Sitting of 14 March 1904

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.

UNOPPOSED PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Great Northern and City Railway (Extension of Time) Bill. Read the third time, and passed.
Corbridge Gas Bill; Kirkby-in-Ashfield Urban District Gas Bill; South Western and Isle of Wight Junction Railway (Extension of Time) Bill. As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Great Eastern Railway (Steamboats) Bill (by Older). As amended, considered to be read the third time.
Strabane, Raphoe, and Convoy Railway Bill. Read a second time, and committed.
Great Eastern Railway (General Powers) Bill. Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

PRIVATE BILLS (GROUP E).
The CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANSinformed the House that the Committee on Group E of Private Bills not being appointed to meet until To-morrow, the parties promoting the Corporation of London (Southwark and other Bridges) Bill, which was set down for consideration upon the first day of the meeting of the Committee, had appeared before him and proved that the evidence of Donald Waters, Superintendent in the L Division

949
of the Metropolitan Police, was essential to their case, and that his attendance could not be procured without the intervention of the House.
Ordered, That Donald Waters do attend the Committee on Group E of Private Bills to-morrow, at Twelve of the clock.
Sheppy Gas Bill; Sutton Gas Bill. Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

RAILWAY BILLS (GROUP No. 1).
Mr. KIMBERreported from the Committee on Group No. 1 of Railway Bills; That the parties promoting the Humber Commercial Railway and Dock Bill had stated that the evidence of William Henry Stubbs, of 121, Orwell Street, Grimsby, Pilot, George Cook Burn, of 11, Suffolk Street, Newland, Hull, Pilot, and Thomas Waite Shores, Grimsby, Pilot, was essential to their case; and, it having been proved that their attendance could not be procured without the intervention of the House, he had been instructed to move that the said William Henry Stubbs, George Cook Burn, and Thomas Waite Shores do attend the said Committee tomorrow, at half-past Eleven of the clock.
Ordered, That William Henry Stubbs, George Cook Burn, and Thomas Waite Shores do attend the Committee on Group No. 1 of Railway Bills to-morrow, at half-past Eleven of the clock.

RAILWAY BILLS (GROUP No. 1).
Mr. KIMBERreported from the Committee on Group No. 1 of Railway Bills; That the parties opposing the Humber Commercial Railway and Dock Bill had stated that the evidence of Captain William Abbot, Commodore of Pilots, Hull, John Edmondson, Pilot, Hull, and Robert Bond, Pilot, Hull, was essential to their case; and, it having been proved that their attendance could not be procured without the intervention of the House, he had been instructed to move that the said Captain W. Abbot, John Edmondson, and Robert Bond do attend the said Committee To-morrow, at half-past Eleven of the clock.
Ordered, That Captain W. Abbot, John Edmondson, and Robert Bond do attend
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the Committee on Group No. 1 of Railway Bills To-morrow, at half-past Eleven of the clock.
Franchise and Removal of Women'S Disabilities Bill. Order for Second Reading upon Friday, 25th March, read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
Bishop's Stortford and District Gas Bill; Torquay Tramways Bill. Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

PETITIONS.
  LICENCES (RENEWAL).
  Petitions against alteration of Law; from Nottingham (two); Aberdare (two); Boothroyd; Ynysgan; Barton; Ryde (four); Scunthorpe: Wiltshire; Moriah Miskin; Monkwearmouth; Wrexham; Derby; Sale; Wroxall; Daubhill; Bolton (two); Kirkwall; Hindley; Islington: East Cornwall; Hammersmith; Wishaw; Lincoln; Woodstock Road; and Rend-ham; to lie upon the Table.
  PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE.
  Petitions for extension to women; from Draycott; West Bristol; and Bristol; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF BUTTER BILL
  Petitions against; from Brentwood: Lincoln; Redditch; Chelmsford; Chichester; and Rotherham; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petition from Haggerston, in favour to lie upon the Table.
  TRANSVAAL (CHINESE LABOUR ORDINANCE).
  Petition from Claylands, for withdrawal; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  SUPERANNUATION ACTS, 1859 AND 1876.
  Copy presented, of Treasury Minute, dated 10th March, 1904, declaring Nanking to be an unhealthy place within; the meaning of the Superannuation Act, 1876 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1884.
  Copy presented, of Treasury Minute, dated 9th March, 1904, declaring that Alfred W. Harman, Hammerman, Royal Laboratory, War Office, was appointed without a Civil Service Certificate through inadvertence on the part of the Head of his Department [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  NAVAL WORKS ACTS, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1899, AND 1901.
  Account presented, showing the amount of Money issued out of the Consolidated Fund; the amount and nature of the Securities created in respect thereof; the amount of the surplus of Income over Expenditure for the financial year ended 31st March, 1896, and the amount of Money expended in pursuance of the Acts during the year ended the 31st March, 1903; together with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 98.]
  PUBLIC OFFICES (ACQUISITION OF SITE) ACT, 1895, SESSION 2; PUBLIC OFFICES (WESTMINSTER) SITE ACT, 1896; PUBLIC OFFICES (WHITEHALL) SITE ACT, 1897; AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS EXPENSES ACT, 1898.
  Account presented, showing the moneys issued out of the Consolidated Fund, the moneys borrowed and the securities created in respect thereof, the disposal of moneys issued to the National Debt Commissioners for temporary investment, and the expenditure, under the provisions of the Acts, to the 31st March, 1903; together with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 99.]
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copy presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, No. 3125 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TELEGRAPH (MONEY).
  Committee to consider of authorising the issue, out of the Consolidated Fund, of sums for the purpose of the Telegraph Acts, 1863 to 1899 (King's Recommendation signified) to-morrow.—(Lord Stanley.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Kilmuir Estate, Isle of Skye.
  MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL (Kerry, W.): To ask the Secretary for Scotland if he will state what is the area, net rental, poor law valuation, and purchase price paid in the case of the Kilmuir Estate, Isle of Skye, recently purchased by the Congested Districts Board for Scotland; how much is untenanted; and how is this to be utilised.
  (Answered by Mr. A. Graham, Murray.) I can only inform the hon. Member that the purchase of the Kilmuir Estate by the Congested Districts Board cannot be completed until the consent of the sale has been given by the Court of Chancery, and he will therefore understand I am not in a position to give him the information he desires.

  County Clerks as Political Agents
  MASTER OF ELIBANK (Edinburgh, Midlothian): To ask the Secretary for Scotland whether, having regard to the fact that town clerks are debarred from acting as political agents in their own town, he will take steps to place county clerks in a similar position.
  (Answered by Mr. A. Graham Murray.) There is no statutory disability on town clerks so acting. Whether they do or do not depends as in the case of the county clerks on the regulations of their employers, over which I have no control. The point raised by the hon. Member would be one for fair consideration in any Bill amending the County Councils Act, but I am not prepared to introduce a special Bill on the subject.

  Crown Fishing Rights in Orkney.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Commissioner of Woods and Forests, if his attention has been called to an advertisement in which a proprietor in Orkney claims having the Crown rights of fishing, and that the sea trout fishing is strictly preserved; and, if so, will he state whether such advertisement is in accordance with the agreement for lease

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  entered into by the Woods and Forests with the said proprietor by which the public right of fishing was safeguarded by regulations to be approved by the Secretary for Scotland.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) The proprietor to whom the hon. Member is presumed to refer has a lease until Martinmas next of the Crown's right as regards salmon and sea trout fishing, with an option of purchase. No public right of fishing was recognised in the lease, but the option of purchase if exercised is to be; subject to regulations as to fishing by the public to be approved by the Secretary for Scotland.

  Income-Tax Collection—Assimilation of English and Scotch Systems.
  SIR J. STIRLING-MAXWELL: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the differences still existing between the systems of income-tax collection in Scotland and England, he will undertake that the two systems shall be assimilated, both as regards the form of the notices and the dates of their issue.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) The objections which have been raised relate to the dates of issue and the form of the second and third demand notices in Scotland. The dates of issue for those are now the same in both countries, and the differences in the form of the notices are only such as are necessitated by the differences in the legal procedure of Scotland and England.

  Income Tax Committee and the Grievances of Clerks to Surveyors of Taxes.
  MR. NANNETTI: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the proposed Select Committee of this House to inquire into matters connected with income-tax will include such terms of reference as will enable clerks to the surveyors of taxes to place their grievances before the proposed Select Committee as regards their duties, present position, pay, and prospects.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) No such question could possibly come within the scope of the proposed inquiry.

  Chinese War Indemnity.
  MR. McCRAETo ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can state the annual value of the annuities payable to Britain in respect of the Chinese war indemnity; the total amount of private claims lodged by British subjects, the total amount of claims admitted; and further, on what basis of priority the several claims are being paid out of the annual instalments.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) China disputes the claim of the Powers for payment of the indemnity in gold. The instalments received on account of the British share, converted into sterling, amounted:—For the year 1902 to £301,488; For the year 1903 to £314,157. The private claims lodged with the British Claims Commissioner amounted to £1,606,277, but they have been reduced on examination to £736,906. Almost the whole of the private claimants agreed to accept certificates entitling them to a pro rata distribution as the instalments are received. The distributions so far made amount to 75 per cent. of the private claims, exclusive of a number of small claims and death claims which have been paid off in full.

  Trout Fishing in Loch Ness.
  MR. JOHN DEWAR: To ask the Secretary for Scotland if his attention has been directed to the fact that there has just been formed by the proprietors of the land surrounding Loch Ness an association to prevent the public from angling for trout in Loch Ness, except upon payment of an annual sum to the association; in view of the fact that this loch is part of the public waterway between the Moray Firth on the East, and Loch Lhinnie on the West of Scotland, and that the public have, from time immemorial, exercised the right of angling therein, does he propose to take any steps for the protection of the public right of angling.
  (Answered by Mr. A. Graham Murray.) My attention has not been directed to the matter referred to by the hon. Member, but as the trout fishing in Loch Ness necessarily belongs to the riparian owners there is no action possible on my part.

  Porterage of Telegrams.
  MR. RIGG (Westmoreland, Appleby): To ask the Postmaster-General whether he will consider the advisability of charging porterage, in the case of telegrams which are carried by post office messengers more than three miles, from the end of the three mile limit and not from the telegraph office.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I have recently considered this matter, but I regret that I am not in a position to recommend the sacrifice of revenue which must be entailed by the alteration suggested by the hon. Member.

  Sick Leave in Belfast Post Office.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the medical officer at Belfast directs the men to resume duty on a particular day, but advises the Department that they will be able to resume duty at an earlier date; and that as a result officials are often reported for exceeding their sick leave; and, if so, will he give instructions that the medical officer gives his orders to resume duty in writing, the duplicate of his advice to be sent to the Department.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) A recent case has been brought to my notice in which a sorting clerk and telegraphist at Belfast did not attend for duty on the day named by the medical officer. The circumstances of this case do not correspond accurately to those described by the hon. Member, but I am not aware of any other recent cases of the same character. I do not consider that any change of practice is required.

  Belfast Sorting Office.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware of the condition in which the sorting office in Belfast is kept, and of the fact that the corps of cleaners is composed of a number of women insufficiently paid; and, if so, will he explain why the recent regulations in
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  regard to cleaning are not carried out in Belfast.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I am informed that an adequate staff is employed on cleaning duties at the Belfast post office, including the sorting office, and that the work is done efficiently, and in accordance with the instructions issued last year. The women are paid at the local rate of wages for work of the same class, and applications for situations as cleaners are numerous on the rare occasions when vacancies occur.

  Farmers' Co-operative Societies—Translation into Welsh of Board of Agriculture Leaflet.
  MR. LLOYD MORGAN: To ask the hon. Member for North Huntingdonshire, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether, having regard to the importance of the formation of farmers' co-operative societies, and with the view to promoting the movement amongst farmers in Wales, he will consider the question of having translated into Welsh the leaflet on the subject issued by the Board of Agriculture in December, 1903, and numbered 97.
  (Answered by Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.) We quite agree with the suggestion made by the hon. Member that the leaflet to which he refers should be published in Welsh, and arrangements will be made for the purpose so soon as some later details for which we are asking as to the working of some of the societies mentioned in the leaflet have been obtained.

