriber in a School Board district having to make a

  443
  double contribution, provided his contribution was not in respect of secular education. He pointed out that districts in which there were no School Boards were specially favoured, having a much lower rate than urban districts, and under the legislation of last year having half the rates on agricultural land paid for them; bat now they were to have another special advantage in respect of the Education rate. Was there any conceivable principle as a question of taxation why the Government, should give relief to those districts and not to others? He declined to treat the question entirely as an educational question; it had to be treated also as a fiscal question, and fiscally there was no reason why parishes that were without School Boards should have their education given them for nothing by the State, while the far more necessitous great towns received no relief whatever. ["Hear, hear!"] The Voluntary Schools paid their teachers less and taught their scholars worse. Hitherto the benefits had been distributed by Parliament on the principle of payment by results, but the new Education Minister was going to alter all that, and to pay indirectly according to bad results. ["Hear, hear!"] The districts which had provided just the meanest minimum of education for the purpose of getting the grant were to be rewarded, while those which had taken the whole burden of efficient education were to be left alone. Nothing could justify such a glaring inequality. [Cheers.] They could not make education a local burden in one place and an Imperial burden in another, and yet that was what they were asked to do. Those who had drafted the Bill must have had their minds fixed solely on the educational controversy, and upon the dispute which had been going on between contending sects, and had forgotten to treat it as a fiscal question at all. There were many persons who cared very little what doctrines were taught, or whether any doctrines were taught or not, but they cared a great deal about the equality of public burdens—["hear, hear!"]—and, although the House might not approve of their indifference to religious questions, they were bound to satisfy them on the question of equality. The points raised by this Bill, which really endowed sectarian education, might be evaded in that House, but they could
  444
  not be evaded in the country. The ratepayers would understand the question. They who lived in a School Board district would see that they were bound to pay for their education, while those who lived in other districts were not, and the ratepayers would ask "Why?" The only answer that could be given was that the schools in the School Board district were not managed by clergymen. ["Hear, hear!"] He had no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman intended to offer to the ratepayers a bribe to place the schools in future under the management of clergymen, and it was further hoped to put an end to School Boards; he had no doubt that the scheme of the Government would have some such effect. It would not have that effect altogether immediately, because the ratepayer would reflect that he had got School Boards and that he had got to pay for them; and when he found that the only reason he got no relief from the rates was that, his schools were not under the management of a clergyman, the effect—the certain effect, he hoped—would be that an anti-sectarian spirit would be aroused. Then they should have a fresh controversy. That brought him to consider the second great feature of that Bill—the question of sectarian endowments. Hitherto Englishmen had tolerated State grants to denominational schools on the assumption that they went only towards the cost of secular education, while the cost of specific dogmatic teaching was met by subscriptions. That theory would not hold good under this Bill. The Solicitor General had himself reminded us that there were 1,000 Voluntary Schools which had no subscriptions, and he evidently anticipated the objection that, in those cases at all events, the cost of religious teaching was met by the State grant, for he said that the fees paid by scholars were an equivalent to subscriptions, and he implied that they would pay for non-secular instruction. Allowing that the fees might be thus appropriated, which he by no means admitted as fact, how did the figures work? The average subscription per child in attendance in 1894 was 6s. 6¾d.; the average amount per child received from fees was 2s. 0¼d.; that is 8s. 7d. per child from sources other than public moneys. If the 5s. grant be deducted from this, and there is nothing in the Bill to prevent the new grant from being so applied by the

  445
  federated bodies, there would remain, say, about 3s. 6d. per child available for the cost of religious teaching. If was stated with approval in the recent Church Conference, by two Bishops whose names he had forgotten, that the cost of religious teaching might fairly be put at 1s. 6d. of the total cost per child Now the total cost per child in Voluntary Schools was about 38s., so that under this Bill the amount subscribed and paid in fees towards religious education would, on an average, be little more than one-tenth instead of one-sixth. This showed that in some cases the whole, and in all cases a substantial part, of the cost of religious education would henceforth be paid by the State. ["Hear, hear!"] In this Bill the country would see that it was being called upon to pay, not merely for purely secular education, but for purely sectarian education, and yet the right hon. Gentleman had never taken the trouble to consider the question from that point of view; he regarded it as abstract and immaterial. Would it be so regarded in England? There was nothing which the average Englishman so disliked as concurrent endowment. ["Hear, hear!"] He himself was willing to pay for the teaching of his own creed, but he was not willing to pay for the teaching of other creeds. He would venture to say this, that if there was one doctrine more earnestly taught in a great many denominational schools than another it was that dissent was schism. ["No," and "Hear, hear!"] It was a doctrine preached from the pulpits and taught from the teachers' desks. He asked whether this doctrine was not going to be taught in the schools which were to get public money? They had a right to know what doctrine was to be taught. This was a Bill which conferred purely sectarian endowments; it even went beyond that—the Bill was essentially a scheme for clerical endowment. It was not a general, it was a provincial, endowment. II' it was said that this was not a Bill which was intended to pay for religious teaching, then they were entitled to have guarantees in the Bill. ["Hear, hear!"]
  *MR. J. G. TALBOTdenied that the money would go mainly for the payment of religious teaching. Voluntary subscriptions were duly kept in view in the Bill. If the Bill, when passed, was carried out
  446
  in the spirit in which it had been introduced by the Government, it would tend to the greater efficiency of education in this country. The hon. and learned Gentleman who had last spoken had ridiculed the words in the Bill "due regard." But those words often occurred in the Endowed Schools Acts. They were Parliamentary words of long standing, and there was nothing in them to excite ridicule. The hon. and learned Gentleman also stated that education was given for nothing in the rural districts. How could education be given for nothing anywhere? It certainly could not be given for nothing in the rural districts. He did not know whether the hon. Gentleman lived in the town or in the country, but if in the town, he should accept an invitation of his friends to spend a few weeks in a rural district, when he would find that, no more in the rural districts than in urban districts, was education given for nothing. It was a serious charge on the incomes of those who lived in the country parishes. It would not be given for nothing even when this Bill was passed. The main object of the Bill was to improve the efficiency of Voluntary Schools. It would lead to an increase of the number of teachers and to the improvement of the position of teachers.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOUKT: There is nothing in the Bill about that.
  *MR. TALBOTsaid the Bill provided that a due regard was to be had to Voluntary subscriptions and gave a general control by the Education Department. The right hon. Gentleman shrugged his shoulders. He remembered the right hon. Gentleman said last year that the Education Department was the best authority to whom to refer those questions.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood me. I meant that the Bill gives no security that the money is to be employed in increasing the, salaries of teachers.
  *MR. TALBOTsaid that supporters of the Bill contended that Voluntary Schools should be placed on a thoroughly efficient footing—that they should be good schools in every respect. They further said that the schools had not the money to enable them to do that, and they therefore asked the Government fur assistance. The Bill

  447
  afforded a good illustration of the difficulty of pleasing both parties to any question. Last year the Government introduced what was called a heroic Measure dealing with many large questions connected with education. They were then told that the Bill was too large, and that if they introduced a small Bill for the relief of necessitous schools 10 would pass quickly. That small Bill was now before the House. But the Government were now told that the Bill was too small, and that it dealt only with a portion of the question. The position of the Government was plain. They said their object was to promote the general education of the country; they said they could only do one thing at a time; that they would first of all assist the Voluntary Schools, and then that they would assist the Board Schools—where assistance was necessary—to carry on the great work they had undertaken. It should be remembered that Board Schools and Voluntary Schools were on a different footing, and that it was difficult, owing to Parliamentary procedure, to introduce a Bill dealing with both schools on the same lines. It could not be said that the Government had violated any of the pledges they had given at the last General Election. The pledges then given only referred to the relief of the Voluntary Schools, for the question of the Board Schools had not then arisen. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire and himself were two of the few Members of the House who remembered the educational controversies of 1870. At that time there was a confident impression that the Voluntary Schools would be painfully or painlessly extinguished—he did not know which was the right word—as time went on. But what happened? In 1870 the accommodation in the Church of England Voluntary Schools was 1,365,000. In 1895 the accomodation was 2,702,000. Therefore instead of being painlessly or painfully extinguished, the Voluntary Schools had not only held their own, but had doubled their accommodation. That showed that the people of England desired those schools. It should also be remembered that this additional accommodation in the Voluntary Schools was provided almost without any State aid, the building grants to Voluntary Schools having ceased in 1870. For some reason or
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  other—to his mind the reason was the strong religious convictions of the people—those schools had a great hold on public affection, and were a necessary part of the educational system of the country. If the Bill did what its supporters hoped it would do, it would promote the efficiency of those schools and enable them to carry on more effectively the great work they had undertaken. The determination to assist the Voluntary Schools was inspired by a desire to maintain religious instruction. They were often asked why they should not trust the Board Schools. No doubt the Board Schools provided religious instruction but not religious instruction on the lines that many people desired. He would point out further that there was no security in the Board School system for religious instruction. It entirely depended on the accidental majority returned after each triennial election. The result of such an election might mean the emphasising of religious instruction in the Board Schools or the annihilation of religious instruction in the Board Schools. There were in Wales 326 School Boards. Of these, 50 gave no religious instruction whatever; 62 others did not read the Bible; and 118 others did not explain it. That was an example to justify the widespread desire in the country to maintain the schools which provided religious instruction. He had no desire to put the matter in an offensive way, or in a way which gave a political aspect to the question, but he would say that, whereas one set of men looked upon religious teaching as a luxury more or less desirable, the other set looked upon religious teaching as the very foundation of their educational system. He appealed to the House to support the Bill as an honest endeavour to promote the cause of education. He maintained that the figures which were before the House showed that the Voluntary Schools formed an integral part of the educational system of the country which must survive, and the only question was in what form they were to survive. He thanked the Government for the help that they were giving to these schools—help which would tend, not only to their permanence, but also to their efficiency and to their improved management. With regard to the question of federa

  449
  tion, he hoped that the Government would not be induced by threats to drop that part of their scheme, which would tend to liberalise and extend the administration of the Educational grant, because larger bodies were more likely to distribute the grant in a statesmanlike manner than individual schools would. For the reasons he had given, he should heartily support the Second Reading of the Bill. It had been charged against those who promoted this Measure that their object was the relief of the clergy, who largely supported the Voluntary Schools. No doubt the clergy had home a very large share of the cost of education, both before Board Schools were in existence and since; but it was only fair that the State should give reasonable assistance to the Voluntary Schools, which contributed so largely towards the education of the country. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. ATHERLEY-JONESsaid that the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had attempted to draw a distinction between those who supported Voluntary Schools and those who were in favour of secular education, by saying that until the former believed that religious teaching in schools was absolutely necessary the latter regarded it as a luxury and not as a necessity. He ventured to repudiate that doctrine altogether. The great Nonconformist body had been as solicitous for the religious education of their children as the members of the Church of England were. The difference between the Nonconformists and the supporters of the Voluntary Schools was, that the former believed that that part of a child's education which would fit him to become a useful citizen might be taught him at school was one thing, and that religious education was another, and that the two classes of education ought not to be mixed up together. The Debate had hitherto proceeded upon the assumption put forward by the Government that equal justice was to be done between the Board Schools and the Voluntary Schools. But over and over again had the Front Opposition Benches asked for some assurance from the Government that the same amount of assistance would be given to necessitous Board Schools as would be given to the Voluntary Schools under
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  this Bill. He did not deny that there was some force in that argument, or that it was the duty of the Government to have told the House what amount of assistance they intended to give to necessitous Board Schools. They were asked to give a sum of £600,000 to the Voluntary Schools, and an assurance had been given them that an equal sum would be given to the necessitous Board Schools. [Cries of "No!"] Well, perhaps not. The First Lord of the Treasury, no doubt, desired to do equal justice to both classes of schools, but he was not the master of the situation. No doubt he had a large majority at his back, but he had still behind him a number of hon. Members who were jealous of the Board Schools, and were desirous of impairing their efficiency. In his view the great principle upon which they ought to act was that no assistance should be given to any schools out of the public funds without such schools being subject to public control, and that the State should not subsidise any particular religious sect. In his view this Bill was a renewal of the policy laid down by Mr. Forster in 1870, which involved painless extinction of the Voluntary Schools. [Cries of "No!"] He should like to quote a passage from Mr. Forster's speech when he introduced his Education Bill of 1870. That Gentleman said:—
  "The education of the people's children by the poeple's officers, chosen in the local assemblies, controlled by the people's representatives in Parliament, this is the principle upon which our Bill is based. It is the ultimate force which rests behind every clause."
  Since that time 1,300 Voluntary Schools of which 938 were Church Schools had become Board Schools, which showed that there was no very strong disposition on the part of the Church of England to resist the absorption of their children into Board Schools if this Measure were not to be final, then the Government must come to the House and ask for more. The total cost per child in Voluntary Schools was agreed at £1 18s. or £1 19s., and of that, 6s. 9d. was derived from voluntary contributions. Therefore, the whole of the expenditure in respect of which the schools were in any true sense of the word voluntary was 6s. 9d. per child per annum. Yet the House was called upon to maintain these

  451
  schools out of public funds, without any public control. ["Hear, hear!"] Did anyone in the House doubt that this increase in the grant meant a corresponding fall in the subscriptions? There was no question that subscriptions had fallen. In 1876 they amounted to over 8s. per head, but from that time there had been a steady, continuous and uniform decrease. ["Hear, hear!"]
  ADMIRAL FIELD: The amount is greater.
  MR. ATHERLEY-JONES: The amount was greater this year by some few pence. [An HON. MEMBER: "The total amount!"] The total amount! Yes, but the amount contributed per child was only 6d. 9d.; whereas, in 1876 it was over 8s. per head. That was a significant fact. That very day a manager of one of the chief Voluntary Schools in his constitutency told him that the subscriptions had decreased because the subscribers thought the State was going to contribute towards them. ["Hear, hear!"] He ventured to point out to those in charge of the Dill that as they had to confront an inferior education for Voluntary School children, they must come down to the House and make a still further demand on the resources of the country. In what sense were these schools Voluntary Schools? He had shown the diminished ratio of subscriptions, and as to fabrics and sites he had no hesitation in saying that to a very large, and he believed preponderating extent these fabrics and sites were contributed for by the parishioners without the smallest relation to the religious creed adopted in the schools; that was to say, the Church Schools had, to a large extent, been the creation of Wesleyans, Methodists, and Baptists. After the National Society was formed, Parliament year after year made large grants of public money for sites. What then remained of the extraordinary contention put forward that the House would not be justified in taking over the Voluntary Schools, unless they took from the ratepayer a sum estimated at £3,000,000 or thereabouts? ["Hear, hear!"] Then came the question of Catholic Schools. The opposition were twitted with drawing a distinction between Catholics and other religious communities. But there was a very wide distinction to be drawn. The parents of children belonging to the Church of England or other Protestant
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  communities were indifferent as to the schools their children went to. ["No, no!"] That was shown by the number of Voluntary Schools that had been allowed to be absorbed into Board Schools. ["Hear, hear!"] The Catholic laity, however, were not indifferent, and they had given practical demonstration of their objection to have their children educated in any but Catholic schools by subscribing far more to the maintenance of their schools than the Protestant laity. ["Hear, hear!"] They paid their teachers higher than many other Voluntary Schools, and there was no doubt of strong feeling on the part of Catholics against their schools being absorbed into Board Schools. His opinion was that the Catholic case might be dealt with separately, because their schools were self-contained. There were no Anglican children, and no children of Nonconformists in their schools. He wished to say one or two words as to why, although he should vote against the Bill, he should not vote for the Amendment. It was because he would have no part in any legislation which gave further financial assistance to Voluntary Schools unless that assistance were accompanied by public control by the ratepayers, or, at least, by the parents. It had been pointed out that education in Voluntary Schools was defective as compared with that in Board Schools. It had been demonstrated by statistics that the standard in Voluntary Schools was inferior to that in Board Schools; but his most potent reason for voting against the Bill was that Parliament had no right to compel the child of a Nonconformist to go to a school where he was placed in a position of inequality as compared with the child of a Churchman. ["Hear, hear!"] The control he advocated was a control by the people to secure that no improper attempts should be made by managers to coerce or influence children in the direction of the Church. Complaints were heard from all sides. Pupil teachers were chosen only from Church people. That was one strong and serious objection; it was impossible for the child of a Dissenter, whatever might be his capacity, to obtain a position as pupil teacher in the school in which he was finally educated, and therefore, it was impossible for him subsequently to become a certificated master. ["Hear, hear!"]