  Naval Reserve Men and the Merchant Service.
  MR CROOKS: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the fact that, in the shipping office, Cardiff, on 2nd and 3rd March, a notice was displayed to the effect that a steamer wanted sixteen firemen and ten sailors, wages £3 10s., which was £1 below the current rate of the port she belonged to, and that only Naval Reserve men need apply; and, seeing that Naval Reserve men are

  957
  informed that the fact of their being BO enables them to command better pay, will he arrange that in future no such notice shall be allowed at shipping offices under his Department.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) The notice to which the hon. Member refers was issued for the purpose of informing Royal Naval Reserve men that a crew would be signed on for a certain vessel at a certain time, and at a stated rate of wages, and that the master was willing to engage Reserve men. Neither the Board of Trade nor its officers have power to interfere with the rate of wages paid at any port nor, so far as I am aware, has any authority informed Royal Naval Reserve men that they can command better pay than others. I am informed that, as a matter of fact, £3 15s. a month was actually agreed upon in the case referred to in the Question, and that of the men engaged five belonged to the Reserve. The notices exhibited at the Mercantile Marine Offices announcing what ships are in need of crews are found to be useful to seamen seeking employment, and I am not prepared to direct that they should be discontinued.

  Christmas, 1902.

  Christmas, 1903.

  First Class.

  Second Class.

  Total.

  First Class.

  Second Class.

  Total.

  Men

  521

  933

  1,451

  550

  1,016

  1,506

  Women

  1,577

  2,959

  4,536

  1,904

  3,432

  5,336

  Total

  2,098

  3,892

  5,987

  2,454

  4,448

  6,902

  It must be remembered that the numbers for 1903 include a considerable number of persons who passed in the first or second class in 1902, but who entered again in order to secure a higher place. There are also a certain number who are unable to pass the medical examination which is required before admission to a college. In October, 1903, 3,439 students were admitted to training colleges. 1,186 men were admitted, of whom 1,001 had passed the King's Scholarship, and 156

  Report of Torpedo Boat Destroyers Committee.
  MR. YERBURGH: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Committee upon Torpedo Boat Destroyers has reported; and, if so, whether he will lay their Report upon the Table.
  (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) This Committee reported in July last. It is not proposed to publish their Report.

  King's Scholarship Examinations.
  MR. HENRY HOBHOUSE (Somersetshire, E.): To ask the Secretary to the Board of Education if he will say what was the number of the candidates for the King's Scholarship examination who passed in the first or second class at the last two examinations; and what proportion of these candidates can be accommodated in the existing training colleges.
  (Answered by Sir William Anson.) The following table gives the number of candidates for the King's Scholarship examination who passed in the first or second class at the last two examinations:—
  some equivalent examination. 2,253 women were admitted, of whom 1,872 had passed the King's Scholarship, and 293 some equivalent examination. She remainder in either case were admitted under Articles 115 (b) and (c). The Board have as yet no accurate information as to the number of places which will be available in October next, but they anticipate that there will not be less than 1,250 places for men and 2,550 for women, or not less than 3,800 in all.

  Exports of Indian and Ceylon Teas into Russia.
  SIR EDWARD SASSOON: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether he will state the quantity and

  1901–2.

  Direct Exports to Russia.

  Re-Exports from the United Kingdom.

  Total.

  Quantity.

  Value.

  Quantity.

  Value.

  Quantity.

  Value.

  lbs.

  £

  lbs.

  £

  lbs.

  £

  British India

  1,624,580

  35,833

  842,374

  30,138

  2,466,954

  65,971

  Ceylon

  9,597,459

  211,144

  1,686,312

  61,164

  11,283,771

  272,308

  11,222,039

  246,977

  2,528,686

  91,302

  13,750,725

  338,279

  The figures showing exports from India are for the years ending 31st March, 1902, and 31st March, 1903, respectively. The Ceylon and United Kingdom figures are for the calendar years 1901 and 1902 respectively, their Trade Returns being made up for the calendar year.

  Madras Presidency College—Professorship of Biology.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: To ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that on the professorship of biology at the Madras Presidency College becoming vacant, Mr. K. R. Menon, Assistant Professor of Biology, was appointed to act in the place of Dr. Bourne, a specialist in zoology, and has filled the position for two years; and whether, seeing that the Madras Government now proposes to supersede Mr. Menon by a specialist in botany from England, he will take steps to secure that Mr. Menon's
  value of Indian and Ceylon tea exported into Russia in 1901–2 and 1902–3.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The figures are as follows:—
  qualifications and claims to the appointment shall be considered.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) I will take care that Mr. Menon's claims to the post are fully considered, but I cannot promise that lie will be appointed to it.

  Salaries of Irish National School Teachers.
  MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state how many assistant masters, assistant mistresses, principal masters, and principal mistresses, are receiving salaries in Irish national schools under following heads: from £50 to £100 per annum: £100 to £125 per annum; £125 to £150 per annum; £150 to £175 per annum; £175 to £200 per annum; £200 to £250 per annum; and the average salaries of these four classes of teachers.

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  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) Salaries (including Residual Grant) of assistant teachers, and principal teachers, masters, and mistresses in the Board's service,

  Assistants.

  Principals.

  Masters.

  Mistresses.

  Masters.

  Mistresses.

  £50 to £100

  1,054

  1,899

  2,661

  2,381

  £100 to £125

  9

  18

  1,182

  575

  £125 to £150

  17

  8

  483

  138

  £150 to £175

  11

  —

  151

  76

  £175 to £200

  —

  —

  106

  8

  £200 to £250

  —

  —

  35

  5

  Totals

  1,091

  1,925

  4,618

  3,183

  2. Average Salaries:—Assistant teachers: masters £70, mistresses £62; Principal teachers: masters £100, mistresses £85.

  Royal Irish Constabulary—Publication in Constabulary Gazette of Evidence of an Inquiry.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary sent a letter to the Editor of the Constabulary Gazette asking him not to publish the evidence given at a recent Court of inquiry, held in county Mayo, where Constable Anderson was charged with offences against discipline; and will he say under what circumstances was the publication withheld.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The reply to the first inquiry is in the affirmative. The editor expressed his appreciation of the Inspector-General's suggestion, and declared his intention not to publish the remainder of the evidence.

  Ireland—Return of Scheme of Cottages.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state when the Return in connection with the latest completed scheme of cottages, under
  and the average salaries of these four classes.
  1. Salaries:—
  the Labourers (Ireland) Acts, moved for on the 9th February, 1904, will be laid upon the Table of the House.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) Application has been made to the clerks of rural district councils for the information indicated in the Return, which is not readily ascertainable. Some weeks must elapse, I am afraid, before it can be completed.

  Payment of Temporary Medical Officers in Ireland.
  MR. JORDAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to the action of the Local Government Board in refusing to sanction payment; of half-fees of medical practitioners acting as locum tenens in the Hollywell Dispensary District of the Enniskillen Union, county Fermanagh, during the enforced absence of Dr. Tate, the medical officer of the district, because of a serious accident; will he say what are the grounds on which said refusal was based; and whether, in view of the amount of the sum and the poverty of the division, he will instruct the Local Government Board to sanction the payment of the amount in question.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) There is no statutory provision enabling the Board to allow recoupment to the local authority

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  in respect of this service, and the Board is unable, therefore, to sanction the payment.

  Future of the Volunteer Force—Report of Royal Commission.
  MR. MOON (St. Pancras, N.)To ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the existing state of uncertainty as regards the future of the Volunteer Force, and the inconvenience occasioned thereby to all ranks of the force, he can indicate approximately any date on which the Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the organisation and conditions of service of (he Volunteers is likely to be issued.
  (Answered, by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) The taking of evidence is

  Militia.

  Yeomanry.

  Volunteers.

  £

  s.

  d.

  £

  s.

  d.

  £

  s.

  d.

  1893–4.

  10

  18

  0

  10

  9

  0

  5

  0

  0

  1903–4.

  18

  4

  0

  26

  13

  0

  6

  6

  0

  These figures are arrived at by dividing the total estimated charges for the several forces by their effective numbers, according to the latest returns prior to the Estimates. The cost per head of the Militia for 1903–4 is somewhat below normal, as provision was not made for training the whole of the force that year. The Yeomanry Vote for 1903–4 is somewhat high, as the Estimate provided for an establishment considerably in excess of the effectives at the beginning of the year. If the number, 29,000, for which the Estimate provided were taken as the divisor, the cost would be £21 2s. 8d. per head.

  Transvaal Chinese Labour Ordinance— Regulations.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS (Nottinghamshire, Rushcliffe): To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the regulations under the Transvaal Chinese Labour Ordinance have now been settled and approved, and when the House will be in possession of the regulations.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) The regulations have not been finally
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  finished and the Report is being considered. I have as yet received no intimation as to when the Commission are likely to present their Report. I trust, however, that it will be soon.

  Militia, Yeomanry, and Volunteers—Cost per Head.
  MR. YERBURGH: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will state the cost per head of the Militia, Yeomanry, and Volunteers in the years 1893–94 and 1903–4.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) The cost per head of the Militia, Yeomanry, and Volunteers (including in each case the permanent staff) in the years 1893–4 and 1903–4 is estimated to be:—
  settled. I cannot fix a date when they will be laid before the House.

  Recommendation of Miners Phthisis Commission in the Transvaal.
  MR. HALDANETo ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any steps have been taken to carry out the recommendations of the Miners Phthisis Commission appointed for the Transvaal in 1902.
  (Answered, by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) Lord Milner informs me that a great deal has been and is being done to improve the sanitary condition of the mines generally, and to minimise specific danger in the dusty parts of the mines. The question if any, and, if so, what preventive measures could be legislatively enforced is still under consideration. Medical opinion is not agreed as to specific preventives, such as respirators, of which no completely satisfactory type has yet been discovered. The Chamber of Mines has offered a prize for invention of best means of preventing dust in mines, and it is hoped that competition may throw

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  further light on the subject. The medical officer of health reports that numbers of deaths from miners' phthisis among the whole population of Witwatersrand, both white and coloured, was eight last month.

  Regulations for Landing of British Subjects at Beira.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if British subjects are prohibited landing at Beira on the way to British Central Africa or Rhodesia unless possessed of a certain amount of capital; and, if so, if there is any intention to apply a similar Ordinance for the Transvaal.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lytlelton.) The regulations dated 17th November 1902, as to passengers disembarking at Beira, is as follows:—Article 1. Passengers desiring to disembark at Beira will receive permission to do so on complying with one or other of the following conditions. (a) A declaration in writing that their destination is Rhodesia, and, if it be judged desirable, a deposit with the police authorities of a sum of £10, for which a receipt will be given, (b) Proof that the applicant possesses money or its equivalent to the value of £50, and delivery to the police authorities of a sum of £20, as a deposit, for which a receipt will be given. Individuals from whom this receipt will be required will undertake to withdraw from Beira by the first means after the period of eight days shall have elapsed if they cannot show that they have obtained employment or other means of subsistence, (c) Proof to the police authorities that they have immediate employment or other means of subsistence. The deposits to which this article refers will be placed in the hands of the police official on board, who will transfer them to the proper authority. Article 2. The Commissioner of Police may employ the deposits to which Sections (a) and (b) of Article 1 refer in providing subsistence for depositors should they find themselves without means of support and also passage by rail to Rhodesia, or by sea to another port. The deposits to which Sections (a) and (b) of Article 1 refer, or balances thereout of, after the expenses mentioned in the article shall have been paid, will
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  be delivered to the depositor in Beira, or sent to his order at such place as the Commissioner of Police shall determine. Article 3. The Commissioner of Police may effect the expulsion of all persons who may land without observing the regulations laid down in Article 1, should they not immediately submit to them. The Natal and Cape Immigration Restriction Acts prohibit the immigration of any person a pauper or not in possession of visible means of support or likely to become a public charge. A similar Ordinance has bean suggested for the Transvaal.

  Indentured East Indian Immigrants in the Colonies.
  MR. GRENFELL: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can give approximately the number of indentured East Indian immigrants in the Colonies, and where such labourer is chiefly employed.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) The numbers according to the latest information available are—Natal, 25,636, British Guiana, 14,609; Mauritius, 10,083; Fiji, 8,225; Trinidad, 7,678; Jamaica, 1,168. They are employed chiefly on sugar plantations, but also on cocoa plantations (in Trinidad), on fruit farms (Jamaica), and in coal mines (in Natal).