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  Then the schoolmasters were in many eases required to perform functions which were not educational at all. For example, they were called upon to play the organ in church. The children were given to understand that things would be pleasanter for them if they did not avail themselves of the conscience clause. He regretted that they were not fighting this battle on the lines adopted by Nonconformists in past years. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose had said that personally he was opposed to anything except secular education, but that they "must recognise facts," suggesting by that that the people of this country were willing that Voluntary Schools should be supported out of State funds without public control. That view he repudiated altogether. He believed that this movement in support of the Voluntary Schools emanated exclusively from the clergy of this country. [Cries of "No!" and "Hear, hear!"] There was no feeling among Church people, excluding the clergy, against Board School education. He regretted that the Opposition had not taken up once again the old uncompromising attitude of former occasions and had not declared that they would bear no share of the responsibility of subsidising Voluntary Schools out of public funds except on the condition of the exercise of a corresponding amount of public control.
  *MR. ALFRED LYTTELTONsaid that the two questions for consideration were, first, whether the Government were justified in dealing with the Voluntary Schools before dealing with the Board Schools; and, secondly, whether the associations for which the Bill provided were expedient and feasible. While be was warmly in favour of subsidising necessitous Board Schools, he was of opinion that the Government were absolutely justified in putting the Voluntary Schools first. These schools deserved a subsidy on many grounds, and the first was the ground of religious equality. Classes of men who had been the pioneers of education in this country and held definite opinions strongly ought not to suffer under distinct financial disability on account of the doctrines to which they adhered. The second ground was that by giving this assistance to the extent of
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  5s. now they would relieve themselves from the necessity of granting a much heavier subsidy later on. The right hon. Member for Montrose said that to argue in this way was to impeach the religious sincerity of the country, and pointed to the Roman Catholics as a body of men who, whether they were assisted or not, would always stand by their schools and would not abate one shilling of their subscriptions. He agreed with the right hon. Member, and recognised that it would not be correct to say that if a subsidy were not granted to Voluntary Schools the Roman Catholics and the supporters of Anglican schools would reduce their subscriptions. But the right hon. Gentleman was surely in a dilemma. Granted that the subscribers did not abate their subscriptions, but maintained them at the present level, he surely would not say, having regard to the expansion of education and the poverty and struggles of the poor who subscribed, that those subscriptions could possibly be increased in the future? Therefore for the right hon. Gentleman to refuse to assist the Voluntary Schools would be equivalent to saying—for these schools must, in any circumstances, continue to exist for a great number of years—that he was willing deliberately to condemn more than half the children in the country to receive an inferior education, merely because their parents had religious convictions. The question of subsidising necessitous Board Schools rested upon a different principle. The basis of the Act of 1870 was that local effort should be the mainspring of national education: it was then admitted that one would best serve the interests of education by giving free play to the enterprise, energy, public spirit, and patriotism of different localities. It was not contemplated that the peasant in Dorset or Devonshire, in a poor rateable area where there was no Voluntary School, should have as good an education as the citizen of Birmingham or London, or that an equally good education should he given in the rural and the urban districts. If that was true, the real ground on which they were asked to support necessitous Board Schools must be that, as they had now made education national and free by the Act of 1891, they must be taken to have intended to obliterate geographical disparities and to

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  give to the peasant, say, in Devonshire or Cumberland, similar educational opportunities as were enjoyed by the inhabitants of prosperous urban communities. That was the only principle upon which they could maintain that necessitous Board Schools ought to be assisted, and it was a very great extension of the Act of 1870. The reasons for asking them to subsidise Voluntary Schools were very different, and it was both logical and expedient to separate the eases of the two classes of schools. It was right now to recognise that education should be national and no longer a matter of purely local concern. That was the ground upon which it could be maintained that necessitous Board Schools should be assisted. He did not think that they need be afraid of that principle, the ground upon which many of them supported the theory that necessitous Board Schools should be aided being this: that it was a moral recognition, at any rate, of the great principle that education was a national affair, and that anybody who provided for the children of the State such secular education as the State approved and certified as good, was entitled to payment for that service from the State. He was surprised to hear the right hon. Member for the Montrose Burghs (Mr. J. Morley) say something in regard to the cost of these associations. To a man of business amalgamation was usually deemed to be a measure of economy; the associations were to be voluntary and they at any rate afforded a means of buying material in a larger quantity and getting better discounts. But this proposal was not wholly experimental. The London School Board administered the finances of 488 Board Schools in London. All those Board Schools were managed by local managers, but the School Board of London was the centre to which all contributions flowed. It managed the finances of the schools, and it had been found an admirable method—economical and advantageous to the purposes of management and economy. On a smaller scale that was the proposition under this Bill. ["No, no!"] The schemes would be as good as they could be made; and what was to prevent an area like a county in which there existed a great many schools amalgamating together, and obtaining as the result of amalgamation,
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  both the advantages of economy and administration?
  MR. J. M. PAULTUN: Are they actually to manage the schools? ["No!"]
  *MR. LYTTELTONsaid that the proposal of the Bill was that a 5s. grant should be distributed by the association. There was nothing to prevent in future, if it was found to be expedient, that the management should by consent be added to these limited powers. Speaking without any knowledge beyond what the Bill contained, he submitted that the associations had such a power, even without the Bill; they had the power to contribute knowledge to the management of each school. Let the House take an instance. In a county they had, as a rule, not many educational experts. Supposing a county to have the privilege of the residence of his right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. Acland). The right hon. Gentleman's services now would be allocated to the village in which he could be claimed as a resident. Under this system his right hon. Friend would of course be a member of the association.
  MR. A. J. MUNDELLA: Oh, would he? [Laughter.]
  *MR. LYTTELTONthought that tin-public spirit of his right hon. Friend would be equal to that duty; and he would give as a member of the association the great value of his expert knowledge, which would gradually raise the tone both of the management and of educational efficiency. There would thus be a tendency greatly to liberalise and improve the general tone of those bodies. It would, perhaps, be very wrong to pool all the subscriptions in a certain area and expect them to continue at their previous level. That would be a dangerous tiling to do; but in providing in the localities an association with knowledge of the locality greater than the Education Department they would establish an excellent way of satisfying the Department as to whether the true necessity of the country schools existed. No more effective check could be placed on a body of schools, some of which might be desirous to obtain unduly the assistance given by the State, than an association growing up in the locality and representative of each school. He cited, by way of illustration, an association which had been presided over by a relative of his in the Midland

  457
  Counties, in which a fund, not coming from the Slate had been distributed. In the first place they had called for subscriptions from the schools that could spare them. He did not think the appeal had been very successful, but they had also called for subscriptions from those who looked at the matter as a whole and not through the narrow spectacles of local attachment. A considerable number of subscriptions had been received, and when upon some unfortunate school there had descended a ukase from the Department to spend £1,000 or £2,000 on its fabric the funds received from those who loved their Faith were applied at this apposite moment, and had saved the Voluntary School front destruction. The Bill contained machinery which could undoubtedly be worked by organisations such as the Wesleyans, Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Jews, which would secure that the money should not be wasted, but applied where real necessity existed.
  On the return of Mr. SPEAKER, after the usual interval,
  SIR BENJAMIN BAKERsaid that when the Government introduced their Bill last year he found himself in parallel lines with the hon. Member fur the Edgbaston Division of Birmingham, because the experience of the hon. Member and his in educational matters had been somewhat similar. The hon. Member had been chairman for 17 years of a large School Board at Birmingham, and he had had the honour of being chairman of a large School Board at Portsmouth for 21 years continuously, and their experience and observation agreed to the extent that they thought the Measure of the Government last year was certainly a very bad Measure. He had come to the conclusion that, in the interests of education, the Measure which the Government had introduced, under very bad auspices, this year, was equally bad. He did not join those who charged the Government with sinister motives. He had been a supporter of the Voluntary Schools in Portsmouth, and had had no difficulty in working with the managers of such schools. He should also support any responsible Government in a proposition to give money, either to Voluntary or Board Schools, with due provision for its control and administra
  458
  tion. But the present Government last year, and again this year, seemed disposed to create a feeling which was adverse to the good and successful management of the Board School system, and to the policy and practice of Boards in the past. He most emphatically denied that the statements which had been received by the First Lord of the Treasury and the Solicitor General had any foundation in fact. His Board had, for 21 years, worked most cordially with the managers of Voluntary Schools, and there had never been between them any differences of the kind which had been suggested. There had been no suspicion or jealousy, but there had always been a desire on the part of the Board to give all the assistance they could to the Voluntary Schools, and he had no recollection of any complaint being made by the Voluntary School managers as to the ail-ministration of the Act of 1870, which was now so much condemned. He believed in other places the same feeling existed; in fact, suspicion and jealousy had no existence either amongst the Boards, the managers, the children, or the teachers, but they were promoted and provoked by religious fanatics, who wished to throw an apple of discord into the schools, not finding a sufficiently large arena outside in which to fight their battles. Let him show how a borough like Portsmouth would be affected if this Bill became law. At the present time there were 23 Board Schools in Portsmouth, 54 departments, 20,971 children in average attendance, and 24,000 on the registers. £33,500 was yearly contributed by the inhabitants to education, and that sum represented a rate of 1s. in the £1. The district of Portsmouth could not be regarded as a necessitous School Board district, and therefore would receive nothing. Other places near at hand,—places with 20,000 inhabitants—which had not moved a finger themselves would receive substantial grants under this Measure. ["Hear, I hear!"] With regard to religious education, he asserted that no difficulty had arisen, or would arise, if the Government maintained, as he, thought they were bound to maintain, that in the case of schools which were practically supported by the State, there should be popular control and popular management. Such difficulty only arose in the mind of one

  459
  of an ecclesiastical bent, and who, as a rule, had very little to do with popular education. That person was generally the right-hand man of the rector or vicar who managed the Voluntary School. But if this Measure, exciting, as it would excite, popular sympathies and popular passions upon religious questions, was passed, he could not see where that definite doctrinal basis which the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House had asserted was the only foundation upon which grants could be made to Voluntary Schools, was to be found. He admitted that as a matter of statesmanship the Catholic Schools should be dealt with independently, but directly they widened the sphere and took, as they did take, the Church of England Schools as comprising nearly three-fourths of the Voluntary Schools, the case was altered. Did anyone assume that the Church of England Schools only contained Church of England children? Nothing of the kind. Church of England children were there, but the majority of them were not Church of England in the sense in which they recognised Churchmanship from Dissenters. They went there cither because the school was very near, or because their parents were totally indifferent to the teaching which was carried on there of a denominational character. If they were going to make these schools departments of the civil service establishment, then, on the principle which governed the nation in all its administration, they necessarily demanded and must have popular representation upon the management of these schools. There was no definite doctrinal basis to be found in the Church of England Schools, and he was speaking with intimate acquaintance as a contributor and supporter of them in co-operation with the School Board system. In Portsmouth, the denominational schools were as broadly different as were the Catholic schools from the Presbyterian schools. What would be the consequence if these questions were to arise? They would be very soon taking sides, and their system would have to be enlarged, so that the management and control of the schools should not be left, as they were now nearly and would ultimately be entirely maintained at the cost of the nation, in the hands of the clerical President of the Board of Management. That they should be so
  460
  left was an exceedingly dangerous doctrine to maintain, and there was a popular protest and resentment against this retrograde movement on the part of the Government, which they would not hear the last of until they had ceased to be a Government. With regard to the immediate distribution of this fund, he gave some figures which showed the self-sacrifices the population he represented had made because there was a lack of public elementary education. Then the question arose, what was a necessitous Board? A necessitous Board surely was a Board that was relatively overcharged and overtaxed as compared with other Boards. If they took a large working class community, such as Portsmouth, with its 182,000 inhabitants, most of whom were simple working people, and contributed relatively more to the school rate than did the other classes, it became unjust to leave them out of such a Measure as this with the chance of getting something, if time permitted, at the fag end of the Session. Personally, he did not think anything would be done which would be at all commensurate with the claims which such a community had on the generosity of the House. If Portsmouth had its fair share of the Imperial Grant which was proposed by this Bill it would receive, £5,500. Such a Measure as this, coupled with all that was said last year in promoting a Bill, which fell to pieces almost as soon as it was brought into existence, would give a blow to education and educational progress in this country from which it would take years to recover. Look at the people who were encouraged by this Measure. A bonus was given to these people because they had done nothing, while the people who had striven and had given their last penny towards the expenditure for the education of their children, were left out with a promise of a dole. The idea of "necessitous Board Schools" was so impressed on the House that his belief was that they would have, following this Bill, a paltry and insignificant Measure that might give £50,000 or £100,000, but would not touch the question at issue.
  MR. W. F. LAWRENCEsaid the School Board of Portsmouth had pretty nearly swallowed up all the Voluntary Schools in that district, and he thought the House would agree that the "necessity" was not with

  461
  the Board but with the Voluntary Schools.
  SIR B. BAKERsaid that at the present moment he had no recollection of more than one school being taken over, but certainly not more than two.
  MR. W. F. LAWRENCEsaid the hon. Member had told them that the Board Schools educated 25,000 children, and he had had a paper put into his hand which showed that the Voluntary Schools represented only 3,900 children, and therefore he thought his statement was sufficiently accurate. When the hon. Member said there was no irritation or difficulty between the two systems it was perhaps because there had been what they saw in the Zoological Gardens—an assimilation of one system by the other. The hon. Member, like so many other hon. Members opposite, had based his opposition to this Measure largely on the ground that if did not give adequate control to any local body. He submitted that this was one of the few arguments that could be reduced to an arithmetical ratio. At present the State contributed about 35s. for every child. Under this Bill there would be another 5s. Hitherto, there had never been any complaint that the control at Whitehall was inadequate to see that this 35s. contribution was efficiently expended, and could it be argued that an addition of 5s. to that amount immediately disqualified what had hitherto been an efficient body? He was not prepared to define that night what was necessary for local control, but he submitted that if that was the best argument that the Opposition could bring against this Measure it was wholly inadequate and, in fact, somewhat insignificant. He approached this Bill as the representative of a district in which they educated a larger proportion of the children in Voluntary Schools than in Board Schools. They had 111,000 places and something like 100,000 children in the whole of the schools. Two-thirds of those were educated in the Voluntary Schools, and in view of that fact the House would see that their interest in the Bill was of the most vital character. The Solicitor General told them they ought not to grudge this 5s., because by its means they would promote the thorough efficiency of the Voluntary Schools. He heartily agreed with and endorsed what the hon. and learned
  462
  Gentleman said when he affirmed that it was not the relief of the subscriber but the benefit of education which by this Bill they intended to keep in view. And if he offered any criticism of the Bill it was not because he grudged the 5s. grant, but because it was inadequate, so far as they were concerned, and did not go far enough to produce that thorough efficiency which they all so much desired. Though he voted with the greatest pleasure for the Bill, it was rather from philanthropic motives, and because he did not wish his constituency, though it would imperfectly benefit, to stand in the way of districts that would distinctly benefit by it. The difference in the cost between the two systems, Board and Voluntary, in Liverpool, was His a head, so that the House would see that the promise of 5s. or 6s. was far from representing the amount of money necessary to bring Voluntary Schools up to the desired point of efficiency. He quite understood the difficulties of the Government were very great, because their followers were not entirely united on this important question, and, considering how short a time the question of rate aid had been before the country, it could hardly be expected that country districts should at once see that the interests of Voluntary Schools should certainly take precedence of their preconceived ideas. But in the north people fully believed there was no system which could adequately meet the pressing need of schools unless it was a system founded on universal subventions by the State or partial subventions from the rates. They were not afraid of that fair amount of local control to show that the ratepayers' money was properly spent. ["Hear, hear!"] He did not blame the Government that, in the present division of thought in their ranks, they should hesitate to adopt a system which he believed was the only logical system. The system foreshadowed by the Bill was rather a hand-to-mouth method, and did not really and adequately meet requirements. It did not thoroughly proceed on any principle that he considered would be likely to be permanent. He had shown how, pecuniarily, it would not meet their needs in Liverpool, and it was also obvious that the Bill would create differences of treatment between localities, and certainly would do so between schools and