  Government Sanction of Transvaal Labour Ordinance.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Government have now sanctioned the Ordinance respecting the introduction of indentured Chinese labour into the Transvaal.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) The Ordinance has been sanctioned.

  Care of Imbeciles—Suggested Royal Commission.
  MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury, in view of the petition presented to His Majesty's Government by various persons and authorities interested in the case of imbeciles and defective or feeble-minded persons that a Royal Commission should be appointed to consider the provisions now made for these

  967
  classes, whether he is now in a position to reply to the further letter presented to him in July, 1903, in support of the petition by Members of Parliament on both sides of the House.
  (Answered by Mr. A. J. Balfour.) I understand that this question has for some time past been engaging the attention of both the Home Office and the Local Government Board. These Departments have not yet decided upon the best form of inquiry to meet the particular problems referred to, and it may be necessary to extend the scope of the reference. A decision will be reached, I hope, at an early date, which will be communicated to the hon. Member if he will put down another Question in a week's time.

  Re-introduction of Bills of Exchange Amendment Bill.
  SIR F. DIXON-HARTLAND: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury if it is the intention of the Government to reintroduce the Bills of Exchange Amendment Bill of last year.
  (Answered by Mr. A. J. Balfour.) The answer is in the affirmative.

  Report of Committee on Parliamentary Grant for Meteorology.
  MR. FREDERICK WILSON: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury when the Committee appointed in 1902 to inquire into the administration of the Parliamentary Grant for Meteorology may be expected to report.
  (Answered by Mr. A. J. Balfour.) It is hoped that the Committee will report very shortly.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  War Office Employees and the Ventilation of Grievances.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider the advisability of granting to the various sections of organised Government workers employed under the War Department the same facilities of approach to the Secretary of State for War as were granted to
  968
  the postal employees by the Duke of Norfolk when Postmaster-General.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,): Government employees have full freedom of access to their superiors, and are able to bring to their notice any points they desire to have considered. I can give no general undertaking to receive deputations, but if any special circumstances make me consider it desirable, I shall be prepared to consider such applications for a deputation received through the regular channels.

  Duke of York's School.
  MR. LAMBERT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that at the Duke of York's School 560 boys from nine to sixteen years of age are taught by one head and five assistant masters, who have also to train forty Army schoolmasters in the training college, and that in spare time one of the masters has to keep the magic lanterns of the Army in order, he will consider the advisability of increasing the teaching staff.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The question of the physical, moral, and intellectual training of the Duke of York's School is now being considered by a Committee, and their attention has been directed to the question of the strength of the teaching staff.

  Director of Army Contracts.
  MR. LAMBERT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the statement of the War Office Reconstitution Committee, that a Director and an Assistant Director of Contracts have been appointed, neither of whom had previously any experience in buying, or any knowledge of the special stores to be bought, is a correct statement of fact; if so, who is responsible for such appointments; and will these appointments be continued.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The statement referred to in the Question appears to me to be a somewhat incorrect representation of the facts. The officials referred to have not previously served in the contract branch, but the present

  969
  Director of Contracts had several years experience in charge of the Army Clothing Department, Pimlico. No official could be selected who could have a complete knowledge of all the various stores dealt with by the contract branch. I am responsible for the promotion of these gentlemen.
  MR. LAMBERT: The statement in the Question is a quotation from a War Office document.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Lords of the Treasury have sanctioned the appointment of Mr. Henry de la Bere as Director of Army Contracts; whether the announcement of that gentleman's appointment was made by the Secretary of State for War with the concurrence of their Lordships; and, whether Mr. Alfred Major had resigned the office of Director of Contracts when the appointment of Mr. de la Bere was officially announced.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The Lords of the Treasury sanctioned the appointment of Mr. Henry de la Bere as Director of Army Contracts on the retirement of Mr. Major, which took place on the 11th March. Mr. de la Bere has officiated as Director of Contracts, without additional pay, since Mr. Major proceeded on sick leave pending retirement.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the last paragraph of the Question.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Mr. de la Bere was not appointed; he was asked to undertake the duties pending the resignation.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Was not his appointment announced officially in The Times before the resignation took place.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member is now quoting from a newspaper.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: The right hon. Gentleman supplied it to The Times.

  Admiralty Grants to Scottish Episcopal Churches.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state how much of the £12,278, granted by the Admiralty in aid of the Church of England and the Scottish Episcopal Church during the last five years, has been granted to these Churches respectively; how many Scottish Episcopal churches have received grants; and where these churches are situated.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PRETYMAN,): The sum of £12,278 18s. 9d. referred to is made up as follows:— Church of England, £6,588 2s. 11d.; Church of Ireland, £5,472 1s. 5d.; Scotch Episcopal Church, £218 14s. 5d.; Total, £12,278 18s. 9d. Grants have been made to twenty-two Scotch Episcopal churches, including the following:—Banff, Fraserburgh, Greenock, Kirkwall, Lerwick, Peterhead, St. Andrews, Wick.

  Rosyth.
  MR. BLACK: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Department are being called upon to make any payments for access to land at Rosyth, in addition to the £135,000 already paid; and, if so, will he say what these claims amount to.
  MR. PRETYMAN: The Admiralty have not been called upon to make any such payments for access. In order to make a railway connection with the North British Railway Company's line it has been necessary to acquire an area of glebe land from the Minister of Inver-keithing. This had to be purchased on a valuation of the Court of Teinds which fixed the price at £4,800. The area is about 6¼ acres.

  Admiralty Grants to Nonconformist Bodies.
  MR. ALFRED DAVIES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state how much of the £11,316 3s., granted by the Admiralty to Nonconformist bodies during the last five years, was received by the Baptist, Congregational, Presbyterian, and Wesleyan communities respectively.
  MR. PRETYMAN: The sum in question was made up as follows:— Wesleyans, £7,170 9s. 4d.; Presbyterians, £3,751 11s. 2d.; Baptists and Congre-gationalists, £394 2s. 6d. The grants to the two latter bodies cannot be differentiated, as they act in unison and have; appointed a joint committee to confer with the Admiralty in respect of these grants.

  Coaling War Ships at Sea.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he has any official reports upon the experiments which have been with the apparatus for coaling His Majesty's ships when at sea; and, if so, will he state their purport, and can he state if this system of coaling has been adopted by any other Powers.
  MR. PRETYMAN: Official reports have been received which show that further experiments are desirable, and these are now in progress. Apparatus for this system of coaling is under trial by several foreign Governments.

  Australian Labour Laws.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is aware that, by a recent Act of the Australian Legislature, British workers landing in Australia under contracts of labour are treated as criminals and subjected to imprisonment and deportation; and whether, having regard to the burden imposed upon British taxpayers by the cost of Imperial defence, he will bring in a Bill to secure to all classes in this country the right of entry into all parts of His Majesty's dominions.
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. LYTTELTON,): The answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative, but as has already been pointed out in answer to the hon. Member's Question of the 11th of February,† though the Act-has been in force for more than two years, not a single case of any British workman being treated as described has occurred. In regard to the second part
  See (4) Debates, cxxix., 1025.
  972
  of the Question, the hon. Member does not appear to be aware that Australia provides entirely for its own military defence and further contributes, with New Zealand, half the estimated cost of the Naval Squadron in Australasian waters. His Majesty's Government have no intention of proposing such legislation.

  Chinese Labourers and Rights of Property in the Transvaal.
  MR. SOARES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, if a Chinese labourer acquires under a contract entered into with a British subject for good and valuable consideration any house, land, building, or other property in breach of the provisions of the 14th Section of the Transvaal Ordinance, the contract will be void in law, and, if so, to whom will the property belong; or whether, subject to the parties to the contract undergoing such punishment as may be inflicted under the Ordinance, the labourer will be entitled to retain his property.
  *MR. LYTTELTON: The contract is one prohibited by law and is void. The property does not pass under it and remains in the hands of those who purported to dispose of it.
  MR. SOARES: Would the answer of the right hon. Gentleman be the same if the conveyance were taken in the name of a child born in South Africa of Chinese parents?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Oh, that is a Chinese puzzle.

  Native Labour in the Transvaal Mines.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will give the latest information received from the Transvaal Chamber of Mines, Johannesburg, in reference to the number of natives distributed to the mines during February by the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association; whether he will state what was the increase in the native supply of labour during February last, and what was the

  973
  total number of natives employed in the mines at the end of the month referred to; and whether these facts are receiving the consideration of the Government in connection with their final decision as to the Transvaal Chinese Labour Ordinance.
  *MR. LYTTELION: A loss of seventy-four in January was converted into a gain of 1,199 in February. The natives distributed in February were 6,263 of whom 223 were allotted to the railways. The total number employed was 69,966. The returns continue to engage my attention, but these fluctuations do not appear to me to affect the situation appreciably.

  Jameson Raid.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the statement in the despatch of the late Colonial Secretary to Lord Rosmead, dated 10th April, 1897, that the British South Africa Company would have to make compensation for the Jameson Raid, still holds good; and, if not, what explanation is there (if any) for this change of policy.
  *MR. LYTTELTON: I can only repeat the answer given by my predecessor on 1st April. 1901,† that His Majesty's Government have been advised that there is no legal liability on the part of the British South Africa Company to pay to His Majesty's Government, as representing the Government of the late South African Republic, any compensation in respect of the Raid, and that the right to exact reparation for any damage has not passed to His Majesty's Government.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Who gave that advice? Was it Whitaker Wright?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  Canada and the Metric System.
  MR. CROMBIE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, if he has now received the reply of Canada as to the adoption of the metric system; and whether he will when received, lay it upon the Table of the House.
  † See (4) Debates, xeii., 329.
  MR. LYTTELTON: The reply to the first part of the Question is in the negative. The despatch, when received, will be printed and laid immediately.

  Australia and Preferential Tariffs.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any assurance has been received from the Governments of the Australian Commonwealth and New Zealand that under certain circumstances their tariff against imported British manufactured goods will be removed.
  *MR. LYTTELTON: There has been no correspondence with the Governments of Australia and New Zealand on this subject since the Conference of 1902, and no such assurance has been received.

  Post Office and the Cash on Delivery System.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he has received representations from local authorities and others that the introduction of a cash-on-delivery post by the postal authorities would inflict injury on traders and shopkeepers in country towns and villages; and, if so, whether he can now give an assurance that it is not intended to proceed further with the scheme.
  *THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Lord STANLEY,): I have nothing to add at present to the reply which I gave on 22nd February to a Question asked on this subject by the hon. Member for North Tyrone.†

  Post Office Telephones.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: On behalf of the hon. Member for South Armagh, I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he intends to continue the installation of the central battery system in connection with Post Office telephones; and whether he is aware that this system has not found favour in other countries on account of the number of relays required and other causes of expense.
  † See (4) Debates, cxxx., 564.
  LORD STANLEY: It is intended to continue the use of the central battery system for Post Office Telephone Exchanges in London. It has given excellent results, being both efficient and economical. I am not aware that this system has not found favour in other countries. On the contrary, I am informed that it is generally adopted for large Exchanges in America, and it is either already in use, or about to be introduced, at important Exchanges in several European States.

  Sugar Convention and Artificially Sweetened Milk.
  SIR CHARLES McLAREN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if preserved milk artificially sweetened is within the scope of the Sugar Convention; whether Switzerland or any other Continental country now grants a bounty on exported sugar; and whether preserved milk coming from any such country will be now excluded from our imports.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): Preserved milk if it contains "in a notable proportion artificially incorporated sugar" is among the articles assimilated to sugar for the purpose of Article 1 of the Sugar Convention. Russia and Denmark are the only Continental countries which have so far been found by the Permanent Commission to grant export bounties on sugar. No preserved milk appears to be imported into the United Kingdom from either of these countries.

  Sugar Convention—Effect on Sugar Prices.
  SIR MARK STEWART: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Trade if he will state what was the price of sugar before the ratification of the Sugar Convention, and what it is at the present time.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The average prices at which raw and refined sugar respectively were imported into the United Kingdom in May, 1902, and February, 1904, computed from the declared quantities and values of the imports, were as follows: The price per cwt. of raw sugar in May, 1902, was 8s. 2¼d. and of refined
  976
  sugar, 10s. 10¼d. The corresponding prices in February, 1904, were 8s. 9¾d. and 11s. 0¾d.