  463
  parishes. In such cases there would no doubt be a certain amount of questioning, and this would probably give rise to further legislation. The Bill would only-be an interval Measure, and when the country came to consider the subject more thoroughly, assuredly there would be a demand for something more final in its method, something more definite in its result. The Church House scheme proceeded on a logical principle. The rate aid would have applied to only a limited section of the country, to some 612 out of 9,300 schools, and in the result, as applied to 20 important towns, 18 of these would have had rates reduced, and only two, of which two Liverpool was one, would have had their rates increased to an extent not exceeding 2d. in the pound. There was not sufficient reason for that scheme being so emphatically condemned as it had been by the country districts, for though it would not have done so much for them, it would have done much for urban districts. There was every reason to show that what was wanted was local option in regard to this question. The differences in districts were so great in different parts of the country that, however much universal handling might be desired, financial and other circumstances differed so much that local option was the only way of solving the question. He highly appreciated what the Bill proposed in the way of association, though there was great opposition to that on the other side of the House, and some opposition on the Government side of the House. But it should be remembered that, whatever the Vice President of the Council in his office might lay down to-day was capable of being altered by a future Vice President. It was really not going to have the force of law, it was a new scheme that would require thinking out. It was not a law of the Modes and Persians; it was merely giving power to the Department to draft a scheme liable to subsequent alteration. If it proved successful it would not be altered, and as experience grew, either party could make more formal what was now proposed in the nature of a rough draft. It was altogether a misnomer to talk of the Act of 1870 as a settlement. It was entirely an experiment. It was thought then, though that idea had disappeared, that it was founded on the principle of "live and let
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  live;" but, in spite of what the hon. Member for Oxford University had said, it was not the case that Church of England Schools were in any sense in that progressive condition he intimated. True, their numbers had increased something like 100 per cent., but the children educated in Board Schools were increasing in a much greater ratio than the children in Voluntary Schools, and it was very clear, when you compared school districts in the north and also in London, that the proportion of children in Voluntary Schools would not increase at the same rate as those in Board Schools. How could it be so when efficiency and success were matters of £ s. d.? You can-no; expect in Voluntary subscriptions that plethora of money to be found in most rated districts. The country had for years demanded relief for Voluntary Schools. The Bill of last year was rejected because it was too big, and it was right that the Government should limit their desire in the first place to Voluntary Schools. But when it was remembered what the Government last year proposed for poorer Board Schools, it was absurd to say the Government were indifferent to the claims of necessitous Board School districts. He approved of the provision for an efficient audit. It was necessary that public money should be carefully looked after, and without doubt serious difficulties had arisen from the neglect of accounts by managers. The late Vice President (Mr. Acland) had taxed the Northern Churchmen with not subscribing sufficiently to the support of their schools, but on that point he read a few figures comparing what was done in Lancashire with what had been done in London. London had 250,000 more inhabitants than Lancashire, but the school attendance was 578,000 in London and 585,000 in Lancashire. The Voluntary School children in London were less than 30 per cent. of the whole, and in Lancashire 80 per cent. of the whole. In London were provided 250,000 free places; in Lancashire 715,000. In London the proportion of subscriptions was as 46s. to 90s. in Lancashire. There was nothing to complain of in the zeal of the northern counties for Voluntary education. He cordially wished the Bill success; it was a Measure of the power of the Government rather than the extent of their goodwill. He

  465
  hoped the Government would think out the great question of rate aid, for which so much could be said, and spread belief in it among country districts where there was much to be learned as to the needs of Voluntary Schools.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid the hon. Member who had just spoken had made an important admission that one result of the Bill would be to create a certain amount of inequality between districts, and he gave a remarkable illustration when he said that in Liverpool two-thirds of the children attended Voluntary Schools and in London only a third; and, the payment of the grant being 5s. per child, Liverpool, in spite of the difference in population, would receive twice as much as London in contributions from the Imperial Exchequer. The Solicitor General argued that one effect of the Bill would be that the ratepayers would receive assistance, owing to the fact that, Voluntary Schools being kept in existence, School Board rates would be saved. But this was no answer to the case where you have nothing but Board Schools in a district. Take the case of three parishes, A, B, and C. Parish A was a School Board district, and B and C Voluntary School districts. The Solicitor General said that if parish A did not pay the 5s. grant to parishes B and C there was to be a School Board rate there, consequently parish A, which was already paying the School Board rate, must be taxed in order to save parishes B and C their School Board rate. That was a gross injustice to parish A, and therefore the Solicitor General had made out a case for the inequality the Opposition were attributing to the operation of this Bill. The Solicitor General said that under the Agricultural Rates Bill of last year they had already made contributions towards the School Board rates in several country districts. But that was creating another inequality, because the very districts which would receive one-half of the rates under the Agricultural Rates Bill were districts where the School Board rates were light. In the districts where they were heavy, a small pittance was received under the Agricultural Bates Bill, so that they were simply creating a gross inequality as between the various districts,
  466
  which would be intensified and exaggerated by the Agricultural Rates Bill rather than improved. There was another inequality, and that was with regard to the payment of rates on Voluntary Schools. In the case of Luton, where they had a School Board district, Luten would have to pay the rates, but the surrounding districts, where they had Voluntary Schools, would be exempted from the rates. Again, take the case of Festiniog, where there was nothing but Board Schools, while in one or two of the surrounding parishes there was nothing but Voluntary Schools. What would be the result of this Bill? The Voluntary School parishes would be exempted from the payment of rates in respect of their Voluntary Schools, but the Board School districts would have to pay rates in respect of their Board Schools. By thus exempting Voluntary Schools from the payment of rates they were penalising the School Board districts in order to pay the rates of the Voluntary Schools, and were doing it entirely at the expense of the Board School districts, which, were making great sacrifices in order to give children an efficient education. The hon. Member for Liverpool said they were not going far enough. He should like to ask hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House, How far did they propose to go? What was the proposition of hon. Gentlemen opposite? Did they say that the whole of the burden of the maintenance of the Voluntary Schools ought to be borne by the country? He thought they were entitled to an answer to that question. The hon. Member for Liverpool said it was a question of arithmetic—proportion of control. That being so then he (Mr. Lloyd-George) said that the proportion of their contributions towards the maintenance of the Voluntary Schools was much higher than the proportion of control they got over these schools. The Solicitor General said the State ought to hold the balance evenly between the Voluntary and the Board Schools. Did that mean that the whole burden of the maintenance of these schools was to be borne by the State? If so he thought it was perfectly ridiculous to contend that the two systems were on the same basis. The speech of the Solicitor General, fortified by that of the hon. Member for Liverpool, had simply proved that the

  467
  systems were not on the same basis. First of all they had got the very material distinction of control between them. The Solicitor General absolutely gave away the case of the Voluntary Schools. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that the crux of control was the appointment of teachers, as of course it was. The fact of the matter was that the success of a school depended far more on the teachers they appointed than on the teaching that was conveyed. In this one crux of popular control the State had not got it, but it was in the hands of one or two managers. The Voluntary Schools were in the position of private adventure schools, and they had an entirely free hand. If they did not care to accept money from the State they could refuse, and still carry on the Voluntary Schools absolutely independent of any control. There was another point where there was a considerable difference between the two systems. One system was run absolutely in the interest of one sect. He considered that to be a very material difference, and so did hon. Members opposite. So important was it, that the organ of the Church Party, The Guardian, last week said that if they did not get this five-shilling grant they did not consider they got adequate compensation for the amount of secular instruction they were conveying in their schools, and unless they did get the grant they would run their schools purely and simply as mission schools. The Guardian was the exponent of Church views on political matters. ["Oh!"] Well, he would say of the more important and the more sober-headed of the Church Party, and in the opinion of the more important and influential section of the Church Party, the most important point, after all, in these schools was not the secular instruction that was conveyed to the children, but the definite, dogmatic theological instruction conveyed to them. Here they had one set of schools run entirely in the interest of one sect, and another set of schools where one sect had no advantage over another. How could anyone contend that they were entitled to the same measure of support from the public? The House had simply to look at the way in which teachers were appointed in the different schools. Take two parishes. In one they had a Voluntary School—a Church School in
  468
  which he himself was for eight years. In that district nine-tenths of the children were Nonconformists, yet not a single teacher had ever been appointed who was not either a Churchman or did not give up Nonconformity for Churchmanship before he was appointed. The enormous preponderance of the Nonconformist population was shown by the fact that in this School Board district the Churchmen had only been able to return one member of the Board. They would have expected the Nonconformists to retaliate this—he would not say narrowness and bigotry that was displayed in the adjoining parish. But after all it was far better to trust to the people for a sense of fair-play rather than to any priesthood or any sect. What happened in that school. With only one Churchman on the School Board, the head master was a Churchman, and so was every one of the assistant masters and mistresses. A short time ago a mistress was appointed. There were several applicants for the post. One of them was a Church-woman; she had no qualification and no certificate, but she was a good teacher, and for that reason alone she was appointed, although there were several Nonconformist competitors. But in the adjoining schools, however bright a lad might be, however excellent a teacher he might make, not a single Nonconformist boy had ever been appointed, though nine-tenths of the children were of that persuasion. He asked whether the school which practically excluded the whole of the nine-tenths of the children in the parish was entitled to the same measure of support as the school which treated every child alike without distinction of creed. This was not the only distinction between Board and Voluntary School teachers. The only service Board Schools were entitled to expect from their teachers was service directly connected with the education of the children, but teachers in Voluntary Schools were expected to play the organ, etc., act as secretary to a Church, and fulfil all kinds of onerous functions which were practically made a condition of appointment in many schools. It was not a question of religious or secular instruction but of religious and sectarian instruction. ["Hear, hear!"] The clergy were given opportunities for

  469
  proselytising. In many cases the appointment of a young person to the position of teacher was subject to his becoming a renegade to the religion of his fathers. He knew something of Voluntary Schools. He attended one for eight years. ["Hear, hear!"] There was no doubt the clergy used the schools for mission purposes. They made use of opportunities among the two or three million children who attended. Why did the laity support the Voluntary Schools? Not always from religious motives. It was a question of rates. If the Voluntary Schools were closed it was said that the rates would be doubled. Much was said about the "intolerable strain" of the cost of Voluntary Schools. In one of the parishes of Carnarvonshire 30s. per head was paid in voluntary subscriptions, or four times more than the average throughout the country. In 1893 £118 was received in subscriptions. In adjoining parishes there were School Boards and rates of 9d. and 1s. If (hose who kept the Voluntary Schools going in the first parish abated their subscriptions where there was a 9d. rate £183 would have to be paid, and where there was a rate of Is. £245. With the advent of a School Board the number of schools also would be increased. So it was not to promote religious education but to save their own pockets. ["Hear, hear!"] In the district of the Penrhyn quarries there was the largest voluntary subscription in Carnarvonshire. In Lord Penrhyn's own village £440 was subscribed yearly. In the adjoining Festiniog district there was a School Board, and the rate was 1s. 9d. If there had been a School Board in Lord Penrhyn's parish and Lord Penrhyn paid the rate in the same proportion that it was paid at Festiniog he would have to pay £2,188. This was the sacrifice made for religion. In Festiniog there were also higher grade schools where technical instruction was given in quarrying. They earned an average grant of 22s. 6d., and the schools in the Penrhyn district 18s. This was the test of the superiority of a school. These Voluntary Schools gave as meagre an education as the State would allow, and they paid their teachers, on whom the moral and mental welfare of three millions of children of this country depended to a large extent, stipends which their supporters would not dare to offer to the trainers of their racehorses—
  470
  [cheers]—and said, "Look at the sacrifices we are making for religious education. The strain is 'intolerable,' and we ask you, at the expense of the people to relieve us." A more impudent, hypocritical claim was never put forward. [Cheers.] It was said that religious teaching in Board Schools was not definite. What was definite religious teaching? The advancement, of the character of the child or the interests of a particular sect? If the character of the child was at stake there was no virtue or lesson which would conduce to the building up of sound, honest, manly character which could not be taught in Board Schools. But it was said that dogma must be taught. What was meant by dogma? He had had no definition. [An HON. MEMBER: "The religion of the parents!"] What! When nine-tenths of the children were Nonconformists. [Laughter and cheers.] If the religion of the parent was to settle what should be the definite religious instruction in these schools, the controversy in Wales would soon be put an end to, for there would be no Voluntary Schools or subscriptions, but universal Board Schools down there. But if by definite religious instruction was meant religious dogma, then it was proposed that, in the most subtle science, points which were in dispute with the most powerful intellects in the world were to be submitted to the judgment of an immature child who could not understand the simplest problem in arithmetic. ["Hear, hear!"] If that was going to be the definite religious instruction, let them give it to those who comprehended it. What scientific teaching would they dare to convey in this form? Supposing it were a question of history, what would hon. Members opposite think if the majority of the Voluntary Schools were managed by Liberal Dissenters, who used books which conveyed distorted ideas of the facts of history? Supposing that in reading the history of early Christianity the doctrine that the property given to the Church was national property was inculcated into the children; and supposing the children were taught the doctrine of disestablishment and disendowment, what would be said? Let them suppose a school, the managers of which were Socialists, and that they had a catechism prepared by some Socialist Dr. Gace, who taught the doctrine that all