  Public Vaccination.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if he will state how the amount of fees paid to public vaccinators by the various boards of guardians since the passing of the Act of 1898 compares with the cost of vaccinations prior to the passing of that Act.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. WALTER LONG,): According to the information I have obtained, the total number of vaccinations and revaccinations performed by public vaccinators in the four years ended, at Lady Day, 1899, was 1,370,897, and the average amount of the fee per case was 2s. 2d. In the four years ended at Lady Day, 1903, the total numbers of vaccinations and re-vaccinations performed by public vaccinators had risen to 3,197,192, and the average amount of fee per case was rather less than 5s. 10d. The substitution of the system of domiciliary vaccination under the Vaccination Act. 1898, for vaccination at fixed stations and the requirement that the operation shall be performed with antiseptic dressings have greatly increased the demand upon the time of the public vaccinators, and higher fees have consequently to be paid. A Departmental Committee is, however, at present inquiring into the subject of vaccination fees.

  Disease caused by Milk at Finchley.
  DR. FARQUHARSON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether hi; attention has been called to the report of the Medical Officer of Health for Finchley on a recent outbreak of disease due to milk, similar to that which occurred in Woking last autumn; and whether he intends to introduce legislation this session with a view to preventing such occurrences in the future.
  MR. WALTER LONG: I have seen the report referred to in the Question. I have taken note of the suggestion for legislation, but I cannot promise to

  977
  make prosposals on the subject during the present session.

  Frozen Meat and Cancer.
  MR. ALFRED DAVIES: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he has any official information showing that the stoppage of decomposition in frozen and chilled meat during transit from abroad to the United Kingdom, has any injurious effect upon those eating such food, and especially whether it contributes to the increasing number of cases of cancer; and, if not, will he direct inquiry to be made into the matter.
  MR. WALTER LONG: I have no information to the effect suggested by the hon. Member. Whether the eating of frozen meat has any influence in producing cases of cancer is a question to which the attention of the Cancer Research Committee, now sitting, might, I think, properly be drawn. I have had the matter under my attention, and will con-

  Local Taxation Account—Return, in the following form:—

  Country.

  Number of gallons at proof strength of tested spirits cleared for Home consumption year ended 30th day of September, 1903

  Number of liguid gallons of untested spirits cleared for Home consumption year ended 30th day of September, 1903

  Net amount already paid over, or to be paid over, to local authorities on account of Spirit Duties year ended 30th day of September, 1903

  Number of barrels of beer brewed year ended 30th day of September, 1903

  Number of barrels exported, destroyed, &c., on which the Duty has been remitted.

  Net number of barrels liable for Local Taxation Account.

  Net amount paid over, or to be paid over, to local authorities on account of Beer Duty year ended 30th day of September, 1903.

  Total amount paid over, or to be paid over, to local authorities on account of Duty on spirits and beer year ended 30th day of September, 1903.

  £

  s.

  d.

  £

  s.

  d.

  £

  s.

  d.

  England

  Ireland

  Scotland

  Coal Commission.
  MR. D. A. THOMAS (Merthyr Tydfil): I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer when the Second Report of the Coal Commission will be available to the public; will the accompanying evidence
  sider what steps should be taken with regard to it.
  MR. ALFRED DAVIES: Am I to give notice to the Cancer Research Committee?
  MR. WALTER LONG: No, I will do that.

  Local Taxation Account.
  MR. NANNETTI: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will grant the Return relating to the Local Taxation Account which appears on the Notice Paper to-day.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Mr. VICTOR CAVENDISH,): I shall be ready to give the Return, subject to some small modifications upon which I will communicate with the hon. Member.
  The Return referred to is as follows:—
  include the evidence taken up to the present time; and will the Report contain any expression of opinion by the Commissioners as to the effect of the imposition of the coal duty on the trade.
  MR. VICTOR CAVENDISH: I hope that the Second Report of the Coal Commission will be printed this week. It will be a merely formal Report submitting evidence, on the lines of the first Report. It will contain evidence given before the Commission up to the 21st of October last. The Report will not deal with the coal tax, as no evidence on the tax had been taken before October last.

  Customs Watchers.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he has received through the Board of Customs a memorial from the Customs watchers; and, if so, when a reply may be expected.
  MR. VICTOR CAVENDISH: A memorial has been received and is under consideration.

  Electric Lamp Brackets in the Mall.
  MAJOR EVANS GORDON: I beg to ask the lion. Member for Chorley, as representing the First Commissioner of Works whether the electric lamp brackets which have been erected along the Mall and in front of Buckingham Palace are intended to be permanent; by whom they have been put up; and who is responsible for their design.
  LORD BALCARRES: The answer to the first paragraph is in the negative. The lamp brackets have been put up temporarily by the Office of Works. The Office of Works is not aware of the name of the designer. The brackets are trade articles kept in stock.
  MAJOR EVANS GORDON: Arising out of the answer of the noble Lord can he arrange meanwhile to have the brackets painted a less hideous and aggressive colour?
  LORD BALCARRES: The paint is also temporary and probably more so than the bracket.
  SIR GEORGE BARTLEY: Will the removal of the brackets involve the pulling up of the road again?
  [No answer was returned.]

  Girls' Public Day School Company, Limited.
  SIR GEORGE BARTLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether he is aware that, from the report of the Girls' Public Day School Company, Limited, a sum of £2,826 was paid to that company last year by the Board of Education towards the £5,131 paid by that company to its shareholders as a dividend; whether he is aware that the fees paid by each pupil in these schools exceeded £15 a year; and whether such grants from taxation in aid of private enterprise are to be continued; and, if so, whether these grants are to be extended to all other private venture schools providing education to the middle and richer classes of the community.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir WILLIAM ANSON,): As I announced in the House last year the clause in the Directory, under which the institution referred to and other similar institutions are eligible for grants, will be withdrawn after 31st July next. If the company should propose such an alteration in their arrangements as would bring them into conformity with the regulations of the Board as thus modified, the Board will be prepared to consider whether any temporary continuance of existing grants would be justifiable in order to allow time for the completion of these alterations.
  SIR GEORGE BARTLEY: Will similar arrangements be made with other companies having private venture schools?
  SIR WILLIAM ANSON: The same clause covers them all.

  London County Council Education Committee.
  DR. MACNAMARA: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether the draft scheme for the constitution of an education committee submitted by the London County Council has yet been sanctioned by the Board of Education; and, if not, whether any objection to the scheme has been forwarded to the London County

  981
  Council; and, if so, whether he will state the nature of such objection.
  SIR WILLIAM ANSON: The Board will communicate their decision to the London County Council in time for the meeting of the Council to-morrow. Under these circumstances it would not be proper that I should inform the hon. Member of the decision of the Board.

  Education Act—Provision of New Denominational Schools.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether he will state the number of cases now pending in which the approval of the Board is sought for the erection or enlargement of a denominational school in lieu of a provided school under the Education Act, 1902; whether he will state in how many of such cases the applications are from the Roman Catholic and Church of England denominations respectively; and how many local inquiries have been held, or are pending, relative to such cases.
  SIR WILLIAM ANSON: I am not aware of any cases at all in which a denominational school has been erected, or enlarged, in lieu of an existing provided or council school. The only cases of substitution are of council or provided schools for denominational schools. Fifty-four such substitutions have been completed, and seventy-six others are in process of completion. The Question in the second paragraph does not arise. In answer to the third paragraph there have been three public inquiries as to the provision of new denominational schools, two of which have been refused; the report of the third has not yet been received. Two other inquiries are pending.

  Denbighshire and the Education Act.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether any decision has been arrived at in regard to the representations and objections addressed to the Board by the Parish Council and inhabitants interested in the Glyn Traian Pontfadog National School, Denbighshire, relative to the draft Final Order in the case of such school; and whether the
  982
  Board will order a local inquiry to be held before finally settling any scheme for the appointment of foundation managers for such school.
  SIR WILLIAM ANSON: The application on which the draft Final Order was prepared only mentioned one trust deed, and the Board had no knowledge of any other. It has now been ascertained that there are two trust deeds for the school one of a very strict Church of England character, the other of a more liberal character. The observations which persons in the locality have submitted to the Board are now under consideration, and the Board will direct a local inquiry if they are satisfied that it is necessary or desirable.

  Education in Denbighshire—The "Appointed Day."
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether he will state the grounds upon which the Board of Education has issued a notification to the Clerk of the Denbighshire County Council further postponing the appointed day, under the Education Act, 1902, from 1st April to 1st June, in Denbighshire.
  SIR WILLIAM ANSON: The Board have received official information that the Denbighshire County Council have passed a resolution "not to apply any rate for the support of voluntary schools within the county unless such schools are handed over unconditionally to the education authority for the area within the jurisdiction of the Denbighshire County Council." The Board have postponed the appointed day on account of this declared intention of the county council not to carry out the Act in its integrity.

  Educational Applications by Local Authorities.
  DR. MACNAMARA: On behalf of the hon. Member for the Morley Division of Yorkshire, I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education how many applications have been made by the new education authorities for permission to build new schools or enlarge old ones; how many have been granted; and how

  983
  many similar applications have been made and granted for non-provided schools.
  SIR WILLIAM ANSON: So far as the; information at the disposal of the Board shows, notices have been published for the provision of 114 new council schools and the enlargement of nineteen others; for the provision of twenty-two new Church schools and the enlargement of ten others; for the provision of sixteen Roman Catholic schools and the enlargement of three others; and for the provision of five other schools (denomination uncertain). Of these 157 cases, six council schools have been put on the Annual Grant List, two Church schools, and no Roman Catholic Schools. Many of the other cases are still in course of publication, some are still under consideration, and three (one Church and two Roman Catholic schools) have been refused. No case of enlargement has yet been passed.

  South Uist Crofters.
  MR. JOHN DEWAR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if the promised inquiry into the condition of the crofters and cottars in South Uist has taken place; and, if so, when the Report may be expected to be issued.
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,): The promised inquiry has taken place.] The Report is in course of preparation, and is being pushed forward as rapidly as possible, but the date when it will be ready for issue cannot as yet be stated.

  Education Grants.
  MR.CLANCY (Dublin County, N.): I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer from what dates, respectively, did the additional grant for education in England and Wales, consequent on the Education Act of 1902, and the Irish Development Fund Grant, begin to accrue, and what was the amount paid on account of each grant in the financial year 1903–4.
  MR. VICTOR CAVENDISH: The date from which the aid grant under the Education Act, 1902, begins to accrue varies in different localities. The amount to be paid in respect of the grant in the
  984
  present financial year cannot yet be stated. The Ireland Development Grant Act provided that two-thirds of the full annual grant should be paid in the current year.
  MR. CLANCY: The hon. Gentleman has not answered the Question at all. What was paid on account of the grant? What was done with the money said to have been paid on account?
  MR. VICTOR CAVENDISH: I have said it was provided that two-thirds should be paid in the current year. I can add nothing to that.
  MR. CLANCY: It is not an answer to the Question. I will put it to the hon. Member's superior officer when he comes.
  Later on Mr. CLANCY asked for an answer from Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, but, it being Three o'clock, the Speaker directed that it was too late, and suggested that the Question might be put down again.

  Castlerea District Council and the Labourers Act.
  MR. HAYDEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the scheme under the Labourers Acts promoted by the Castlerea Rural District Council is delayed by reason of the fact that no arbitrator has been appointed by the Local Government Board; whether he will call upon the latter body immediately to make such appointment; and whether he will state when this scheme was commenced.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): The council did not make application for the appointment of an arbitrator until the 20th February. The Board's Order appointing him was made on Monday last. The improvement scheme was made by the council in November, 1901.

  Land Purchase at Castlerea.
  MR. HAYDEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether one of the Estates Commissioners has recently visited certain estates in the Castlerea district of the

  985
  county Roscommon; and, if so, can he state with what, if any, result.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The reply is in the negative.

  Head Constable Gerity, Royal Irish Constabulary.
  Ms. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Chief J Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of I Ireland whether he is aware that! Head Constable Gerity, of Dungannon, county Tyrone, recently made a report against a sergeant under his command for breach of discipline, the result of which report was the transfer of the sergeant by order of the Inspector-General; and can he explain why the sergeant's transfer has been cancelled, and by whose instructions.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The sergeant appealed to the Inspector-General against his proposed transfer on the ground that he intended shortly to retire on pension. The Inspector-General thereupon cancelled the transfer.
  MR. SLOAN: Did the Inspector-General sanction the transfer in the first instance?
  MR. WYNDHAM: Presumably he approved it.

  Tipperary Land Commission Appeals.
  MR. CULLINAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, as there are 166 appeals to the Head Land Commission from the county of Tipperary listed, and as a sitting of the Commission has not been held for years in that county he will have steps taken to have those appeals heard without further delay.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Appeals from South Tipperary were listed for hearing at Waterford on the 22nd instant, but owing to local objections these cases have been withdrawn from the list. It has not been possible yet to arrange a sitting for the disposal of the South Tipperary cases.
  MR. CULLINAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these cases have been listed over a year?
  MR. WYNDHAM: They would have been heard at Waterford but for local objections.
  MR. CULLINAN: Yes, because of the inconvenience of taking so large a number of Tipperary cases to that town.

  Irish Model Schools.
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of Mr. Dale's report on the model schools in Ireland, in which it is shown that the cost of these schools is not only higher than that of the ordinary National Irish schools or Convent schools, which only cost the State £1 5s. to £2 10s. per head, but is actually above the cost incurred by the wealthiest English school boards, and that they have failed in one of their chief objects, namely, the united education of children of all creeds, he purposes to continue the grant to those model schools in Ireland.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I replied on Thursday last to a Question on this subject by the hon. and learned Member for North Louth.†

  Butson Estate, County Galway.
  MR. ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that on the Butson Estate, county Galway, which is about to be sold in the Land Judge's Court, there is a large tract of grazing land subject only to a temporary Court lease, while the general body of the tenants have only small impoverished holdings, many of which are constantly inundated by floods; whether he will take steps for the enlargement of the cottier tenancies, and will the provisions of the Purchase Act which prevent advances of public money to new tenants having no real connection with the estate be strictly enforced so as to prevent the rich grass lands, which it is the policy of the Act to redistribute amongst the smaller tenants, being sold to outsiders.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The grazing farm referred to was let before the passing of
  †See page 732.

  987
  the Act of 1903, and a collateral agreement for purchase was entered into by the Court with the lessee. The Land Judge cannot disturb this agreement; but there are other grazing lands on the estate which it is proposed to distribute among the tenants should the negotiations at present in progress be successful.
  MR. ROCHE: Will the right hon. Gentleman direct the Estates Com- I missioners to purchase this estate in view of the fact that the tenants are prepared to pay £1,000 more than is provided under the agreement.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I have no knowledge of the details.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Judge made a statement that—
  MR. WYNDHAM: No, but I understand that the Judge sanctioned the collateral agreement.
  MR. ROCHErose to put a further Question but Mr. SPEAKER said notice must be given.

  Housing of the Working Classes in Irish Towns.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland when he proposes to introduce the measure dealing with l the housing of the working classes in towns in Ireland promised last session.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I see no prospect of introducing the measure promised last session for dealing with the housing of the working classes in towns in Ireland till after Easter.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: May we take it that it will be introduced after Easter.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Yes, I hope to bring it in in the course of the session but other Bills must first be taken.

  Irish Development Grant.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware of the desire that a considerable portion at
  988
  least of the Irish Development Grant Fund should be devoted to primary education in Ireland; and whether he proposes to consider this desire in framing his Estimate.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Yes, Sir, I am aware of that desire. It was not, however, possible to meet it in this Estimate prior to a consideration of Mr. Dale's report.

  Bodyke Licensing.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state what is the delay in granting to Mrs. Healy, of Bodyke, county Clare, the licence which has been sanctioned for some time; and whether the Inland Revenue Authorities in Ireland will hi asked for an explanation.
  MR. WYNDHAM: A question of law was involved in the consideration of this case, and by an unfortunate omission the opinion of the Irish Law Officers was not communicated to the Board of Inland Revenue. The omission has now been remedied. The Inland Revenue Authorities are in no way to blame.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Then will the licence be granted at once?
  MR. WYNDHAM: The case is now before the Board of Inland Revenue.

  Irish Salmon Fisheries.
  MR. SHEEHY: I beg to; ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will explain why the date of the commencement of the close season for salmon is not the same along the east coast of Ireland; whether complaints have been made to the Irish Department of injury done to the fishing industry, both by the conservators of the Boyne and the fishermen by the lateness of the date of closing in one section of the coast north of the mouth of the Boyne; and what steps, if any, are to be taken to arrange that the season closes on the same date on both sections, north and south of the Boyne.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The dates vary in different localities according to the requirements of each. The netting season

  989
  for salmon is the same north and south of the mouth of the Boyne, but it differs from the netting seasons in the adjoining Dundalk district. Legislation would be necessary to enable the Department to deal satisfactorily with the operation of the close seasons.
  MR. SHEEHY: IS the right hon. Gentleman prepared to introduce a Bill?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I will consider that. I cannot promise to do so this session.

  Athenry Case.
  MR. ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to the fact that at the hearing of the charge, at Athenry petty sessions, against Timothy Hansberry, for unlawfully discharging firearms on the public road, Sergeant Monihan swore that he had received several complaints that shots were fired there during the night, and that the police had to send special patrols to try and find out who was firing the shots; and whether, in view of this statement, he will state on what dates such complaints were made, and reported to the proper officials; and, if no such complaints were made, will he order a prosecution against Sergeant Monihan for perjury.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The facts are correctly stated in the Question. I stated on Wednesday last† that no such complaints had been made to the police. The statement was based on the authority of a report made by the district inspector, which I now learn was erroneous. The Inspector-General has conveyed to that officer an expression of strong disapproval his conduct.

  Marlborough Street Training School.
  SIR JAMES HASLETT: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what action he proposes to take in connection with the Marlborough Street Training School in order to carry out the promise that new buildings would be provided; and will be see that funds will be provided for this purpose in next year's Estimates.
  †See page 583.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Provision has been made in the Estimates for an instilment of a grant of £50,000 for new buildings.

  Limerick Cottage Scheme Loans.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state how much of the shilling in the pound rate is required by the different Poor Law unions in the county of Limerick for the repayment of loans sanctioned in connection with the building of cottages under the Labourers (Ireland) Acts in the said unions.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Information on this point will be found in a Return (No. 198) laid on the Table of the House last session.

  Fair Rents in Kildare.
  MR. KILBRIDE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the tenants on the estates of Mr. Bruce Pryce and Lord Go ugh have served originating notices to have fair rents fixed by the County Court Judge of Kildare, which in the ordinary course would be heard at the April quarter sessions, and that these landlords have moved to have the cases transferred for hearing to the Land Commission; and, if so, can he say what delay, if any, this procedure will involve in the decision of these cases, and whether it is possible to have them listed for hearing before the next sitting of the Sub-Commission for Athy Union.
  MR. WYNDHAM: It will not be possible to include these cases in the list already issued, which will be heard in May next, unless a special Order of the Court to that effect is obtained. Application for such an Order may be made to the Judicial Commissioner sitting at the Fourt Courts. Any delay in the hearing of the cases will not, however, be prejudicial to the parties, as the judicial rents, when fixed, will run from the gale day next following the date of the lodgment of the applications in the office of the Clerk of the Peace.

  Owenmore River Drainage.
  MR. O'DOWD (Sligo, S.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the inspection of the Owenmore river, in county Sligo,

  991
  recently ordered by the Department of Agriculture, has yet taken place; and, if so, will he state the nature of the Inspector's report, and say whether it recommends any scheme for the drainage of that river.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The inspection has been carried out, and the report of the Inspector will be made to the Department in the course of a few days.

  Irish Evicted Tenants.
  MR. CULLINAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in cases where occupiers of evicted farms have purchased their holdings through the Land Commission and are now willing to surrender them for a fair consideration, the Estates Commissioners will be prepared to enter into negotiations for their redemption in order to give effect to the intentions of the Land Act, 1903, to reinstate the tenants or their representatives who had been evicted.
  MR. WYNDHAM: It appears to the Estates Commissioners that the Land Commission have no power to give or advance money to redeem the outstanding instalments of a purchase annuity.

  Enniskillen Fair Green.
  MR. EDWARD MITCHELL: I beg to ask the Chief; Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to the condition in which Enniskillen Fair Green is kept by the proprietor, who collects tolls therefrom; and J whether he will consider the advisability of introducing legislation to oblige owners of such fair greens to erect watering troughs for cattle exhibited at the fair, and for the keeping in proper condition of the surface of the fair greens.
  MR. WYNDHAM: No complaints have been made to the new Department respecting the condition of the Fair Green at Enniskillen. The local authority under the Diseases of Animals Act has power to make regulations for the cleansing of the market place. I am making further inquiry in the matter.

  Motor Traffic in County Fermanagh.
  MR. EDWARD MITCHELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state the districts in county Fermanagh which have been inspected with a view to the establishment of motor traffic for the purpose of conveying farm produce, and if no districts have yet been viewed in county Fermanagh will he ask that an inspection be made.
  MR. WYNDHAM: No districts in Fermanagh were inspected, I believe, and no advantage would be gained by making an inspection now.

  Macroom Labourers Cottage Scheme.
  MR. SHEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, previous to the recent inquiry into a labourers, cottage scheme in the Macroom Union, the district councillors were officially notified that the inquiry was to be held; and whether, seeing that Messrs. Arthur O'Leary and John Moynihan, representatives for the Ballingeary electoral division, received no intimation of any kind, will he state who was responsible for this omission.
  MR. WYNDHAM: An official notification of the date of the inquiry was communicated in the ordinary manner to the district council by the Local Government Board. Notices to the same effect were also published in the local newspapers and placarded throughout the district. It is not the business of the Board, or its inspector, to notify the individual members of the council. This is a matter for which arrangements, if considered necessary, should have been made by the council itself.
  MR. SHEEHAN: Is it the duty of the clerk of the district council to make the notification?
  MR. WYNDHAM: The council makes its own arrangements, I suppose.

  Donegal County Council and the Marine Works Acts.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has

  993
  received a copy of a resolution passed by the Donegal County Council expressing dissatisfaction with the manner in which the allocation of money to the county under the Marine Works Act was made, complaining that the representations sent by the council to the Chief Secretary had many schemes from the county generally, but that large areas of the county did not receive any benefit whatever under the provisions of the Act since the scheme of allocation was practically settled before consultation with them, and urging on the Chief Secretary the reconsideration of the schemes already virtually or actually approved, and offering to submit to the Chief Secretary the works which in their opinion would, with the money in hand, be, if undertaken, most conducive to the public interests; and what reply has been sent to the Donegal County Council; and what steps, if any, will be taken on the lines indicated by this resolution.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The allocation of funds under the Act provides for an expenditure of £15,000 on works in Donegal, These were selected according to their relative importance and after consultation with representatives of the county council. The allocation cannot now be reopened. The decision of the county council to defer further action in respect of certain works is much to be regretted; a continuance of delay in completing the necessary steps may lead to a postponement of the works in question for a year, or even longer.

  Telegraph Facilities for Garrison (County Fermanagh).
  MR. EDWARD MITCHELL: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if his attention has been called to the necessity of having a postal telegraph office established in the village of Garrison, county Fermanagh, where a monthly fair is held and a creamery erected; and, if so, will he remedy this public want.
  LORD STANLEY: The question of establishing a telegraph office in Garrison, county Fermanagh, was considered in 1901, and an offer was made to establish the office under guarantee, but
  994
  no reply was received. The business would not be sufficient to enable me to open an office without guarantee.

  Riverstown (Sligo) Postal Arrangements.
  MR. O'DOWD: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether a memorial signed by the inhabitants of Riverstown, county Sligo, calling for a mid-day delivery of mails in that town has been received by him; whether he is aware that the central distributing station of Ballymote is only seven miles distant, and that letters arriving there by the mid-day limited mail train are not delivered in Riverstown until the following day; and whether, in view of these facts, arrangements will be made by which the postal facilities asked for can be granted.
  LORD STANLEY: I have not yet received a memorial asking for a midday delivery of letters at Riverstown, county Sligo, but inquiry shall be made on the subject and an answer sent to the hon. Member.
  MR. O'DOWD: But the memorial was sent last September.
  LORD STANLEY: I can only say I have not seen it.