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  property was simply accumulated robbery; would not they object to the sum of 35s. per child being given at the expense of the State Treasury towards maintaining schools where those revolutionary doctrines were taught? The fact was this was simply an attempt on the part of the priests to obtain their old power over the education of the people—["hear, hear!"]—but that was not the sort of instruction that was wanted in, this country. They should teach the children historical facts, read the Scriptures to them, discipline their intellects, and train their moral perceptions; and then, when the children came to decide these questions for themselves, they would be able honestly to select those dogmas best adapted to the development of their natures. [Cheers.]
  *COLONEL MILWARDsaid that in every speech that he had made during the recess he had said that a measure of justice must be given to necessitous Board Schools equally as to necessitous Voluntary Schools. [Opposition cheers.] As a matter of fact, the Board Schools obtained, at all events, some relaxation under the present Bill—that was to say, they obtained help with regard to the 17s. 6d. limit. ["Hear, hear!"] He did not know whether hon. Members were aware of the effect of the working of that limit. In Redditch during the last 18 months, in the very large Voluntary Schools, in each department of boys, girls, and infants, they had been able to earn the highest possible grant in every possible subject. The immediate result of this great success on the part of the teachers was that under the 17s. 6d. limit they lost no less a sum than £108. Was not that a fine which ought not to be imposed upon any school? That was simply an impossible state of things. That was how the question affected Voluntary Schools. It affected Board Schools in another way. The Chairman of the King's Norton School Board had said to him that it was a mistake to think that the 17s. 6d. limit affected Voluntary Schools only, it effected Board Schools also very largely. They were constantly running up their expenditure for the sake of getting out of the 17s. 6d. limit; they painted and repaired their schools, and bought books and materials when it was
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  not necessary for that purpose. So that the removal of the 17s. 6d. limit was really as great a benefit to Board Schools as to Voluntary Schools. [The FIRST LORD of the TREASURY: "Hear, hear!"] The Conference at the Church House upon this subject had been of an historic character. The resolutions adopted by the Church House were (1) that there should be 6s. to all elementary schools alike; (2) that it should be paid to federations only of Voluntary Schools; (3) that there should be aid from the rates; (4) that the administration of the aid grant should be vested in federations; (5) that religious denominations should have the right to increase their school accommodation; (6) the removal of the 17s. 6d. limit; and (7) the removal of the rates. The whole of those points were to be found in the Government Bill with the exception of the fifth resolution. They had been in advance of their time in demanding aid from the rates—rate aid in School Board Districts only, and which should not exceed voluntary contributions—but it would come—["hear, hear!"]—on certain conditions. The Government Measure had the body of the Church behind it, and had, in a large measure, the support of the Roman Catholic body. He wished to speak in terms of the highest respect of that body with regard to education. They had a very difficult task to discharge. It was thought by some that Roman Catholic schools were to be found in the large towns only; but he assured the House that was not the case. There were places where there were exceedingly poor Roman Catholic schools; where the masters and mistresses were sorely underpaid, and where the priest himself had to defray nearly the whole of the cost. This was done on principle; but the Roman Catholics were never ashamed of their religion, either with regard to education or generally. Their whole education system was founded upon religion, and he was greatly pleased to see that they were satisfied with this Bill. Under it they would receive a large instalment. They hoped to receive great benefits from it. The last speaker said that the Church schools were run in the interest of a particular sect. How could that be, when it was well known that many Nonconformist

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  children attended Church schools in districts where there were Nonconformist schools? If that was true, and it was true, how could it be said that the Church schools were run in the interest of a sect? He came now to the question of the country at large. The country believed that the denominational schools needed assistance, and that if that assistance was not given they would be broken up. He quoted figures to show how greatly in arrears some of the schools were, although most economically managed. Reference had been made to the condition of Birmingham Church schools. On this subject he had a letter from the Bishop of Coventry, which stated that the. 5,000 raised in these last two years had saved 14 Church schools in Birmingham from extinction. The Bishop went on to say:—
  "We want the money for the improvement of education, for better salaries to our teachers, on whom has fallen the chief part of the intolerable strain, for saving pupil teachers from excessive drudgery, for better appliances. If the Government will enable us to do these things—and the present Bill will do so—our schools will be on a better and more assured footing, public confidence will be increased, and subscriptions will flow in in larger volume. Should the help he refused we shall be perilously near extinction all round; for our teachers will fall away, pupil teachers will be almost impossible to procure, and public confidence in our permanence as part of the educational system of the country will vanish."
  They did not want money to pay off their debts, but to improve the position of their teachers, and to improve the appliances of their schools. With regard to audit, he proposed to place on the Paper an Amendment changing the word "may" into "shall." opposition cries of "Hear, hear!"] They had been told that the money would not be devoted to school purposes, and that it would not be given to the schools at all. Those were challenges which they could not possibly allow to pass by; therefore he hoped the Government would make the audit more strict. Then there was the question of representative management. [Opposition cheers.] He admitted there was too much one-man management in the case of Voluntary Schools. [Opposition cheers.] He did not look at the matter from the point of view of hon. Gentlemen opposite. They imagined that in the Voluntary Schools
  474
  children were crammed, as it were, into a mill and turned out all in the same nice religious pattern. [Laughter.] What he meant was that the management of those schools was thrown too much upon the clergy of both town and country parishes. Clergymen of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church were brought up in the tradition that to teach and train the children was their duty, and they did it, and for doing it the country owed them a deep debt of Gratitude. ["Hear, hear!"] But it was unfair to throw upon the clergy the entire burden of the management of the schools, and if the Government were to introduce a clause to add to the present managers appointed by the trustees of the school one half more to be appointed by the parents or by the subscribers, or, the best of all, by the village or parish or urban council—[Opposition cheers]—that introduction of the nominative and the elective element into the management of the schools would greatly improve the position of those schools. [Opposition cheers.] But he was not giving utterance to any new doctrine. He had heard it over and over again at diocesan and Church meetings. ["Hear, hear!"] They were not in the least frightened by the idea of popular control in the management of their schools. On the contrary, they hailed it. ["Hear, hear!"] He heartily supported the Bill so far as it went, but he hoped it would be supplemented by another Bill extending the benefits of the present Measure to the Board Schools. [Opposition cheers.]
  SIR FRANK LOCKWOODsaid that in one sense this had been a most extraordinary Debate. The subject had now been discussed for two nights on the Second Reading of the Bill, and it had been discussed at length upon the Resolution preliminary to the introduction of the Measure. And yet during all that time the House had not heard one word from the right hon. Gentleman the head of the Department responsible for education. [Cheers.] That state of things was without precedent, [Cheers.] What would have been said in 1870 if, when a great matter of educational interest was before the House, Mr. Forster had not taken part in the Debate? ["Hear, bear'"] Why, then, did the right hon. Gentleman (the present head of the Education Department) sit dumb in the

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  House? [Cheers.] Was he right in supposing that this most extraordinary position of affairs meant that the Vice President of the Council rather agreed with the criticisms of the Bill than with the arguments in support of it? [Cheers.] He hoped that before the Debate closed the right hon. Gentleman would state his views in order that the House might know how far right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench were in agreement with the heads of the Education Department. This was not a domestic question, but a question upon which the House had a right to have light thrown; and he hoped the information would be forthcoming before the Debate concluded. [Cheers.] In regard to the speech of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had last spoken, there was much in it with, which those who opposed the Bill were in agreement. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. and gallant Gentleman stated that when, the Bill got into Committee he would put down an Amendment to substitute the word "shall" for "may." The hon. and gallant Gentleman had better be quick then, for he would find a great number of Gentlemen on the same errand. [Laughter and cheers.] The hon. and gallant Gentleman further stated that he was in favour of representative control.
  *COLONEL MILWARD: "I said "representative management."
  SIR FRANK LOCKWOODsaid that if the hon. and gallant Gentleman, succeeded in inducing the First Lord of the Treasury, who was in charge of the Bill, to accept his views, it would greatly simplify the duties of the right hon. Gentleman. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. and gallant Gentleman had found fault with a very able speech which had been delivered in the course of the evening in opposition to the Bill. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had rather taken his hon. Friend to task for the strength of the language he had used. But perhaps his hon. Friend had had some provocation for the strength of his language. He was not aware whether or not the hon. and gallant Gentleman had been in his place on Thursday night—if he had been he must have heard the hon. Member for the Tunbridge Division of Kent say that, the position of those who opposed this Bill was animated by hatred of religious education and detestation of religious instruction, and that those who
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  opposed this Bill did so in order to destroy religious education. He did not see the hon. Member for the Tunbridge Division in his place, but he assumed that the hon. Member had had some elementary religious education himself, though it appeared to have done very little towards fostering Christian charity in his heart. ["Hear, hear!"] For his own part, he could not help deprecating the introduction of religious discord into this discussion at all. ["Hear, hear!"] Did hon. Members think that the calm consideration of this question was likely to be forwarded by the introduction of such a topic as that? ["Hear, hear!"] He entirely agreed with an observation that had been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies on the subject. In the very early days of the right hon. Gentleman in that House—he believed that he was reading from what was probably the first speech of the right hon. Gentleman in that House—the right hon. Gentleman had said that,
  "his experience bad led him to the conclusion that the religious difficulty was not the difficulty of the parents, and that, in fact, very little would be heard of it if the priests and parsons would stand aside."
  ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] He did not know whether that was one of the opinions that the right hon. Gentleman had changed with the advance of years. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] At all events, in 1876 those were the views held by the right hon. Gentleman, with which he was glad to say he cordially concurred. ["Hear, hear!"] For his own part he declined to be regarded as an enemy of the Voluntary Schools. He had never taken up that attitude, and he hoped that he should never do so. ["Hear, hear!"] He was one of those who were willing to admit that at a time when, to its shame be it said, the State did nothing for elementary education, the Voluntary Schools did what little was done in that direction, and therefore he was disposed to deal fairly with, them; but at the same time they must not lay themselves open to the reproach that they were dealing unfairly with the other classes of schools. ["Hear, hear!"] His hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General had drawn a very gloomy picture of the probable fate of the Voluntary Schools in the event of this Bill not, being passed. His hon. and

  477
  learned Friend said that unless the Bill passed the Voluntary Schools would slowly drive to their death. His hon. and learned Friend, however, must have found himself clearly in conflict with the hon. Member for the Oxford University, who asserted that the Voluntary Schools were never in such a flourishing condition, or were doing such good work as they were at present. His hon. and learned Friend had taken upon himself to repudiate the charge that the Voluntary Schools were "laggard," but it had never been urged against the Voluntary Schools that they were laggard in point of time. They had never been reproached because they did not come into existence at an earlier date than they did, but they had been and were reproached with being laggard in efficiency. ["Hear, hear!"] In fact, as regarded the Voluntary Schools, he was firmly convinced that he was more favourably disposed towards them than the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury was towards the Board Schools. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] The Bill proposed to alter the whole of the position as regarded the Voluntary Schools, which by having this grant made to them would be deprived of the sympathy that was at present extended to them in many quarters, and instead of making them more popular would make them most unpopular. Was the attitude taken up by the Government in connection with this matter such as they had any right to expect! How was it to be supposed that the Government were going to bring in a Bill dealing with Voluntary Schools to the ex-elusion of Board Schools. ["Hear, hear!"] The First Lord of the Treasury had spoken of his speeches in the country, and the right hon. Gentleman expressed his sympathy with those who had read them. He was afraid he had not read them all. [Laughter.] That was his misfortune. But he had read a good many of them, and there was only one which appeared to him to convey any inkling of the intention of the Government. It was delivered at either Manchester or Rochdale, and he was sure the Vice President of the Council would remember it. [Laughter.] The right hon. Gentleman said that he was going to cut up the Vice President's big Bill and bring in a little Bill. That was the only intimation of the kind of Education
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  Bill that was going to be introduced. Who could have thought that in that process of dissection the right hon. Gentleman was going to cut apart that which had been advocated by persons of great responsibility and speakers of great weight as the principle to be followed?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: That is the only speech you have read.
  SIR FRANK LOCKWOODsaid that was the one which struck him as peculiarly indicating the course the right hon. Gentleman intended to follow. He supposed he was not allowed to refer any longer to that which his right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham referred—the statutory equality statement of the Duke of Devonshire. The right hon. Gentleman's explanation was that the Duke of Devonshire was opposed to anything like an interference with what he called statutory equality. That was said in answer to the demand of the Bishops for an alteration in the law which would give them a grant in respect of Voluntary Schools. The Duke of Devonshire was under the impression that the Bishops had come to ask for some alteration in the fixed grant, and he explained to the worthy prelates that under the law he could not do what they asked because he would be disturbing the statutory equality. The Duke of Devonshire said that the Bishops did not put their case very clearly. He would like to hear what the Bishops said about the Duke—[laughter]—but they had not taken the public into their confidence in this matter. The Duke of Devonshire explained the law to them, as they perfectly well knew it to be, and if they had not known it to be so they would not have waited on him. But what else was there to give notice of the change of attitude of the Government? It might be said that in last year's Bill there was a departure from this principle of statutory equality. The fourth section provided that certain advantages should be given to Voluntary Schools, and a member of a School Board pointed out to the Secretary for the Colonies to what a serious inequality that provision would give rise, and this was his answer:—
  "As regards the differentiation between Board and Voluntary Schools under the special aid grant, I feel there is prima facie much to be said on the matter, and I have no doubt this

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  clause will receive the fullest consideration in Committee on the Bill."
  That amounted to this, that that was a matter on which the Government had an open mind, and to which they would give benevolent consideration. The House had not the slightest notion of the attitude now adopted until the First Lord of the Treasury gave notice of his Resolution.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I am most unwilling to interrupt the hon. and learned Gentleman, but I must point out that I said specifically on more than one occasion that the question of Voluntary Schools would be the subject, and the only subject, of the Bill we should first introduce. ["Hear, hear!"]
  SIR FRANK LOCKWOODsaid he of course accepted the right hon. Gentleman's statement. He was only stating what an insignificant member of the public like himself thought. If the right hon. Gentleman stated that he had said he would deal with Voluntary Schools, and not with Board Schools, he accepted his statement, and would look for the speech. They were told that they must wait, and that there was another little Bill in preparation; but the right hon. Gentleman declined to let them know what was in that Bill, and it remained in the box. He thought that everyone would agree with him, however, that a Bill on the Table was worth: any number of Bills in the box. [Laughter.] If the right hon. Gentleman would only tell them that this second Bill would provide for an equivalent grant to Board Schools he would materially assist the progress of the present Measure. They were told that, by discussing the Bill before the House they were delaying the production of the other Bill. If that were an argument of any weight all the Government would have to do would be to put down for consideration a variety of Measures which were most obnoxious to the Opposition, and to answer criticism by saying, "Your opposition is most unreasonable, because by discussing these Measures you are preventing others which will be less objectionable to you from being reached." They would not be debarred from criticising the Bill now under consideration by the Government's statement that the injustice which they were creating by it
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  was an injustice which they hoped to remedy by a subsequent Measure. How apparent were the inequalities which this Bill would cause! In the Yorkshire towns, Hull, Bradford, Leeds, Middlesbrough, Halifax, Sheffield, York, and Huddersfield, there were 79,000 Voluntary School children and 148,000 Board School children. Under this Bill the latter would get nothing, although, if it were extended to Board Schools, they would get £37,000 a year. Lancashire, he knew, would not suffer the same amount of injustice, but he was a Yorkshireman, and as such he protested against this Bill. There never had been a great amount of friendly feeling between Yorkshire and Lancashire since the wars of the Roses. [Laughter.] Take the case of York. There the number of Voluntary School children was 7,621, and the number of Board School children 1,855. The former would get £1,900. He did not grudge them one penny of the money, but it was a great hardship that the Board Schools should not get the £463 to which they were entitled on a fair distribution of the money. The Solicitor General had endeavoured to justify the discrepancies shown to exist. He admired the discretion of the Government in selecting the hon. and learned Member as their apologist. It would never have done to have put up an English Member to defend this Bill. [Laughter and cheers.] But his hon. and learned Friend could go down to the Inverness Burghs without the slightest apprehension, for he would hear nothing about this Education Bill there. He would discuss the mussel beds of the Moray Firth or some other animating subject of that kind—[laughter]—and he would hear no word of reproach in, respect of his action in connection, with (his Bill. How would the proposed grant affect the subscription lists? The Government themselves were evidently apprehensive of the result, because they had introduced the words "due regard to be had to the maintenance of voluntary subscriptions." Of course those were most ineffective and indefinite words. The right hon. Member for the Montrose Burghs made an appeal to the Government to say what those words meant; but a discretion had been shown in avoiding an answer to the question. The Opposition knew what they wanted and what they ought to have, and they knew what