  Egg Frauds against Irish Producers.
  MR. ROCHE: I beg to ask the hon. Member for North Huntingdonshire, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether his attention has been directed to frauds committed by egg merchants in Lancashire and other parts of Britain in packing Austrian and other foreign eggs in Irish egg boxes and selling them as Irish; and, if so, whether he is prepared to take steps to safeguard the interests of the Irish producer.
  MR. AILWYN FELLOWES: No representations have been received by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries on this subject. If the hon. Member will communicate to me any detailed information which he may possess I will arrange for inquiries to be made.

  Irish Land Stock.
  MR. CLANCY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland when it is proposed to issue stock under the Irish Land Act of 1903.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The issue of Government 2¾ per cent. stock created by the Irish Land Act of 1903 will be made at the first favourable opportunity, which it is hoped may occur very shortly.

  Confidential Cabinet Memoranda.
  MR. D. A. THOMAS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will now consider the desirability of making public the document relating to a programme which included preferential tariffs and taxation of food, and which was submitted to the Cabinet in August last, when the document, since published, and entitled Economic Notes on Insular Free Trade, was also under consideration.
  MR. LAMBERT: At the same time may I ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the fact that reference has been made and apparent misunderstanding arisen as to the purport of a statement circulated to Cabinet Ministers by the Prime Minister last autumn, he will lay that expression of his views upon the Table of the House.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I do not think any misconception with regard to this Paper has been fallen into by any Gentleman who has read it, and if such misconception exists it can, I am convinced, be completely removed by a second perusal. But with regard to the propriety of publishing it, I would remind the House—those Members who have sat in Cabinets will not require to be reminded—that Cabinet memoranda are as much part of ordinary Cabinet proceedings as are the conversations round the Table. They are, in fact, fragments of that conversation, and are, indeed, of a private character. I do not think that, in the interests of Cabinet government, I could on this occasion, or on any other, assent to the publication
  996
  of what are part of our confidential intercommunications.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that one of his colleagues in another place has referred specifically to this document?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No colleague of mine has communicated the Paper to the public. If it was referred to it was as I have referred to it, being compelled to do so by the fact of the matter being touched upon by a noble friend.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: Lord Lansdowne went much further than that.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are several precedents for the production of Cabinet memoranda when those Cabinet memoranda have become the subject of controversial discussion in both Houses or in either House of Parliament.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It is new to me if there are. Perhaps the hon. Member will give me the reference.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Certainly I will do so.

  Chinese Labour in Rhodesia.
  DR MACNAMARA: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the House will be afforded an opportunity of discussing the terms of any Ordinance for the introduction of indentured Chinese labour into Rhodesia before sanction is given to such Ordinance.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I cannot do better than refer the hon. Gentleman to an answer which I gave to a precisely similar Question put to me on the 8th of this month,† in which I pointed out that the principles underlying the introduction of Chinese labour in Rhodesia were identical with those which underlay the introduction of Chinese labour in the Transvaal, and I do not see why there should be two debates on what is in fact a single subject.
  DR. MACNAMARA: Is the First Lord aware that the Colonial Secretary has
  †See page 456.

  997
  stated here that the Ordinance for Rhodesia is different.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have not got present to my mind the answer of my right hon. friend to which the hon. Member refers, but I do not think he ever suggested that the principles underlying the Ordinances were different in the two cases.

  The Polling of Absentee Voters.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he will say whether, and, if so, when it is proposed to set up a Committee for the purpose of inquiring into and reporting on the best method of permitting persons who are necessarily absent from their homes between the nomination of candidates and the day of poll to record their votes.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understand that in the course of the debate on Friday my right hon. friend the President of the Local Government Board expressed willingness to refer the subject alluded to in the Question to a Select Committee, and that the offer was not accepted. I do not know, therefore, why the hon. Member should press the matter further. However, I am of opinion that possibly some inquiry may be desirable, though the Government have not decided what form the inquiry should take as likely to lead to useful result, and I must defer answering the Question.

  Duration of Speeches.
  MR. SOARES: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will favourably consider a scheme for limiting the length of speeches on the days set apart for private Members during the remainder of the present session.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The House knows my opinion on the subject, and I have often expressed my sympathy with my hon. and gallant friend the Member for the Chelmsford Division of Essex, whom I do not see in his place. If a Resolution be moved on a private Member's night suggesting that on those nights speeches should be limited, I will take care that no influence of mine is thrown
  998
  into the opposite scale, and the House will be left to decide this delicate question for itself.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the longest speeches are made by Cabinet Ministers and the Member for Peckham.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not deny that even I may have been a sinner in that respect—
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: We do not mind you so much as the Member for Peckham.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think in a long and varied Parliamentary experience I have heard lengthy speeches even from other quarters of the House.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: What will be the business to-morrow morning and for the rest of the week?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: To-morrow morning's sitting will be devoted to the remaining Supplementary Estimates, Wednesday to the Report of the Vote on Account, and Thursday to the Report of Army and Navy Votes.

THE TRANSVAAL LABOUR ORDINANCE.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I wish to ask a Question of which I have given private notice to the First Lord of the Treasury, viz.:—WHat is the exact meaning of the announcement that the King has been advised not to disallow the Labour Ordinance, but that it will not yet be brought into operation; when the restriction will be removed; and when the House will be placed in full possession of the regulations under which the Ordinance will be exercised.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The form of the statement of which the right hon. Gentleman requires an explanation is one which is practically prescribed by statute in this matter. If His Majesty does not disallow an Ordinance, that

999
Ordinance in the natural course becomes law in the colony. The next Question deals with what is not a question of law, but a question of fact. Certain officials have to be appointed and certain arrangements have to be come to with the Chinese Government before the importation of Chinese labour can become an actuality, but so far as the action of the Government is concerned the Ordinance has been allowed.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The right hon. Gentleman has not said when he expects that Parliament will be informed on the matter.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: My right hon. friend (the Colonial Secretary) informs me that the regulations which will carry out the pledges he has given will be laid before the House very shortly, but I cannot give a similar pledge in regard to the regulations as a whole.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: May I ask whether, in view of the strong feeling in the country, the Government will reconsider their decision to withhold from Parliament the opportunity of discussing the regulations before the Ordinance comes into operation?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If the discussion to which the right hon. Gentleman refers is one relating to the principle on which the Government have acted in permitting Chinese labour to be used in the Transvaal, I think his request is a strange one, for, unless I am greatly mistaken, there have been two discussions upon the subject in another place, there were discussions in relation to it in the debate on the Address, and not less than two divisions have already been taken.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: My point is that the discussions took place without any knowledge on our part as to what the regulations would be.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am glad to hear that the objection of the right hon. Gentleman and his friends is only in a small degree directed to the principle, and deals chiefly with details; but my right hon. friend informs me that all the
1000
regulations involving the question of principle either have been, or will be very shortly, laid before the House, and the House has been fully informed of their character.

NEW BILLS.
  PRISONS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to Prisons in Scotland by abolishing the distinction between general Prisons and ordinary Prisons," presented by Mr. A. Graham Murray; supported by the Lord Advocate; to be read a second time tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 126.]
  TEINDS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  "To amend the Law of Teinds, and to abolish Fiars Prices in Scotland," presented by Mr. Maxwell; supported by Sir Charles Renshaw, Mr. James Campbell, Mr. Gordon, and Sir John Stirling-Maxwell; to be read a second time upon Friday, 6th May, and to be printed. [Bill 127.]

  SUPPLY [3RD ALLOTTED DAY].
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.]

  CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1904–5. (VOTE ON ACCOUNT.)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £21,500,000, be granted to His Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the Charges for the following Civil Services and Revenue Departments for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1905, viz.:—

  Civil Services.
  CLASS IV.

  £

  Board of Education

  7,000,000

  CLASS I.

  Royal Palaces and Marlborough House

  26,000

  Osborne

  10,000

  Royal Parks and Pleasure Gardens

  35,000

  £

  Houses of Parliament Buildings

  16,000

  Miscellaneous Legal Buildings, Great Britain

  30,000

  Art and Science Buildings, Great Britain

  15,000

  Diplomatic and Consular Buildings

  20,000

  Revenue Buildings

  160,000

  Public Buildings, Great Britain

  160,000

  Surveys of the United Kingdom

  90,000

  Harbours under the Board of Trade

  10,000

  Peterhead Harbour

  10,000

  Rates on Government Property

  260,000

  Public Works and Buildings, Ireland

  110,000

  Railways, Ireland

  60,000

  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon Boroughs)said he proposed to move to reduce this Vote by the sum of £500, in order to call attention to the administration of the Education Act. He knew that he could only allude very indirectly to the merits of the Act itself. He wished to ask the Government whether, having regard to the state of things in the country and to the way in which the Act had worked, they would consider the question of mitigating the asperities of the Act and suspending the operation of certain clauses of the Act until the country had had an opportunity of reconsidering the whole question and expressing an opinion upon it. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Board of Education, in one of the debates last-year, expressed an opinion that the Act was working without friction. Well, that depended entirely upon what his idea of friction was. If it meant that there were no rows outside the Board of Education it could only be said that that branch of the Government was an exception and differed from every other branch. But that was not what friction meant or ought to mean. The questionwas—was the Act working smoothly in the country, was it accepted by the country as a settlement of the question? He was told from all parts of the country that one result of the operation of the Act had been that the work thrown by it on the county councils was so enormous, especially in the case of the larger councils, that it had fallen entirely into the hands of the officials; of course in that case there would be no friction, but then that was not what the Government called popular control. He proposed to call attention to the religious difficulty, because he was perfectly certain that until that difficulty

  1005
  was removed the Act would not work without friction. The hon. Gentleman last year suggested that the country was accepting it as a settlement even of the religious difficulty, but there was no section or class of opinion in the country that accepted the Act as a settlement of the religious difficulty; Nonconformists did not accept it, and the Church did not accept it, for the Church Times in a leading article only last week said, "nothing but a complete resettlement of the whole question can save us." No Party in the community accepted it as a settlement, and therefore he asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education whether he would do his best to prevent the worst features of the Act from being rigidly carried out until there was a resettlement, or whether he was determined, in the teeth of public opinion, to stick to clauses of the Act that were obnoxious.
  COLONEL NOLAN: No.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Obnoxious except to hon. Members for Ireland, whom it did not touch. He was referring, of course, to the people who had to carry the Act out and to bear the burden. Every opportunity the country had had of expressing an opinion had boon taken advantage of to denounce the Act; and having regard to that, ought not the Government to do something not to press those parts which were obnoxious to the general public? The hon. Gentleman a year ago made merry over the passive resistance movement. At that time only a few hundred summonses had been issued, but the number of summonses had now risen to 18,000, There were 80,000 cases in which final notices had been served, and the movement was growing day by day. No doubt, from the strictly technical point of view, the movement was a conspiracy. But why was not a prosecution proposed? Because the sympathy of the public was with the resisters of the law. The Act was not accepted in England, there was a great protest against it, and the Government ought to reconsider their position even from the point of view of administration.
  He desired to speak chiefly with regard to Wales. The Principality
  1006
  was probably the most law-abiding part of His Majesty's dominions, the sole function of Judges of assize usually being to receive a pair of white gloves; therefore what had happened was not an outburst of anarchy or a sudden desire on the part of the people to break the law; it was simply a strong and emphatic protest against an Act which they considered to be unfair. What was the position of the Welsh county councils when the administration of this Act was cast upon them? They knew perfectly well that if they levied a rate for the support of Church schools, which were not popularly controlled, and in which sectarian tests were imposed, there would be a passive resistance movement throughout Wales of an even more extended character than had arisen in England. The large majority of the members of the county councils were Nonconformists, and they had to contemplate the possibility of having to prosecute, to drag to the police court and to sell up their own friends, members of their own faith, and their own political supporters, for not paying rates for the support of institutions which they themselves condemned; and they came to the conclusion that under the circumstances it would be fairer and braver to take upon themselves the responsibility of protesting than to leave it to their constituents, while they simply acted as prosecutors. The Board of Education had instituted an inquiry, which was the first step towards the issuing of a mandamus, and that, if persisted in, would mean imprisonment for contempt. Did the Secretary to the Board of Education really think that, having regard to the state of public opinion, this I was a case in which he should proceed to extremities? Was it not rather a case in which a broad and statesmanlike view: should be taken, and an attempt made to effect a settlement? These gentlemen in Wales had taken a conscientious stand, and it was as difficult to persuade men with strong convictions on a particular subject to abandon their position as to persuade a Government with no settled; convictions on any subject to abandon its position.
  He was not going to ask the Committee to express any opinion on the action of the Welsh county councils.