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  was the view of the right hon. Member for Dartford as to what ought to be the safeguard. The right hon. Gentleman said:—
  "It should be a sine qua non in all oases in which assistance was to be given to the locality that there should be some guarantee on the part of the locality that the subsisting subscriptions should be maintained."
  But there was nothing of the kind in the Bill. [Cheers.] There was a benevolent wish that these subscriptions might be continued; due regard was to be had to their maintenance; but beyond this indefinite suggestion there was absolutely nothing in the Bill which guaranteed their maintenance even at the present rate. The Government did more than show that they were indifferent in this matter. His hon. and learned Friend complained that nothing had been said with regard to the 17s. 6d. limit. That 17s. 6d. limit was at any rate in some cases a safeguard for the maintenance of the voluntary subscriptions, and this the Government had given up. What would be the best Amendment which could be made in this Measure? The Government should call it a "Denominational Education Bill," because that title would more fitly represent its aims and objects than if they retained the present title. On the question of control his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington was under the impression that the associations were to manage the schools. His hon. and learned Friend was evidently not aware that their duty was one of distribution, and he spoke of them as "suggested associations." of course his hon. and learned Friend knew nothing about them. [Laughter.] Who did? No one had been told how they were to be created, who were to be eligible for election to them, how long they were to continue, and what was to be their character. The right hon. Member for the Montrose Burghs had pressed this question, but had obtained no answer. His right hon. Friend had asked what permission there would be to "pool" the payments under the Bill. Would there be an objection to a rural dean "pooling" with an urban archdeacon? [Laughter.] But there had been no answer to the question. There was one good reason why those explanations could not be given-because there was no one opposite who was in a position to give them. [Laughter
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  and cheers.] It was not a matter on which the Government had as yet apparently made up their minds. There appeared to be two great principles which were outraged by this Bill which the House had a right to see preserved. The Vice President of the Council on May 5, 1896, said:—
  "the principles which ought to regulate the distribution of the separate aid grant are—first, that it should be given to the schools which require aid and not to the schools which do not require aid—[cheers]—secondly, that security should be taken that the money so given should be used for the purpose of improving the educational efficiency."
  [Cheers and counter-cheers.] Neither of those principles were secured by this Bill. [Cheers.] They were giving aid to Voluntary Schools with a free hand, and denying it to the Board Schools. ["No, no!"] Under this Bill not a halfpenny would be given to the Board Schools which the Government admitted to be necessitous. So far as efficiency was concerned the Government said in the most indefinite language that certain things should be done, but they did not make it imperative that an audit should be held. No precautions were taken to see that the grant of public money should be dispersed in the interest for which it was apparently suggested, and for the objects which ought to be achieved—namely, efficiency in our education. [Cheers.]
  THE VICE: PKESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir JOHN GORST,), who, on rising, was received with ironical Opposition cheers and counter Ministerial cheers, said: The hon. and learned Gentleman began his speech by a personal challenge to me which I feel it would be scarcely respectful to the House if I were not to take up. May I first correct an error into which the hon. and learned Gentleman has fallen? The Education Department of this country is presided over by a. Committee of the Privy Council which has a. President as well as a Vice President. [A laugh] The hon. and learned Gentleman having asked that the views of the Committee of the Privy Council on this Bill should be made known to the House of Commons, I am the person upon whom that duty properly devolves; and if the House has any interest in the views of that Committee I will endeavour in a few words—

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  [loud Opposition laughter]—to make those views known. The Committee of Council are a body of very practical men, and in the discharge of their official duties they do not question whether it is desirable or undesirable that Voluntary Schools should exist. They find that more than half the children of this country are now being educated in Voluntary Schools, and it was therefore their business to do which lies in their power, and to accept with gratitude any legislation which Parliament may pass to make those Voluntary Schools efficient. [Cheers.] Now, some of the Voluntary Schools are, of course, equal to the best Board Schools in the education they give, but average Voluntary Schools are not so efficient as the best Board Schools, and they are inefficient for two reasons. First of all, they lack money, and then they lack organisation, and this Bill supplies both. [Cheers and counter-cheers.] Now, the hon. and learned Member for York was rather pathetic in the doubts he threw upon the question whether, when this money was given to the Voluntary Schools, it would not go in relief of subscriptions, and I think other hon. Members have been equally sceptical as to the ultimate destination of this money. Well, the Committee of Council think—[laughter]—that if the Bill were to pass in its present form they would take special power to insure that the money voted by the benevolence of Parliament would really reach the schools, because they are to have "due regard to maintenance of Voluntary subscriptions." I do not think that the prescription of any definite minimum subscription would be an advisable experiment; first, because the minimum would have a great tendency to become a maximum, and, secondly, because the conditions of districts vary so much one from another that what would be a very proper prescription in one place would be an extremely improper one in another. [Cheers.] Therefore the Department, the Committee of Council, think—[laughter]—that, if they take very good care that the fact of falling off of subscriptions without any good and sufficient reason should never be recognised by them as of itself a ground for making a grant to any school, they would be able then to secure that at all events this special aid grant had not tended to
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  diminish the subscriptions at present given. They would have to take into consideration the possibility in any locality of obtaining adequate subscriptions, and they would take very good care that this special aid grant should supplement and not supplant the subscriptions already given in the district. Therefore I think that the present Bill will secure the object of putting larger sums of money into the hands of the managers of necessitous Board Schools—[ironical cheers]—and if that money is properly spent the schools will become more efficient. [Opposition laughter.] We are getting on step by step. Now how are we to secure, or how is the Department to secure, after this Bill is passed that this money will be applied to the proper parties? I have very often said to the House on occasions when addressing them on this subject, that the Education Department cannot of itself, with nearly 20,000 schools with which it has to correspond, discriminate between school and school, that there must be some local body to assist, and upon their advice it can discriminate between those schools which realty want aid and those which do not. Last year a body was proposed, a public body, an elective body, and hon. Gentlemen opposite would not have it. [Cheers.] This year another body is proposed. It is to be a voluntary associated body. Speakers on the other side have complained that they know nothing of the constitution of this association. Well, the Committee of Council are not, like certain public bodies in this country, a Department which will not carry out the decisions of Parliament—they are bound to carry out the decisions of Parliament. [Laughter.] But until the decisions of Parliament are known, and until they see the exact shape in which this Bill will be ultimately passed, it would be somewhat presumptuous, even in the Vice President of the Committee—[laughter]—to put the Act of Parliament into execution. [Laughter and cheers.] I think I can satisfy hon. Gentlemen opposite that the task is not an impossible one, and if Parliament were to please to intrust to the body of which I am the Vice President the duty of performing that task, they think they would be able to do it to the satisfaction of Parliament and

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  of the country. [Cheers.] The associations would have to be associations of considerable size. They would not be merely small groups of schools, but would represent something like a million of population. Then the governing body of these associations would be a body which would represent the managers of the individual schools. It would prevent that isolation of managers which is often legitimately complained of now, and which occasionally produces such very unfortunate results in our educational history. [Opposition cheers.] With the managers meeting together, bound in one common association, individual eccentricities would at least have a tendency to be suppressed. [Ironical cheers.] There would be no attempt to interfere with the individual management of the schools. Every effort would be made to prevent the loss of what is called local interest—["hear, hear!"]—so that the school would still be the school of the locality and the parish. But the managers of the various parishes would meet together, and so be brought into contact with one another. They would have a representative on the council of the association, and I presume that in a short time a considerable amount of experience and knowledge would be gained by the associated body, which would be of enormous value to the managers of individual schools, and would teach them better methods and encourage them in a very much improved management. The larger the association, the better would be the management, and the less would be the waste. Because it would be impossible for the Committee of the Privy Council, however wise, to discriminate between one association and another. They would have to give the same proportionate amount of special aid grant to one association as to another. They could not discriminate between the richer and the poorer, and therefore the larger you make the association the more likely they are to represent the average of the country, and the less risk of an undue amount of special aid grant going to one.
  MR. JOHN DILLON: Is there no power in the Bill to discriminate between associations in proportion to the necessities of the schools forming them?
  SIR J. GORST: No, there is not; and therefore the larger the association the
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  more likely you are to get the average level. ["Hear, hear!"] I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman can suggest any improvement by which such a power of discrimination could be exercised, but I do not see any possibility of it. ["Hear, hear!"] On the other hand, these associations must not be so large that they lose their local character, because the members of the council of the association, must be in a position to estimate the relative condition of the different schools. The schools which would join the association would certainly he all the poorest schools; and I hope that none would stand out. If a great number stood out they would impose upon the Committee of Council, I do not like to say an impossible task, but an extremely difficult task which I doubt their capability of accomplishing. And the Bill is based upon the supposition that practically all schools would go into these associations. Those that stood out would be the exceptional cases; and the power in the Bill to refuse the grant to schools which did not join the association would have to be pretty freely used, so that no school would remain out without a valid excuse. [Opposition cheers.] These associations being so formed they would have the duty of preparing and submitting to the Department a scheme for the distribution of these grants in accordance with the terms of the Bill, so as to insure that the money would go to the schools that want it, and that it would be used by those schools for the purpose of improving education. Remember, this scheme is proposed by the association, but it is to be decided upon and approved by the Committee of Council, which is responsible to this House, and whose acts in approving or disapproving the scheme of any association can be called in question in this House. ["Hear, hear!"] The Department will have the assistance of its inspectors—men of considerable experience, spread over the whole of the country, acquainted to a great extent with the local necessities—who will advise the Department, and who will, I think, put them in a position to know whether any scheme which is sent up from any part of the country is one carrying out the designs of Parliament or not. Well, now, a scheme will not only have to indicate the amount of

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  public money which is to be allotted to each of the constituent schools, but it will also have to prescribe the purposes for which the money so allotted shall be used by the school. [An HON. MEMBER: "Will the schemes be published?"] That is a detail I have not gone into, but I have no doubt the schemes will be published. Now, may I just remind the House—we are talking practically now; we are talking about what we have talked very little about during this Debate—[Opposition cheers]—may I point out to the House what these associations may recommend and what the Education Department may prescribe! They may prescribe, for instance, that schools in the area for which the association is formed shall have a sufficient number of teachers, shall have additional teachers. I am quite sure that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rotherham will agree with me when I say it is impossible that there can be efficient education in any school in which the teacher is entirely single-handed—["hear, hear!"]—and yet there are all over the country numbers of small schools in which the teacher is single-handed. I am sure that if hon. Members would visit one of these schools they would be astonished that any person could conduct the school under the circumstances in which he was placed. ["Hear, hear!"] Well, the association may prescribe that in every school there shall be an assistant teacher, or at least one or more pupil teachers. They may prescribe that no school is to be kept on the minimum staff required by the Department. They may raise the level of education; and I should like to say I have often heard in this Debate Members talk about the Education Department having raised the cost of education. It is not the Education Department that has done that; it is the public opinion of the country. [Opposition cheers.] I do not think that even in the enlightened days of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rotherham the Department was ever very much in advance of public opinion. Notwithstanding all the eulogies heaped upon the Education Department in this Debate, I am inclined to think the Education Department have, if anything, rather lagged behind—[Opposition cheers]—and so far from the minimum staff being some tyrannical Measure
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  inflicted on schools by the Education Department, it is that which I remember the late Archbishop of Canterbury, in a speech he made shortly before his death, said it was a standard to which every school ought to come—I do not recollect his exact words—and that most of the Church Schools, he was thankful to say, had arrived at it. Well, you may raise the standard. Then you may raise the salaries. ["Hear, hear!"] There are many schoolmasters and mistresses who are now receiving salaries far below those they ought to receive. ["Hear, hear!"] They are exercising one of the most important functions to society; upon their efforts depend the welfare of the rising generation, and how can poorly-fed and poorly-clad men and women fulfil duties of that kind in a manner in which they ought to discharge them? ["Hear, hear!"] I believe many hon. Members little know the enormous strain which is put upon the teacher, sometimes the solitary, single-handed teacher, especially in small village schools. ["Hear, hear!"] Then there is improved apparatus. There are desks; there are better seats; there are the little museums of objects which go so far to enlighten and enliven children in schools; there is the apparatus now necessary for the manual instruction which is prescribed in all the lower standards and is very much used in the schools; and, finally, there is the apparatus for physical exercise. Now, all those are things which the associations will recommend and which the Education Department will prescribe, and that is how this money is to go. I am quite certain that the Government—I do not know that I have a right to speak for my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Treasury, who is not here at present—[Opposition ironical laughter]—but I can speak as far as the Committee of Council is concerned—any Amendment which really goes to secure that this State aid grant shall be used really for the purpose of promoting and improving the education of the country will be welcomed by the Government. [Opposition cheers.] Lastly, I ask what guarantee have we that the money when given will be so applied? You have got the audit. ["Oh!"] Well, if the Education Department may prescribe an audit, I think I can undertake that they will prescribe an

  489
  audit, that they will take rare that, in cases where schools receive this State aid grant, the grant is really applied to purposes Parliament intended. I hope I have been short and practical—["hear, hear!"]—and I hope I have not been betrayed into taking any part in the party Debate, in which I would have joined with the very greatest reluctance. I do not shine in these party Debates on education any more than the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rotherham shines. [Loud laughter and cheers.] Both he and I have had a great deal too much to do practically with this question to enjoy seeing it made the shuttlecock of Parties on the floor of this House—["Hear, hear!"]—and both he and I know that 30 years hence, when the consistency or inconsistency of the Gentlemen who ornament the two front Benches will be forgotten, those children whom our legislation will affect will be the men and women upon whom will depend the destinies of the Empire. [Cheers.]
  MR. T. LOUGHsaid the Solicitor General had stated that no objection had been taken on this side of the) House to the fact that rates on Voluntary Schools would be paid under the Bill. For his part, he would like to take objection to that clause so long as Board Schools were not equally treated. He saw no reason why there should be any differentiation on that point any more than on others. The Solicitor General also said there was not a single necessitous Board School in London. There were, however, plenty of necessitous ratepayers in London, and if the Government put too heavy a tax on those ratepayers they would wake one morning to find that they had strained the patience of London too far. Personally he thought there was a principle that applied to Roman Catholic Schools that did not apply to schools connected with the Church of England, and he believed the London School Board had, by the provision of two or three Jewish Schools, recognised that the Jews had got a genuine grievance. But speaking generally of the country, the Church of England had got no legitimate reason to differ, so far as he knew, from the system of education that was given in their Board Schools. In the case of the Roman Catholics, however, it was not only the form of religion, so far as religion was
  490
  taught in the Board Schools, that he objected to. They objected to the history that was taught in the Board Schools, and therefore he thought there was a difference in principle between the treatment of the Roman Catholics and of the Church of England Schools. There was another point, and that was that not one of the Roman Catholic Schools had been abandoned to the School Board, while about 1,200 Church Schools had been given over to the School Board. That showed the Roman Catholics held their schools with a tenacity which did not distinguish the Church of England, and that again entitled them to different treatment. He thought that in the Debate that night and on Friday night the line of cleavage had been too stringently drawn by some speakers on this side of the House. A good deal of time had been occupied by stating what he might call the extreme Radical claim with regard to education. He had got some respect for facts, and among the facts for which he had got respect was the one that the Government were in power and had got a majority of something like 140 at their back. Therefore parties should move as far as possible in the direction of meeting each, other's views in discussion until the point of conflict resolved upon was reached, rather than talk of the extreme views on either side. The supporters of the Government said help was wanted for Voluntary Schools, and the Opposition did not deny that, and on certain terms would agree that help should be given to Voluntary Schools. But the Bill went further, and declared that help should be given to Voluntary Schools but none to Board Schools, and here was the point of conflict with the Government. He had heard every assurance that the First Lord of the Treasury had given; he had heard all about that little Bill yet to be brought forward; and he was not satisfied, nor was he reassured by the remembrance of the clause about Board Schools in the Bill of last year. Necessitous Board Schools were to receive £50,000, but now Voluntary Schools were to receive £620,000. He would assent to nothing except that Board Schools should be treated with absolute equality with Voluntary Schools; whatever grant per head was given to scholars in Voluntary Schools should equally be extended to

  491
  Board Schools. That was not an unreasonable position to take up. He desired to make this claim in the first place in the interest of subscribers to Voluntary Schools. The Solicitor General and the First Lord had said the Bill was not to give subscribers any relief, and the First Lord said he was not going to give any relief to ratepayers. But the ratepayer should have relief; he was hard pressed, and in this matter of education had made great sacrifices. In any arrangement made the ratepayer should not be left out. The First Lord suggested that landlords would be relieved, but he was not thinking of them. In London the landlords were not ratepayers. The rates were paid by the occupiers, and ground landlords escaped payment. He was thinking of the ratepayers, who had but small purses, from which they drew large contributions for education. He objected to the Bill because ratepayers were treated very unfairly under it. He did not object to assist Voluntary Schools on condition that Board Schools received a grant in assistance to the same proportion. He cast no reproach against Voluntary Schools; they had accomplished a noble work, and 40 or 50 years before Board Schools were in existence they alone held aloft the lamp of education in the country. In 1870, before any Board School was founded, there were 1,200,000 scholars in 8,280 Voluntary Schools in the country. It was a great work for any organisation to carry on, and he did not wish to depreciate it. It must also be remembered that Voluntary Schools received great help from the State. Constant grants were made to them. In 1870 the grant was something like 10s. per head of the children in the schools, and it continually increased until now, not including the fee grant, it was 18s. 5d. per child. There was great assistance given in the noble work Voluntary Schools had done for half a century. Voluntary Schools had great advantages in carrying on the work; the traditions of education were with them; they had as managers gentlemen trained at the Universities, who knew the value of education. No wonder they accomplished great work, and the value of it he did not wish to minimise. Then he turned to the work of the Board Schools to see how
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  it bore upon this Measure. Notwithstanding the great work Voluntary Schools did, there was in 1870 great work to be accomplished by Board Schools. He believed that even then there was something like 1,500,000 children throughout the country for whom no provision existed in any school, and so these Board Schools came into existence. They spent at first 33s. per head per child, but now in London they spent an average of £2 10s. per head. Who was it who undertook this great work for the Board Schools? They saw the most striking contrast between those who had taken up this work for the Board Schools and the managers of Voluntary Schools. In the case of Board Schools they were only simple citizens, men who had to struggle hard for their living from day to day. They got together children and accomplished in London and other great centres noble work in organising these great Boards. He thought gentlemen who were so eloquent in praise of the Voluntary Schools ought to be able in the cause of education to spare a little sympathy for the great work accomplished by the Board Schools. He wanted to ask the House this question, what was the attitude Parliament had adopted towards those two bodies up to the present moment? It had been an entirely impartial attitude, reward being given in accordance with the quality of the work done. What was the result? When the Boards came into existence in 1872 they found that in the first examinations the Voluntary Schools were easily ahead of the Board Schools, and continued so until 1880. When the test of examinations was applied to the schools in the two systems the Voluntary Schools easily led. This was not to be wondered at when they bore in mind the facts. The Voluntary Schools had all the traditions of learning in their favour when the Board Schools were organised by new bodies which did not know much about the matter, so that for the first eight years the grants given according to results went mostly to the Voluntary Schools. At the end of eight years—in 1880—they found a change, and then the Board Schools began to take the highest grants. After they once got the lead the Board Schools never fell behind, and a list of the returns showed that on an

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  average all over the country there was a shilling per child more earned by Board Schools according to the test of efficiency which Parliament had applied than was earned by the scholars in the Voluntary Schools. It proved that, according to the impartial test which Parliament applied, after twenty years existence of the Board Schools, they were able easily to lead the Voluntary Schools in this great race of education. The noble Lord the Member for Rochester said: "I fully admit that the secular education in the Board Schools is better than that in the Voluntary Schools." The noble Lord made several grave admissions to the House which, he thought, would hereafter be found a little disastrous to the Bill, and of all the grave admissions he thought that was the most serious. Why should not the gentlemen who had been trained in the Universities, and who were managers of private schools, still have sustained the position they occupied as the leaders of education? Why should poor citizens be able to out-distance them. The right hon. Member for the Montrose Burghs, replying to the noble Lord the Member for Rochester, said the noble Lord was absolutely sincere in everything he said in that House. He readily admitted that. He would observe that the noble Lord was also very astute, and he often made an admission of this kind to prevent it being made with a more damaging effect from the Opposition side of the House. When the word "secular" was used by the noble Lord there was a smell of brimstone about it. He wanted to see whether there was anything which made it creditable to the Voluntary Schools to be behind the Board Schools in the matter of secular education. What was the object of education by both classes of schools? It was to fit children to be good citizens. Take the test, first, of the girls' schools. A special allowance was made by the Education Department for laundry work, yet only 713 were taught it in the Voluntary Schools and 11,000 in the Board Schools. Take cookery; 33,000 were taught it in the Voluntary Schools, but 93,000 in the Board Schools. He submitted that there was a truer instinct for educating the children, and educational work was better accomplished in the Board Schools than in the Voluntary Schools. As regarded the boys, French and German
  494
  were taught to only 3,000 boys in the Voluntary Schools, but to 10,000 in the Board Schools, and the students of algebra were 13,000 compared with 24,000. These were proofs of fact that there was a keener appreciation of a good education in the Board Schools, and though the traditions were all on the side of Voluntary Schools, yet the Board Schools gave a better and higher education. The noble Lord the Member for Rochester praised the religious education of Voluntary Schools. There was no test, and if there were, he believed that Board Schools, as in secular subjects, would do well, and if a definition of religion was to prepare the child to live a better life, all the subjects taught in the Board Schools eminently fitted a child for discharging his duties in later life socially and to the State. Hon. Members opposite seemed to think rates were more easily paid than subscriptions. The fact that the rate was compulsory made it a far heavier burden on the citizen. 125 Voluntary Schools had been warned for inefficiency, but only 27 Board Schools. London paid £3 8s. in School Board rate, and yet no part of England was so unfairly treated. She would pay £140,000 of the £620,000 to be allocated under the Bill, and yet she received only £40,000 in return. These rates were felt to be very heavy in London. Within the last six months, in the parish he represented a gentleman offered £10,000 to the parish to build free libraries in it if the ratepayers would adopt the Free Libraries Act; but, although this would have involved a rate of not more than a penny, and probably of not more than a half-penny in the pound, the ratepayers refused, by a great majority, to put themselves under this rate. They must agree that the work of the Board Schools was better done than that of the Voluntary Schools. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer could find £600,000 for Voluntary Schools, he could easily find £400,000 for the Board Schools. But he believed that they refused to allot this money in accordance with the excellence of the education that was given because they wished to give it rather to religious denominations. That was a bad system.
  Debate further adjourned till Tomorrow.

  SUPPLY [12th FEBRUARY].
  Resolutions reported;

  ARMY ESTIMATES, 1897–8.
  (1.) "That a number of Land Forces, not exceeding 158,774, all ranks, be maintained for the Service of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland at Home and Abroad, excluding Her Majesty's Indian Possessions, during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1898."
  Resolution Read a Second time, and agreed to.
  (2.) "That a sum, not exceeding £5,937,800, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge for the Pay, Allowances, and other Charges of Her Majesty's Army at Home and Abroad (exclusive of India) (General Staff, Regiments, Reserve, and Departments), which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1898."
  Resolution read a Second time, and agreed to.
  (3.) "That a sum, not exceeding £295,800, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge for the Pay, &c, of the Medical Establishment, and the Cost of Medicines, &c, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1898."
  Resolution Read a Second time.
  DR. FARQUHARSONsaid he was glad to find that the grievances of the Army Medical Department were now attracting the serious attention of the War Office, and when he told the House that the Department was seriously undermanned, that civil practitioners had to be largely used to fill up the ranks, and that only 25 candidates could be found to compete, if such a term could be justified, for 40 vacancies, it must be evident that there was something far wrong about the present system. However, he was grateful for the concessions that had been made. The arrangement of Indian pay is most satisfactory, and the reduction of Indian service from six years to five, would be well received by the medical profession, and would be most beneficial to the health of the officers concerned. He hoped that the War Office would also give sympathetic consideration to the modest plea put forward by the Army doctors for an occasional short leave for study purposes, so that they might remove the rust of foreign service
  496
  and keep up to the advancing progress of professional science. Rut these concessions, gratifying though they were, could not be accepted as a final settlement unless to them were added the fulfilment of the strong desire of the Department for definite military titles in a definite corps, like the Royal Engineers. This worked well in Italy and America and elsewhere and was found to be most beneficial and essential on active service, now that Army surgeons were called upon to perform so many strictly military duties. The compound titles, cumbrous though they were, had worked well and were so gradually familiarising the combatant mind with the idea of militarism in connection with doctors, that no doubt before long the process of evolution would make the further stage of progress easy. In conclusion he asked his right hon. Friend to consider whether he could not improve the social position of the doctor, by attaching for a definite number of years to a regiment.
  MR. ARTHUR JEFFREYS (Hants,)called attention to the terrible increase of disease in the Indian Army, notwithstanding the advance of medical science and the great ability of the Army doctors. He represented Alder-shot, where there were 16,000 soldiers; he had 2,000 soldier constituents, and, therefore, thought it his duty to call attention to this painful subject. The increase of a certain disease among the men in India was of the most appalling nature. Last Session he had moved for a Return on the subject; and the information given was certainly startling. Gibraltar had recently been described by the Under Secretary for War as a healthy station, and in a certain sense it was healthy. The number of men sick there in 1893 was 27 per thousand, and in 1894 30 per thousand, as compared with 16 per thousand in England. But in Bengal the admissions to hospital had increased from 449 to 500 per thousand; in Madras from 483 to 516 per thousand, and in Bombay from 436 to 544 per thousand. Therefore he ventured to call the attention of the House to this terribly increasing form of disease. The case of the West India regiment was equally bad, but he should not read the statistics. Now, what ha wished to ask the Government was whether the medical department could not do something to stop or mitigate the

  497
  formidable ravages of this terrible disease. It was not his purpose to suggest what should be done, but surely, at a time when they were told that it was necessary to increase the Army because it was too small, it would be much better to stop a disease which was disastrous to so many men in the Army. ["Hear, hear!"] He thought it would be a waste of time to discuss the matter, and he simply asked his right hon. Friend whether he would give it his attention. He had no doubt he could suggest what could be done.
  *THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,)said he quite realised the object of his hon. Friend behind him in bringing the subject before the House, but he was afraid the remedy for what he complained of was not in the hands of the medical officers but of that House. A change had been deliberately made in accordance with a strong expression of opinion in Parliament. That was in 1893, and in that year and since then it appeared from the statistics that there had been a development of the worst form of disease. His hon. Friend had not been quite clear as to the figures. Reference had been made to 400 or 500 per thousand, but in India the admissions during the year were not admissions of different men, but of the same men coining back to hospital on several occasions. Consequently it was to be hoped there was not nearly so large a proportion of individual cases as suggested by the figures. Still, it was so serious that the Secretary of State for India had found it necessary to appoint a Departmental Committee. Pending the Report of the Inquiry he was sure the House would not expect him to say anything further. His hon. Friend opposite had mentioned several points which he asked him to consider. They were all points of a practical nature. If it were possible to attach medical officers to regiments when they first joined it would, no doubt, have a good effect in many ways. At the same time the present system had been adopted after great consideration, and he doubted whether it would be possible to carry out the arrangements suggested by his hon. Friend. He hoped that on, one or two other points his hon. Friend had mentioned he would be able to give satisfactory assurances.
  COLOSEL LOCKWOODasked whether the result of the Inquiry by the Departmental Committee would be laid on the Table?
  *MR. BRODRICK: I think the question ought to be addressed to the Secretary of State for India.
  *CAPTAIN PIRIEsaid that the responsibility which this great national evil threw upon the House was enormously increased by the fact that it involved not only men but largo numbers of mere boys, and he ventured to impress upon the House the gravity of the responsibility they owed to the soldiers whom they got to serve the country. While this state of things was prevalent, it was not a matter for surprise that some parents felt a reluctance to sec their boys entered in a service which in so many cases caused them to end their days in hospitals and workhouses, owing to their invalided and unhealthy condition.
  MR. HUBERT DUNCOMBEsaid he desired to ask whether an opportunity of discussing this question would be given this Session after the Departmental Committee had reported? If the right hon. Gentleman could do that he thought the Vote might pass without further protest, but if not, he thought no man who had taken an interest in the matter could allow the Vote to pass.
  MR. JOHN BURNSasked whether the right hon. Gentleman, pending the Report of the Committee, would appeal to the medical authorities at Netley Hospital for a Report of the condition of things in that Hospital. He was informed that the condition of the troops there was too bad for words. He thought it would do no harm if a few Members of that House went down and saw with their own eyes the condition of the poor fellows in Netley Hospital.
  *MR. BRODRICKsaid that he understood that the Indian Committee had themselves visited Netley and made investigations there. Under these circumstances he thought it only proper to await their Report before taking further steps.
  Resolution agreed to.

  MILITARY WORKS (MONEY) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Thursday.
  PUBLIC HEALTH (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Adjourned Debate on Second Reading (5th February) further adjourned till Thursday.

  MILITARY LANDS (1892) AMENDMENT BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  Clause 1:—
  Committee report progress; to sit again To-morrow.

  TRUSTS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Committee deferred till To-morrow.
  LAW OF EVIDENCE (CRIMINAL CASES) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Thursday.
  SUPPLY.
  Committee deferred till Wednesday.
  WAYS AND MEANS.
  Committee deferred till Wednesday.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT (1894) AMENDMENT BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Friday.
  POOR LAW OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION (IRELAND) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Wednesday, 10th March.

  CRETE.
  On the Motion "That this House do now adjourn,"
  MR. EDWARD MORTONsaid he wished to ask a question on a matter respecting which the Government, he thought, had not treated the House properly. It would be in the recollection of hon. Members that in the afternoon a question was asked with reference to the Greek expedition alleged to have gone to Crete. The Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs refused, however, to supply any information on the subject or to allow any interpretation whatever to be put upon his reticence. But at that very time the Prime Minister was making a statement in another place. Members of that House had been compelled to obtain their information from the evening newspapers. According to the published reports the Prime Minister had made the very important statements that the Powers had agreed unanimously to make a very strong representation to Greece upon what he called the "unwisdom" of its attempt, that this country was in entire accord with the Powers, that the British Government had addressed to Greece language of "great earnestness," and had practically placed the policy of this country in the hands of the majority of the Powers in regard to the treatment of Greece in view of possible hostilities. Was it impossible thus early to get a perfectly plain declaration on behalf of the Government that in no circumstances would the forces of this country be used against Greece or for Turkey in the event of hostilities? Further, there was a rumour which had created a most unfeigned feeling of delight, in his quarter of the House, at any rate, that a Greek expeditionary force had actually succeeded in landing at Canea.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. R. W. HANBURY,): I do not think it is possible to give the hon. Member any information to-night on the points he has raised at rather an inconvenient time. But it is quite possible for him to put a notice on the Paper and to receive a reply to-morrow. ["Hear, hear!"]
  House adjourned at Twenty-five minutes after Twelve o'clock.