  1007
  Those bodies were responsible to their constituents for the course they had taken. But they bad a certain justification in the words of Ministers of the Crown. For instance, the President of the Local Government Board recently, referring to the breaking of the law by motorists, instead of urging prosecutions criticised the action of the police, and pointed out that even the Prime Minister had suffered in this respect. It was not the only respect in which the Prime Minister had suffered through allowing himself to be driven by a headlong chauffeur. But the President of the Local Government Board, after criticising the men who put the law into operation, proceeded to say that the law was a farce and must be amended. That was just the position of the Welsh county councils. The right hon. Gentleman was head of the Local Government Board, and the view of the county councils was "Our chief holds that if the law is a bad one we are justified in setting it at defiance, and that it is the duty of a decent Government to amend it." That, too, was the position of the Prime Minister with regard to licensing. The law provided that the necessities of the neighbourhood should be taken into account in the question of licences, but the Prime Minister had declared that that requirement pressed hardly upon the owners of property, and had appealed to the magistrates to suspend the operation of the law until an opportunity arose for amending it. The Welsh county councils contended that the Education Act pressed severely on the consciences of thousands of decent people, that they really could not put it into operation, and that, if it had to be administered, it should be by the Board of Education itself. They were determined not to be made the instruments for oppressing their neighbours, and they appealed to the Government to reconsider the whole situation and bring in an amending Bill. One or two cases out of many might be given as showing that irritation and even exasperation were justified by the administration of the Board of Education. One was the school at Pant Glas in Carnarvonshire. The trustees were Church, but the school had been built largely by the efforts of parishioners who were mainly Nonconformists.
  1008
  Unfortunately the trusts were usually settled frequently behind the backs of the subscribers—by the donors of the sites. For some time this particular school was run as a Church school, but, as there were few Churchmen in the parish, that could not be carried very far. When repairs and extensions were required, a meeting was summoned of the parishioners, who refused to subscribe unless the school were made in reality a parochial school. The clergyman had to accept the condition, and a representative committee of management was appointed. That was how things stood on the passing of the Act. Then, however, finding he could do without voluntary subscribers, the clergyman immediately obtained from the Board of Education an order for a new board of management, with the result that this school, built largely by Nonconformists, and containing not a single Church scholar, was placed under Church management.
  *THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir WILLIAM ANSON,)reminded the hon. Member that the Order to which he was referring was a Draft Final Order, made in accordance with the trust deed, and liable to be reconsidered by the Board of Education when the usage of the school in times past was brought before it by persons in the locality.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid that was exactly why he was raising the point. These facts had been represented by the county council, but he had yet to learn that the Board had intimated their intention of cancelling the Order. Under that Order the principal officiating minister of the parish was to be ex officio a manager, or, failing him, the archdeacon, who lived miles away; the nominated manager was to be appointed from time to time by the principal officiating minister; and the two representative managers were to be appointed by the subscribers—although there were now no subscribers, the whole cost of maintenance being cast upon the country. Another clause—which was inserted in all these Orders—provided that only bonâ fide members of the Church of England should be qualified to become managers,

  1009
  and that no person should be entitled to act until he had signed a declaration that he was a member of the Church of England. If this had been a solitary instance he would not have thought much about it, but he had a bundle of similar cases from Carnarvon, in each of which there appeared a disqualification clause by which the office of a foundation manager was determined if the manager in question became a bankrupt, a lunatic, or a Nonconformist. Although all the children in the schools were Nonconformist, not a single dissenting parent was allowed to be a foundation manager, and yet the Secretary to the Board was "mandamusing" county councils for refusing to stand such insolence in the Orders. Another case was the school at Clynnog, in which Mr. Acland took a great interest. The parishioners refused to subscribe for the rebuilding of the schools unless popular management was instituted. A representative board of management was formed and remained in office until the passage of the Act. The vicar was a member, but he was only one among five or six, and the system worked uncommonly well. Immediately after the passing of the Act an Order was obtained and there again was the same clause that they must be members of the Church of England. [MINISTERIAL cries of Hear, hear!] Hon. Members opposite seemed to think that that was a fair thing. This was a parish where the proportion of Nonconformists to Churchmen was 100 to nine and the only school in the parish built for Nonconformists with the parishioners money had been declared a Church of England school, and no Nonconformist could become one of the foundation managers. He thought that was a monstrous injustice.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid the Board of Education must pay some attention, under Clause 11. to the principles on which the education given in the schools had been conducted in the past. The Board of Education always regarded evidence of usage in the matter in order to settle the draft Orders which were sent to the local authority and other persons interested in the matter. The local authority had not apparently interested itself sufficiently in this matter to make
  1010
  any representation to the Board of Education. If either the local authority or any person interested in the matter had done so the matter would have been considered.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid the hon. Baronet must have forgotten that the county council of Carnarvonshire had made representations but the grievance had not been redressed. As a matter of fact he had a copy that morning of the representations made by the county council of Carmarthen to the Board of Education, but he had not the date.
  MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENsaid they were only Draft Orders.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid if the Secretary to the Board of Education told him that cases of that sort would be set right then his object would have been served. Take the case of Carmarthen. That was a very crucial case. He could give the Committee the case of a mining village where the rector appointed his two daughters and an old housekeeper at the rectory as the foundation managers. It had been stated that this was a parish 1,200 feet above the sea level. Evidently it was so much above all ordinary ideas of fair play. He was aware that the idea that one of these managers was a servant at the rectory had been repudiated, but he had made further inquiries and found that this statement was correct. One of his complaints was that under these Orders it was competent for the clergyman of a parish, practically, to have his own board of management appointed. Take the Carmarthen schools. With regard to an overwhelming majority of them the Nonconformists were in the proportion of three or four to one and in most cases the Nonconformists helped to build the schools. The hon. Baronet had appointed a very able lawyer to inquire into the matter and he wished to know whether he was going to inquire only into the technical breaches of the Act or into the whole educational condition of Carmarthen and report to the Government what the state of the case really was. Those schools in Carmarthen were under complete clerical control. The vicar was ex-officio manager and in

  1011
  some cases appointed the second member. Then the two together co-opted members, and in order to make them completely under the control of the minister the co-opted members retired one in the second and the other in the third year. Then they had to be re-elected by those who remained on the Board. The two clergymen on the Board could either elect or re-elect the co-opted members, and therefore instead of being perfectly independent their tenure on the Board was at the mercy of the two clerical members. That was what the Board of Education had sanctioned in regard to schools maintained exclusively out of public funds. There was the case of a village in Carmarthenshire where a school was built by the parishioners, and there was only one Churchman in the parish at the time. The clergyman resided in an adjoining parish. The old British school fell into a state of bad repair and the clergyman said that they must have a new school. Everybody contributed to the school and those who could not give cash contributed something else. Some gave the use of a horse and cart and others gave money, and they helped to build the school either by contributing in this way or giving their labour. To the astonishment of the parishioners the trust had been given over to the National Society. Naturally the parishioners made a protest, but it was no good, and the school was now being run as a Church school while practically there were no others but Nonconformists in the parish. That exasperated and irritated the people beyond endurance, and there were limits to human endurance. Here was a case of a trust in the hands of the Board of Education, and an Order that the foundation managers must sign a declaration that they were members of the Church of England and the moment they ceased to be members they were disqualified. The might be the best men in the parish, but the moment they joined the religion of the majority of the people who built the school they had to go. The people of Carmarthen declared that they would rather go to prison than pay the education rate under such circumstances.
  The Prime Minister said, "Why do you not build your own schools? The lavish
  1012
  generosity of Churchmen built these schools, and now you want to collar them." Churchmen had not built them. There was an inquiry by the Charity Commissioners—not a very partisan body from the Nonconformist point of view —into these trusts among others, and case after case would be found where the schools had not been built by the Anglican Church. Besides, if the parishioners there really wanted little denominational schools of their own they had got to build them. He made an inquiry into the case of Carmarthen, and he found that there was not a single parish throughout the county which had not an excellent school attached to some chapel or other, most of them better than the national school from the point of view of light, air, and ventilation. They were more modern and excellent buildings. What would happen if they followed the advice of the Prime Minister and took advantage of the clause in the Act which enabled them to set up denominational schools. He impressed this on the Committee in order to show that they were not making a fight for their own sect, and that it was not merely intolerance. Supposing they utilised each denominational school they could get more than thirty children and they could I get the county council readily to I acknowledge it, and they could go to the Board of Education, and that Board would not refuse it. What would happen was this. In a parish with 120 children all now in one school and brought up together as one little community, they would have three hostile wrangling little camps—the J Church crowd in one, the Congregational crowd in another, and the Methodists in a third. That was as bad from the social point of view as could be imagined. What about the educational point of view. From the sectarian point of view it would be a first rate thing. It would mean that the county council would furnish the school; every desk would be bought out of the rates instead of being subscribed for by little farmers who had not too much money to spare. More than that, they could get a teacher, and although they could not lay it down as a condition of his tenure, it would be an understanding that he would be a Sunday school teacher, that he would play the organ, and that he would be a sort of lay

  1013
  curate for the minister in the little church. There would also be one or two little assistants who would be most useful to the Congregational chapel in the district. If they were simply seeking sectarian ends they would follow the Prime Minister's advice, wreck the parish, and ruin education. He thought it was to their honour that they preferred to submit to hardship and grievance, and the intolerance and greed of one sect, until they got the thing remedied, rather than ruin the education of their children for a whole generation. The Congregationalists were practically the National Church in that community; they were an overwhelming majority of the public. The Anglican communion was a negligible quantity so far as numbers were concerned. He did not want to say anything disrespectful. The Church said, "We want to have our own school, and have our children taught by our own teacher—a man of our own communion. We think that is necessary for the religious instruction of our children." Congregationalists would naturally prefer a man of their own religious opinion, and he would be useful to them, but they preferred to take the interest of the whole community into account. Seeing that the Nonconformists were taking a perfectly unselfish point of view, he asked the Board of Education not to proceed to the extremity of sending men to prison for taking a perfectly enlightened, fair, and honourable view of their duty.
  There was no county council that had fretted the members of the opposite party or different communions more fairly than the county council of Carmarthen. It was a Nonconformist council by three or four to one. There was a vacancy in the clerkship of the council a short time ago, and although there were applications from Nonconformists, they elected a Churchman. It was idle to suggest that it was purely sectarian rancour that had driven them to this position. They had really done it for the protection of their own children, and the protection of their own people, and he asked the hon. Member to consider whether it was not better, from the point of view of education, from the point of view of the Government itself, that a perfectly fair inquiry should be
  1014
  instituted into the circumstances rather than that the Government should do as they had done. He knew they had been misled by the Bishops. He was perfectly certain that they were told by certain Bishops that the Welsh county councils would not take that line. He asked the Government whether it was not a case for statesmanship and not for police action. It was not a case for threats. These people were fighting a perfectly unselfish battle. They had been supporters of religious equality. In the election of 1868 they fought for the principle of religious equality for Ireland with no promise of anything for themselves. These farmers in Carmarthenshire defied their landlords then, and voted Liberal for the first time. There were scores of them evicted. There was an inquiry by the House of Commons into the circumstances of the evictions, and it ended in the passing of the Ballot Act. When the Welsh people had suffered all this for religious equality in Ireland, he thought he could appeal to Irish Members not to vote for sending men to prison when they were going to apply the same principle to themselves. These men were taking a perfectly broad view of the whole situation. He was speaking, be believed, the opinion of the vast majority of the people in Wales when he said that they would rather have a settlement thin strike, but if the Government persisted in pushing this to an extremity, they were prepared to endure any penalty the law could put upon them. The county councils of Wales met as a body, and sent a reasonable invitation to the Bishops to meet them and discuss the possibility of arriving at a settlement before they ever threatened at all. What did the Bishops do? Three of the four Bishops refused to meet the county councils. He knew it was the Bishops who were now pressing the Government to prosecute the Welsh county councils. He could well understand that hon. Members opposite could hardly conceive that to be the case, and he said that to their credit. He was sorry to say it was the case. It was Episcopal pressure which was now inducing the Government to take this action. He did not believe the Government wished to do it. They were willing to let matters slide. The county councils in Wales were willing to make