CRETE.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I wish to ask the noble Marquess a question of which I have given him private notice. It is whether he is able to make any statement as to the position of affairs in Crete, and whether he can lay on the Table Papers respecting the arrangements entered into by the Powers last summer for the better administration of that island?
*THE PRIME MINISTER (The MARQUESS of SALISBURY): I will answer the latter part of the Question first by saying that a considerable mass of Papers are ready to be laid before Parliament, and that they have been delayed because it was thought necessary to submit them to the various Consuls who have to revise them. Their work is so heavy that they have not been able to get through them so rapidly as was expected. I hope in a few days they will be in the noble Lord's hands. With regard to the state of affairs in Crete, I suppose there is not much dispute about the facts. Reforms had been arranged and were being carried into effect, when the Hellenic Government, apparently forced by opinion among their own subjects, have intervened, have sent ships and have sent troops to Cretan waters. All the Powers, without exception, were of opinion that this was a most ill-advised act, and as scon as there was any indication that it was in meditation they protested against it and expressed their opinion in very earnest language to the Greek Government. So much for the state of things as it now exists. The Powers retain their opinion of the utter unwisdom of the act that has taken place, and I think they have no disposition in any way to sanction it. Her Majesty's Government retain the attitude which they have observed of keeping in concert with the other Powers of Europe and acting together with them. Our naval officers have received instructions to take no isolated action, but to concert with the naval officers of the other Powers.
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Evidently it is one of the consequences of acting in concert with other Powers that you cannot speak confidently in the future tense as to the course which they may intend to pursue. It is in itself more difficult to do than if you were acting independently, and, besides that, it would be obviously improper. I can only say, therefore, that the concert and sympathy of the Powers remains complete, and that we have no ground for thinking that it will be diminished, or that they have any intention of departing from the policy they have hitherto pursued. [Cheers.]
VISCOUNT CLIFDEN: Might I ask the noble Marquess whether any Greeks have been landed in Crete?
*THE PRIME MINISTER: I am not aware that they have. I think not.

HOUSE OF LORDS (DISMISSAL OF MR. JOHN BULL).
*LORD MONKSWELLmoved:—
"That the petition of Mr. John Bull, complaining of his dismissal by the Lord Great Chamberlain in July last from the office of resident superintendent of the Palace of Westminster, he referred to a Committee of this House."
He said he desired to make it quite clear at the onset, that he did not contemplate making anything in the nature of an attack upon the noble Lord the Lord Great Chamberlain. That noble Lord was intrusted by their Lordships with the discharge of certain duties involving heavy responsibilities, and he had not the slightest doubt, nor could their Lordships have the slightest doubt, that the Lord Great Chamberlain had, as he had already stated, given the most careful and anxious consideration to the case of Mr. Bull. Neither had he the slightest doubt that the Lord Great Chamberlain was thoroughly convinced that the dismissal of Mr. Bull was imperatively called for, however ruinous such dismissal might be to that gentleman's prospects in life, and that there was absolutely no other course open to him in the interest of the maintenance of discipline among the minor officials of that House than to adopt the very extreme measure of dismissing Mr. Bull. He thought that if the Committee he asked for were appointed, it would

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probably be found that the Lord Great Chamberlain was mistaken in the view he held as to the conduct of Mr. Bull. If that should prove to be the case, the fault would be not with the Lord Great Chamberlain, but in the present system under which these officials were appointed and dismissed. That system had been greatly censured by many high authorities in that House and notably by Lord Morley, the Chairman of Committees, and by his noble and learned Friend Lord Herschell. In his view the question of the continuance of the system should be referred to the Committee, and it appeared to him that possibly a thorough investigation into all the circumstances attending the dismissal of Mr. Bull might throw a practical light upon the working of the present system. That, however, was not the only ground upon which he asked their Lordships to appoint this Committee. His next reason for asking for the appointment must commend itself to every one of their Lordships, including even the Lord Great Chamberlain himself. He ventured to say that, if Mr. Bull chose to press for the appointment of this Committee he occupied a very strong position, owing to the strange and almost unprecedented circumstance that he had been dismissed without having been given an opportunity of stating his case before the Lord Great Chamberlain. Therefore, if their Lordships granted this Committee, they would only be giving Mr. Bull an opportunity of defending himself which had been denied to him by the Lord Great Chamberlain. Upon this point he thought that Mr. Bull had made out a strong case at least for inquiry. There was no public body in the Kingdom, whether it were a County Council, a Board of Guardians, or a Vestry, which would dismiss anyone in its service without giving him an opportunity of stating his case in his defence. This refusal on the part of the Lord Great Chamberlain to hear Mr. Bull in his defence, was not due to any negligence on the part of Mr. Bull himself, who had asked over and over again for an opportunity to be given him of being heard in his defence, and who had had his request refused. What the answer of the Lord Great Chamberlain would be to his Motion might be gathered from the papers which were before their Lordships,
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namely, that the case was so simple and so clear that it would have been a mere formality to have asked Mr. Bull to come forward and explain his conduct, that the interview must have been necessarily an exceedingly painful one to all parties, and could not possibly have any useful result. It was, however, seldom quite safe to assume that a man had nothing to urge on his own behalf, and those who had been concerned in litigation must be aware of the truth of the adage that "one story is good until another is heard." For his own part he should certainly have done all he could to have dissuaded Mr. Bull from asking for this Committee, and he should not have put down this Motion upon the Paper had he not satisfied himself, without in any way prejudging the case, that Mr. Bull could produce strong evidence in support of the substantial accuracy of the statement which he had made. A very short review of the facts would show that the case against Mr. Bull was not quite as simple or as clear as the Lord Great Chamberlain appeared to think. Mr. Bull began his career in the ranks. In 1881 his conduct and his ability were so exceedingly favourably reported upon that he obtained the rank of lieutenant, and of quartermaster in the Royal Engineers. In May, 1890, he was appointed by the Lord Great Chamberlain to the position from which he had recently been dismissed. He did not think that their Lordships would consider that, having regard to his length of service, and to his exemplary character whilst in the Army, this position, having attached to it a salary of £300 per annum with a residence at Westminster, was too great a recognition of his merits. When he left the Army to accept the appointment, Mr. Bull's prospects were exceeding good, and he only accepted the appointment for domestic reasons. The appointment was certainly not more than an equivalent for what he had a right to expect had he continued in the Army. Mr. Bull entered upon the duties of office with the feeling that he would be able to discharge them to the satisfaction of everyone with whom he was likely to come into contact, and his career in the Army afforded absolute proof of his competency to perform them. He had looked forward to a settled home, and to

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the enjoyment of a competence and an honourable retirement. Mr. Bull had hoped that he would obtain the regard and esteem not only of his superiors but also of those with whom he came into daily communication. He believed that Mr. Bull did discharge his duties zealously, scrupulously, and industriously, and that he conciliated the regard and esteem of nearly all of his fellow-officials. But, most unfortunately for Mr. Bull, there was one exception—there was one man who from the first looked very unfavourably upon him, and it happened, most unfortunately for Mr. Bull, that this man was a person whom the Lord Great Chamberlain had every reason to trust, and upon whom he naturally relied for information with regard to the conduct of the minor officials of the House. Mr. Bull was dismissed practically upon two grounds for disobedience to orders following upon what the Lord Great Chamberlain said he must have known was an unsatisfactory course of conduct. Mr. Bull believed that, if he had been given an opportunity of explaining his case to the Lord Great Chamberlain, he would have been able to show that the charges of trivial alleged neglect of duty on a few occasions which were made against him were almost entirely unfounded. Had he been able to prove that he was the victim of misrepresentations in respect of those charges, in all probability the Lord Great Chamberlain would have taken a totally different view of his case, and would have come to the conclusion that, instead of being entitled to no consideration he was entitled to great consideration. He would now come to the question of the so-called disobedience to orders. It certainly would appear upon the face of it that Mr. Bull, with his previous record as a non-commissioned officer, which he was informed was the best of any noncommissioned officer in the service, with his military training and experience, would not have been guilty of disobedience to orders. Mr. Bull's case was that he acted under a misapprehension of the nature of the orders, a misapprehension which might show a certain amount of fault on his part, and that he believed that what he was told to do was not in the nature of an order, but was a
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mere request on the part of the Lord Great Chamberlain, which he might assent to or refuse as he deemed fit. That request was that he should undertake to discharge the duties of the man whom he regarded as his bitterest enemy, and who was regarded in that light not only by him, but also by many others who were in the precincts of the House. The duties he was so asked to discharge were those of a man who filled the positions not only of a clerk in the Lord Great Chamberlain's office, but also of Secretary to the Coaching Club, and Mr. Bull was requested to discharge his duties as clerk, in order that he might officiate as Secretary to the Coaching Club at a time when he ought to have been discharging his duties in the House. Mr. Bull felt, whether rightly or wrongly—and he thought there was considerable ground for his contention—that that was an order the Lord Great Chamberlain ought not to have given him, and he felt that the Lord Great Chamberlain was encouraging a man to commit a serious breach of the Treasury regulation which forbade a person to take other work during office hours. He did not know whether Mr. Bull was right or wrong in that contention, but it was Mr. Bull's belief that that was the case. Mr. Bull naturally could not help contrasting his experience with the Lord Great Chamberlain with that of the Secretary to the Coaching Club, and he was a little sore that fault had been found with himself on trivial occasions, whereas the Secretary to the Coaching Club had, as he thought, been aided in committing a serious breach of the Treasury rule. But, notwithstanding all this, Mr. Bull would have put his feelings in his pocket and performed the duty he was requested to perform had he thought that the letter addressed to him was a positive order. There could be no doubt that the letter of the Lord Great Chamberlain's Secretary was in terms an order; but Mr. Bull, unfortunately for him, had, before receiving that letter, had a conversation with the Lord Great Chamberlain's Secretary, which convinced Mr. Bull that that gentleman would never take the course of commanding him to do Mr. Lovegrove's work. The position

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Mr. Bull took up from first to last was this. He said:—
"If this man comes to me and asks me as a personal favour to do his work, I will do it; or if the Lord Great Chamberlain orders me to do it, I will do it. But, if it is a mere request coining' from somebody else, I shall not comply with it."
That was, no doubt, a great mistake on the part of Mr. Bull. When he received a letter ordering him to take another man's duty, he ought to have considered it an order and to have obeyed it. In not doing so, he committed an error of judgment; but he did not intentionally commit an act of disobedience, and that mistake had, he ventured to think, been visited with far too severe a penalty. He had hitherto addressed their Lordships as if Mr. Bull's case alone was before the House. He had no wish to use language of exaggeration, but there were many persons in the service of the House who stood in the same position that Mr. Bull stood in before he was dismissed; and it was not too much to say that the dismissal of Mr. Bull had caused and was causing a general sense of insecurity and uneasiness amongst those officials. Mr. Bull was known and respected by a great number of persons within the precincts of the House, and they thought that his dismissal without a hearing was a circumstance to make them very uncomfortable. They thought that the conscientious discharge of their duties might not shield them from slander, and they feared that they might possibly be dismissed without an opportunity being given them of speaking in their own defence. If their Lordships granted this Inquiry they would relieve the grave anxiety that certain persons felt who were peculiarly entitled to their Lordships' protection; and they would show that they were determined to mete out equal justice to everybody. It might be asked, what could be the practical results of such an inquiry? It was perfectly true that Mr. Bull had been dismissed and another person appointed in his place, and a Committee could not reinstate Mr. Bull. It could, however, rehabilitate his character, and that to Mr. Bull was no small matter. He even ventured to hope that if the result of an Inquiry should be to show that an injustice had been done to Mr. Bull that he might
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sooner or later obtain some suitable employment. As to what ought to be done on this Motion, he would suggest that the matter should be referred to the Offices Committee for consideration and report, and he would also suggest the addition of the name of Lord Shand to that Committee, who had expressed to him his willingness to serve.
THE LORD GREAT CHAMBERLAIN (The EARL of ANCASTEK)hoped the House would bear with him for a few moments while he answered what the hon. Lord opposite had said, and he trusted that when their Lordships had heard what he had to say, they would not think it necessary to send the Question to the Committee as the noble Lord had asked. Mr. Bull was appointed resident superintendent in 1890. He came into the service of the House highly recommended and with an excellent character. A full explanation was given to Mr. Bull of the duties that would be required of him, and he expressed his readiness to accept the office and to do anything that might be required of him. The appointment was to be held during pleasure. Mr. Bull said that no complaints were made against him. All he could say was that Mr. Bull's conduct was unsatisfactory from the very beginning, for he was negligent in the discharge of his duties and took no interest in them. Once Mr. Bull was reprimanded by himself at the request of Colonel Carrington, upon the ground of the inadequate discharge of his duties; in fact, he received constant complaints about him from Colonel Carrington. When Colonel Carrington resigned his appointment last February, Captain Butler was appointed in his place, and he wondered whether Mr. Bull would be able to get on any better with Captain Butler, and soon after Mr. Bull was appointed, he inquired of Captain Butler how Mr. Bull was getting on. Captain Butler shook his head and gave him to understand that Mr. Bull's conduct was not satisfactory. The letter book in the office would show abundantly that what he had said was perfectly correct. He would not, however, weary their Lordships by going through those letters as he did not think that was the proper place to do so. He would therefore come at once to Saturday, June 27th. On Saturdays their Lordships would remember, tickets

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to view the House were issued to the public. On the morning of June 27th Captain Butler came to him and told him that Mr. Bull had refused to do what he had asked him to do, namely, to give out these tickets during one hour on that morning. He would now read to their Lordships the letter written by Captain Butler to Mr. Bull. It was in these terms—
"Mr. Bull. Be good enough to issue the tickets from 12.15 p.m. to 1.15 p.m., to-morrow, Saturday, June 27th."
Mr. Bull said that was not an order, he on the other hand, said that was a lawful and proper order, given by a superior officer who was entitled to give such an order. He would now read what was written by Mr. Bull in reply to that. Mr. Bull wrote—
"With reference to your memo of this day's ditto, I must respectfully decline to officiate for Mr. Lovegrove to-morrow. If he is taking leave to attend one of the Coaching Club Meetings, which has been advertised to take place tomorrow, he is committing a breach of the Treasury regulations as to Government officials not being allowed to accept any private employment during office hours."
In that letter it would be seen that Mr. Bull flatly and distinctly refused to obey the order of Captain Butler. He would call their Lordships' particular attention to this fact, that neither of those letters were to be found in the petition of Mr. Bull, and he was in hopes—and he hoped now—that after he had read those two hitters, the noble Lord opposite would not press his Motion. It was very unfair to Captain Butler and himself that Mr. Bull's petition should have been before their Lordships for six months without those two letters, and he wanted to know why they were left out. However, be would leave that matter in their Lordships' hands and return to June 27th. Captain Butler had given leave to Mr. Lovegrove to go out for an hour on that day and had ordered Mr. Bull to give out the tickets during that hour. That was the position of affairs, and he would ask what course he could have adopted but that which he did adopt? That order was given. There was no question whether Mr. Bull received the order or not. He knew their Lordships had every confidence in Captain Butler as he had, and the only course open to him was to support Captain Butler and to suspend
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Mr. Bull if order and discipline were to be maintained amongst the officers of the House. He knew what the service of their Lordships' House was in 1874, 20 years ago, and what it was at present, and he hoped that if their Lordships had confidence in him, the service of the House would continue what it had been in the past. On the evening of June 27th he had to go into the country to attend Quarter Sessions. He fully expected to have some answer to his letter suspending Mr. Bull, in which that gentleman would say something or other asking him to explain, or expressing a wish to see him or that if he had committed an offence he was sorry for it. He was quite sure that if a letter of that sort had been received by him he would had given Mr. Bull an opportunity of being heard. If such a letter had come to him he would have been most willing to consider it, so as to hear what Mr. Bull had to say. He felt no asperity against Mr. Bull, and it would, of course, have been much pleasanter not to have had any of these troubles. He would only have been too glad if Mr. Bull had discharged his duty and things had gone on quietly. However, no answer came. Captain Butler then asked leave to make a new appointment. It was the middle of the Session, and there was a great deal of work in their Lordships' House, which could not be carried on without the services of a Superintendent. Captain Butler recommended for the appointment two of the door-keepers, but they did not accept, for reasons of their own. He then recommended the present Superintendent, whose appointment, he was glad to say, had resulted entirely satisfactorily. All the letters, excepting the two which he had read, reached him after he made that appointment. It was no use seeing Mr. Bull then, as he had made up his mind and had made an appointment. In fact, he could have done nothing if he had seen Mr. Bull. Then came the question—Was the order originally given a reasonable one? Mr. Bull, in his petition, said that that order was not in accordance with the authority given in 1876. It should be borne in mind that when the order to issue tickets to the public on the Saturday in question was given there were only two officials, the Superintendent and the Clerk, who could perform the duty. It was therefore

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self-evident that if one of these officials did not do it, the other must. There were other duties which Mr. Bull had to perform which were not designated in the order of 1876. What was Mr. Bull asked to do on this occasion? He was asked to sit in a chair for one hour and to distribute these tickets, but he refused, and Captain Butler was kind enough to volunteer to do the duty. He sat in the chair and gave out the tickets, while Mr. Bull was standing close by him in the Prince's Chamber. With regard to Mr. Lovegrove, who was appointed Clerk in 1873, he thought it right to tell the House that that gentleman's salary was only £100 a year. Of course, if they wanted a man to do responsible work on such a salary they could not expect him to give his whole time to their service, and he must be allowed to take up other work. The work discharged by Mr. Lovegrove was very responsible, especially when Her Majesty opened Parliament in person. The hours during which he had to attend were very long; but Mr. Lovegrove was always ready to do anything and everything, and no hours were too long for him. Surely it was not unreasonable for the head of the Department to give a man who had worked for 23 years in this service leave for one hour on one particular day. He hoped their Lordships would consider this statement a satisfactory one; and he left the matter in their hands with some confidence.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid he was very reluctant indeed to find fault with his noble Friend who had just spoken, but after reading the papers issued on this subject he could not say that he was perfectly satisfied. He could not understand why Mr. Bull was not given an opportunity of explaining. The ordinary course in a public office would have been, when the Lord Great Chamberlain thought it necessary to suspend him, to ask him at the same time for an explanation of his conduct. He could not remember, in his experience, any case where so extremely severe a punishment (had been inflicted upon a civil servant who had not had a full opportunity of stating his reasons for believing that he had not committed an offence. The whole point of the question was, whether it was right that any person holding such a position as Mr. Bull filled
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should be dismissed from his office, and suffer all the serious consequences that that entailed, without having had an opportunity of giving an explanation. For his part, he did not think that such a course could be justified in any case whatever.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HALSBURY)—who explained that, of course, he was not speaking on behalf of the Government, for the Government were not concerned in this matter—said that he would not enter into the merits of the case, or attempt to deal exhaustively with it. He really felt great difficulty in apportioning the different amount of blame that might be apportioned to one or other of the parties to this transaction, but he could not help thinking that they would establish a very serious precedent, if, when an officer like the Lord Great Chamberlain had been appointed to select for employment a particular official, their Lordships should re-hear a case of dismissal if the Lord Great Chamberlain should think it right, in the exercise of his functions, to dismiss that officer. It must be remembered that in Mr. Bull's case there was a distinct order given to him in writing, and a distinct refusal on his part to obey. Those facts being ascertained, were their Lordships going to inquire into the question whether the Lord Great Chamberlain was justified or not in dismissing an officer who certainly did refuse to obey an order given by the Lord Great Chamberlain's properly accredited agent? As he had said, that would be a very serious precedent to establish. The only thing that Mr. Bull could hope to gain by the appointment of this Committee was a rehabilitation of his character, if it was impugned. As a matter of fact, there was no imputation upon his character for honesty and integrity. His offence was the refusal to obey an order, and he did not think that that was a matter which ought to interfere with Mr. Bull's future prospects. He deprecated over-ruling the Lord Great Chamberlain's decision in a matter specially committed to his determination. If there were any additional facts to bring to light there might be some ground for appointing a Committee, but no additional facts had been adduced.
LORD HERSCHELLthought his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack had lost sight of the most important feature

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of the case, which was that Mr. Bull had been dismissed from his office without having been given that which he asked for, viz., an opportunity of explaining the circumstances and of removing, as he thought he could have done, the impression produced by the act which he had committed. Every civil servant had a right when he was dismissed—whatever might be the opinion of the head of the Department who dismissed him—to be heard and to give any explanation that he had to give. That seemed to him to be the ground upon which, without danger, this Committee might be granted. He feared that if it were not granted, and the matter were allowed to be treated as one which had been satisfactorily dealt with, it would go forth that, in the opinion of that House, the Lord Great Chamberlain was at liberty to dismiss any of the officials that held office at pleasure in his Department without giving them the opportunity which lawyers, and he believed people generally, were accustomed to regard as a primary right, viz., the opportunity of explaining away the matters charged against them. That course had not been followed in Mr. Bull's case. He was told he was suspended, and five or six days afterwards he was dismissed. He then asked to be heard, and his request was refused. That was not the proper course to follow. If a Committee were appointed, and the case were heard, it might turn out that the dismissal was a proper one—he expressed no opinion upon the merits of the matter; but then Mr. Bull would have had an opportunity of making an explanation. It should be borne in mind that this was rather an exceptional case. All civil servants of the Crown held office at pleasure; they might be dismissed at a moment's notice; they had no redress in a court of law; their salary and pension went, and no court of law would listen to their complaints. It had been said that their remedy was an appeal to Parliament, and that was true in most cases. The appeal was made ordinarily upon the Vote for the salary of the head
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of the Department from which a man was dismissed. The salaries of the head of most Departments appeared on the Estimates, and when the particular Votes were reached any grievances which any of their subordinates had could be ventilated in the House of Commons. That was the case with all officials appointed by the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, whose salary was on the Votes. But the case was different when they came to the Lord Great Chamberlain, the emoluments of whose office did not appear on the Votes. In that case aggrieved persons could not ventilate their complaints in the House of Commons. Their Lordships' House, having vested the right of these appointments in the Lord Great Chamberlain, it became the duty of the House itself to entertain exceptional grievances emanating from that Department. This case was so exceptional that he did not think a precedent of any danger would be created by granting this Committee, which would at all events have the advantage of enabling one who considered that he had been aggrieved to put his grievance in the way of explanation before a Committee. This would also have the effect of assuring all those who might occupy a similar position that they had a certain protection, and could not be dismissed at pleasure without the opportunity of being heard. ["Hear, hear!"]
The House divided:—

CONTENTS

15

NOT-CONTENTS

29

CONTENTS

Ripon, M.

de Vesci, L. (V. de Vesci)

Kimberley, E.

Herschell, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Hobhouse, L.

Minto, E.

Mendip, L. (V. Clifden.) [Teller.]

Spencer, E.

Stamford, E.

Monkswell, L. [Teller.]

Strafford, E.

Northbourne, L.

Reay, L.

Oxenbridge, V.

383

NOT-CONTENTS.

Halsbury, L. (L. Chancellor

Waldegrave, E.

Devonshire, D. (L. President.

Knutsford, V.

Templetown, V.

Cross, V. (L. Privy Seal.)

Ampthill, L.

Bagot, L.

Aboreorn, M. (D. Abercorn.)

Belper, L.

Castletown, L.

Churchill, L.

Ancaster, E. [Teller.]

Colville, of Culross, L.

Carrington, E.

Fermanagh, L.(E. Erne)

de Montalt, E. [Teller.]

Hillingdon, L.

Leven and Melville, E.

James, L.

Londesborough, E.

Mount Stephen, L.

Onslow, E.

Norton, L.

Stanhope, E.

Poltimore, L.

Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

Sudley, L. (E. Arran)

Windsor, L.

Resolved in the negative.

INDIA (BUBONIC FEVER INOCULATION.)
LORD REAYasked the Under Secretary of State for India whether any recent information had been obtained from the Bombay Government with reference to protective inoculation against the bubonic fever; and whether any retired members of the Indian Civil Service were to be temporarily employed in India. He stated that he had followed with some anxiety the development of sickness and famine in the Bombay Presidency, with the Government of which he had himself been so recently connected. He had seen with great satisfaction the admirable way in which Lord Sandhurst, by personal exertion and by other means, had dealt with the two-fold calamity which had befallen the Presidency. On the 18th of January Professor Haffkine, who had been employed on bacteriological research in Bombay, announced that he had found a prophylactic lymph or vaccine, with which he made, first of all, an experiment on himself, and which he believed had since been made on others. Since then Lord Lister, on January the 20th, at Belfast, called attention to the importance of the anti-toxic serum which had been discovered by Dr. Yersin in the Pasteur Institute. After Lord Lister made his speech on January the 20th, M. Roux, a man of European reputation in this matter and one of the most eminent disciples of Pasteur, and well
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known through his research with reference to diphtheric serum, gave some most interesting details with reference to the discovery of Dr. Yersin on the 26th of January in the Academy of Medicine in Paris. In 1894 Dr. Yersin was sent by the French Minister for the Colonies to Hongkong, where this disease prevailed at the time, and he there discovered the microbe. It was discovered at the same time by M. Kitasato. Further experiments were thereupon made at the Pasteur Institute, which led to the discovery of the serum, which, like the diphtheric serum, was taken from the horse. This serum was not only a prophylactic, but it also had curative effects. From experiments made on animals, it was clear that its protective virtue was even greater than its curative value. The next step taken by the French Government was to establish a Pasteur Institute at Nha-trang, in Annam. When the disease broke out again at Hongkong, in January 1896, the Institute was not sufficiently advanced to lend any serum; but on June the 10th Dr. Yersin proceeded to Hong-kong with a few bottles, to which were added 80 bottles sent from the Paris Institute. The disease was then dying out at Hongkong. Dr. Yersin then left for Canton, and there the first experiment was made with the serum. A startling result was obtained. A young Chinese, aged 18, who was inoculated on the 26th at five o'clock in the afternoon, at six o'clock, and at nine o'clock, had recoverd the next morning at six o'clock. Dr. Yersin went on to Amoy on July the 1st, but he left serum behind him, and two other cases were attended with complete recovery. At Amoy Dr. Yersin treated 23 patients. In the course of ten days only two died out of the 23 patients, and those two fatal cases were partly due to the fact that the patients were not treated in the first stages of the disease, but after having been ill five days; however two others who had also been ill for five days recovered. Taking the three patients at Canton and the 25 at Amoy, with two deaths on the 28 cases treated, a mortality was obtained of 7·6 per cent., instead of 80 per cent., which was the normal death-rate of the disease fixed by M. Roux. Those facts were certainly worthy of very serious consideration, and

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he hoped that no effort would be spared to obtain the serum, either from the Pasteur Institute or from Nha-trang. He saw that the matter had not escaped the notice of the Bombay Government, because in a letter from the municipal commissioner to the standing committee of the municipality a hope was expressed that he would be in possession of the serum this month—or rather that Dr. Yersin would be able to have some ready this month. Perhaps the noble Earl could give some information. He could not leave this subject without paying a tribute of sincere respect to the memory of the Principal of the Grant Medical College in Bombay, the late Dr. Manser, who fell a victim to the disease, and of whose eminent services he was personally cognizant. With regard to the second Question, any one who knew the zeal and the devotion to duty of the Indian Civil Service would agree that there was very considerable risk that the members of this service might overwork themselves, and at all events in certain districts where there was great pressure by reason of the relief works it might be very desirable to give some additional strength to the establishments. Among retired Indian officials there were those who had declared themselves ready to go and assist their brethren in India, and he trusted that no hesitation would be felt by the Government of India to mobilize those reserve forces, which, under the exceptional circumstances now prevailing, might be used effectually and without in any way dislocating existing arrangements.
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (The EARL of ONSLOW)in reply, said the experiments referred to had not escaped the attention of the Government in Bombay, and M. Yersin had been commissioned by that Government to procure serum for use in Bombay, and he was expected to return to the city about the end of the month or the beginning of next provided with a sufficient quantity of it. The prophylactic vaccine which Professor Haffkine had discovered was likely to prove extremely valuable also. He learnt that on January 2nd Professor Haffkine wrote that 21 animals had been immunised and that
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he was looking forward to making trial of the new process. He also asked that 40 horses should be purchased to provide a further supply of serum—a request which the municipal commissioner at once took steps to carry out. With reference to the experiments conducted up to the present time the India Office, were informed that 512 inoculations in all had taken place, and that no attacks were reported except two in the gaol; and, speaking generally, the Government of Bombay considered that inoculation appeared to afford considerable protection, but sufficient time had not yet elapsed to estimate the degree of protection or how long it would continue. With regard to the second Question no retired Indian Civil servants had as yet been sent out to India, but the India Office would be prepared to receive the names of any who were willing to volunteer for this service. It did not rest with the India Office to determine whether or not they should be sent out, but their names should be telegraphed to the Viceroy, and if in the exercise of his discretion he thought their services could be made available no doubt he would act accordingly. The energy and activity which had been exhibited by Lord Sandhurst and the Government of Bombay in combating both the plague and the famine were warmly appreciated by Her Majesty's Government. [Cheers.] It might interest the House to hear the contents of a telegram which had just been put into his hands and which gave the latest information concerning the progress of the plague:—
"Deaths from all causes in Bombay city for week ended February 12th, 1,835. Reported plague deaths, 813. Plague has been to some extent cheeked where first prevalent. Mandvi now almost free from disease. In Bombay city general tendency to extend north continues. House-to-house visitation active; 218 dwellings condemned as uninhabitable; 31 recommended for alterations; tiles removed from 3,141; earth floors dug up in 581 and 2,277 limewashed; 171 vacated; and 35 have been destroyed by fire during past week. Under Epidemic Diseases Act Government have empowered Municipal Commissioner of his own authority and without reference to the magistrate (1) to prohibit use of dwellings unfit for habitation; (2) to require abatement of overcrowding; (3) to require vacation of buildings and premises for cleansing and disinfecting; (4) to forcibly enter deserted

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buildings and cleanse and disinfect them; (5) to remove earth of floors; (6) to cut off water connections; (7) to demolish whole or part of building's unfit for habitation; (8) to destroy clothing, &c. Arrangements have been made for emptying all outgoing trains at stations outside Bombay and for strict medical inspection of all passengers. One indigenous case occurred in Poona cantonment, where conservancy and cleansing operations had been greatly improved and every precaution taken. In Poona city increase fron 43 to 47 cases during week, but concentrated in certain quarters, and hitherto no tendency to spread observed; general cleansing disinfecting operations active; infected houses vacated, disinfected, and opened to sun and air; segregation camp for inmates ready, but not willingly resorted to; they prefer leaving Poona. Difficulty in inducing declaration of cases and removal to hospital. In Coorla cases diminished; in Bandora, Bhiwandi, and also in rest of Thana district cases increased; in Surat district local cases reported from two villages. Possibilities of extension of plague to new localities very carefully watched and all local officers on alert. Karachi.—Correct number plague deaths for week ended February 12th, 269; February 5th, 297; January 29th, 181; January 22nd, 206. Mortality chiefly concentrated in poorest Mahomedan quarter, and there some difficulty found in detecting cases. Mahomedan officials at work among them. 600 Mahomedans gone into health camp; infected huts burnt or pulled down. Hindu health camp doing well; evacuation of infected houses enforced and reoccupation not allowed. No indigenous cases in Sind outside Karachi. Extensive powers given to all district officers under Epidemic Diseases Act."

COMMITTEE OF SELECTION FOR THE STANDING COMMITTEE.
The meeting of the Committee (which stands appointed for To-morrow) put off to Tuesday, the 23rd instant, at half past Three o'clock.
House adjourned at Twenty minutes before Six o'clock, till To-morrow, Three o'clock.