  1015
  things as easy as possible until a settlement was arrived at. One Bishop met them, and he said—
  "We want facilities for religious instruction by our own people. We want first of all the syllabus of the London School Board. We want facilities to teach our own children our own creed; but we do not regard the syllabus of the London School Board as sufficient."
  What was the answer of the Welsh county councils? He invited the attention of the Committee to this again before they determined that these county councils should be prosecuted. The official answer given by the Welsh county councils was that they would advocate the complete and unqualified acceptance of the proposals made in the Bishop of St. Asaph's memorandum as to arrangements to be made for religious instruction in all schools, for securing that such religious instruction should be regular and effective, and for seeing that there were special facilities for Church children. But the other Bishops refused to accept the proposals of the Bishop of St. Asaph. He would ask who, in these circumstances, was responsible for this unpleasant position? Was it the county councils who were prepared to meet the clergy? The councils even offered a rent to them for their schools. He asked the hon. Gentleman to say in his reply whether, rather than prosecute, he did not think it a case for a little toleration, a little consideration, and a real inquiry into the conditions. The danger of Ministers always was to apply what they thought was a strong hand in a situation of this kind. The real strong man was the man who was strong to take the, hazards of the right course. The hon. Gentleman had got to choose which course he would take. If he produced strife and sedition in Wales, it would do him no credit. On the other hand, if he took a wise and statesmanlike course, he would bring peace to Wales and earn the gratitude of the Welsh people.
  Whereupon Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item, Class 4 (Board of Education), be reduced by £500."—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
  MR. HALDANEsaid he wished to support his hon. friend
  1016
  in the strong appeal he had made to the Government. The speech of his hon. friend was based not upon the religious question, but upon educational grievances, upon the damage which w is being done to the administration of the Act of 1902 in Wales by circumstances of a remarkable kind, to which ha called attention. He himself felt he had some title to appeal to the Government on this matter, because, from the beginning, he sympathised with what he conceived to be the main and ruling purpose of the Act of 1902. That purpose he took to be to place all education, higher as well as primary, in the hands of a representative body—the county councils having been chosen for the purpose—and therefore to lay the foundation of a system which would develop into an adequate national system of education all over the country. He pointed out at the time, both inside and outside the House, that what was then done was only laying the foundation; that there was a superstructure to be raised on the top, and apparently a price to be paid to the Church for removing obstacles, which required consideration hereafter. He was unable then to vote for the Government Bill because of the Church clauses, nevertheless he was strongly sympathetic with the purpose of the hon. Baronet and with the view of the Government which, as he conceived it, recognised that we had outgrown the School Board stage with its limitations to primary education, and a stage at which there was no School Board representation at all in large parts of the country. He believed that the hon. Baronet had been sincerely desirous of doing the best for national education, and that the distinguished permanent officials who assisted him were also anxious to make the most of their opportunities. He believed that a better spirit as regarded education was abroad now than for a very long time past, and yet they found the administration of this Act was being carried out in Wales in the fashion described by his hon. friend, and this must convince any impartial and fair-minded man that they were on the verge of a great peril for the very system of education which the Government had called into existence. Education could not be administered efficiently in the

  1017
  teeth of the opposition of a whole people. They could not mandamus a nation any more than they could draw an indictment against a nation. They could not compel a whole people, to whom they had entrusted the working of a system, to carry it out in a fashion repugnant to their own views and the views of their constituents. It was well deserving of attention that the Welsh county councils had not been accused of that. They appeared to have welcomed the principle of the Act, but had found it was impossible for them, in the face of public opinion, to dminister the Church clauses and to maintain the voluntary schools out of the rates under the schemes cast.
  The Motion of his hon. friend in substance was—"Let us have an inquiry into this matter on a much larger scale than is now done." It was all very well to say that they could have a Commissioner to make an inquiry under the Act of 1902; but the Commissioner would go down and take a strictly legal view of the question; it would be impossible for him to take that broad view of the subject which was necessary if the truth was to be brought before their minds. In that: state of things, the question was—what was the position of the Government on | this matter? He had considerable sympathy with the difficulty in which the hon. Baronet was placed. There was no doubt that his powers were very much narrowed by the chief clauses of the Act of 1902, and, if this were the place to discuss that Act, he would point out that that ought to make him gravely consider whether it was not the duty of the Government to come to Parliament to deal with these clauses. Wales was a very good test case. There they had the people as keen about education as in any other part of the Empire. Their education was far in advance of the general system in England or, he believed, in Scotland. In the latter country elementary education might have done well; but they had nothing to rival the intermediate education in Wales. In that state of things, the hon. Baronet had to administer the Act in Wales among a people who were as keen to make the most of it, and get the most out of it, as any in this land. But what was the situation? The whole country was in revolt, and from very
  1018
  obvious causes. They could not work an Act of this kind among a people like that without exercising the greatest toleration and forbearance, and without very considerably modifying the clause; of the Act of 1902. There never would be peace in that country nor would the condition of things be tolerable so long as the Act was administered religiously and not educationally. It would hive been infinitely better for the administration of the hon. Baronet if he had been able to say—" I have nothing to do with religious controversies; I am thankful that I am relieved from the necessity of entering on a course which can only end by bringing me into collision with either one religious body or another." The hon. Baronet had taken another course. He was not quite sure whether the hon. Baronet was driven to it by the clauses of the Act. The hon. Baronet used an expression that the draft Orders were made in correspondence and were subject to reconsideration. That was a hopeful expression. What he asked was —how, even in correspondence, had the hon. Baronet come to make Orders like these? If he said he had been forced to make them under Section XL, Sub-section 4, then his duty at a very early stage was to have said, "In the case we have in Wales, it is obviously essential that we should come to Parliament for further powers; and in the meantime I will make interim Orders only." But he had taken the hon. Baronet to guard himself by saying that under Section XI he had considerable discretion in the matter. If the hon. Gentleman had discretion then, he contended, it would have been better had these Orders not been made, even in draft. They were calculated to awaken more than suspicion—a real hostility on the part of the people who felt a grievance. How could they force people to pay out money for voluntary education in voluntary schools under conditions such as these Orders laid down?
  It could not be forgotten that this was not merely a Nonconformist, question in Wales. It was, first, an education question; and, second, if the view which his hon. friend took and which was supported by some of the most distinguished Churchmen in Wales, such as the Bishop of St. Asaph, had been adopted this controversy

  1019
  never would have arisen. A compromise was offered by which they would have adopted a certain amount of the London School Board system, and have given access during what were technically school hours, at the very beginning of the day, to those who wished to give religious education. Had that compromise been accepted it might have been that these Orders might have been framed in such a scheme if the hon. Baronet conceived he had latitude under Section XI. But the compromise was rejected; and how could the Government come forward and hope for success in the administration of the Act in Wales unless they were prepared to over-rule the more militant Churchmen and take the view of the minority of very large-minded Churchmen in that country? At the same time, he thought there might be great difficulty in such a moderate compromise. He was rather suspicious himself of what was called Bible teaching in the schools. He understood the view of the hon. Member for Greenwich was that the religious aspirations of people who desired Church teaching could not be satisfied under any mere system of that kind. What was wanted by such people was real Church schools, carried on in the spirit of the Church, and where religion was taught under direction of the Church. But his contention was that that was no business of the State, and he doubted whether it was any man's business in the State to give simple Bible teaching. What was simple Bible teaching would depend on the opinions of particular people. It was perfectly impossible to carry out a system of education which would enable the State to solve these religious conundrums and adjustments of dogma. The less the State had to do with religious dogmas the more it would be possible to do for education. He believed it would have been possible to have framed an Order which would have enabled all the denominations—including the Anglican—to get access to the schools, with certain advantages to those which had claims to the title of founders, and which would not have given rise to the vast seething controversy which had been aroused throughout Wales. There were three classes of people to blame in this matter. First of all, Parliament for having given way so much to the demands
  1020
  of the Church in framing what might have been a really great educational system for this country. Secondly, the Church for having insisted too much on its rights. The Government ought to have had courage to meet that insistence if their educational system was not to be brought to abject failure. Thirdly, the Department, for having made these draft Orders. Even draft Orders were calculated to excite suspicion or to provoke hostility, and the sooner they disappeared the better; and, therefore he hoped they were about to see the last of them in their present form. They might have the same thing in Yorkshire or East Anglia as in Wales, and wherever religious feeling ran high and the majority of the people were Nonconformist. Was that a condition of things that was good for education: He was looking at these things from the educational point of view and as a friend of those in this, or any Government, who made an effort to raise national education; and he would say to the hon. Baronet that if he wished to give the people confidence in the administration of the educational system of the country it was necessary to modify and avoid the kind of doctrine which had brought about such a controversy in Wales, and in many parts of England.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid the Education Act had been attacked from a great many points of view. The hon. Member for Carnarvon commenced by saying it had met with universal disapproval throughout the country. If that were so one would naturally seek for evidence of the fact from the local authorities who were concerned in the administration of the Act. If there had been universal disapproval surely there would have been some disinclination expressed on the part of the local authority to undertake the administration, but there were only ten local authorities in England and Wales whose schemes had not been submitted and published and actually approved by the Board: there were only four whose schemes had not yet been approved by the Board, but which were in course of publication, and there was not one local authority which had failed to send in a scheme. It might therefore be assumed

  1021
  that the Act had very considerable educational merits inasmuch as almost every local authority had undertaken to administer it, and all would do so if they could administer some portion of it in their own way. He did not want to argue over again what had been so often argued, nor did he wish to endeavour to calculate the infinitesimal portion of the rate which Nonconformists might be called upon to contribute to the religious teaching given in the denominational schools. He would rather ask what was meant when the hon. Member for Carnarvon said the Nonconformists were desirous of having a settlement; that they would not build schools for their own denomination; that they would rather wait till the matter was settled. Did this mean that they would wait till the schools passed into their hands I They appeared to have no scruple in compelling others, whatever form of religious belief they professed, to pay for the schools that they liked, in which the secular instruction was the same as in the voluntary schools but in which the religious teaching was what was called simple Bible teaching, which might be the teaching of mere reigious history, or which might convey dogma in various forms. But those were the schools of which the hon. Member and his friends approved and those were the schools they desired people to pay for. Did they wish to drive every one into schools in which the form of religious teaching was given which they themselves preferred, or did they wish to secularise education altogether? [OPPOSITION cries of "No."] He would like to know which of these views the hon. Member held.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I thought I said I accepted the proposals of the Bishop of St. Asaph on the point.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid he understood the hon. Member to say in January last that the Bishop of St. Asaph had entirely misunderstood him if he thought for a moment that denominational religious teaching could be given in school hours. Therefore the alternative was either the secularisation of education, which he ventured to think would not be popular in this country, or a religious tyranny by which everybody
  1022
  would be required to send their children to elementary schools in which teaching was given which the Nonconformists, and the Nonconformists especially, if not alone, preferred.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid they accepted the proposals of the Church with regard to the basis of religious instruction altogether, and so far as the times were concerned they accepted the proposals of the Department that the time should be put back in order to enable the Church Children to receive such special religious teaching as they required.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid he was right in restating the fact that the hon. Member denounced in January any id a that religious denominational teaching should be permitted in school hours.
  MR LLOYD-GEORGEsaid the hen. Baronet ignored the point, that the suggestion that the school hour should Le put back came from the Board of Education. That was accepted by the Welsh County Councils.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid it came to this that denominational teaching would not be given in school hours. He would like to know how far the dissatisfaction so far as it had been exhibited in England and Wales was really a genuine outburst of public opinion [AN HONT. MEMBER: The by-elections will tell you.] or how far it had been fostered by the hon. Member and his friends. He had been taken to task for speaking of the passive resistance movement as a political movement, but he did not think he was altogether wrong. The hon. Member having quoted a circular letter sent out by the president of the National Free Church Council and Dr. Clifford, the Chairman of the Passive Resistance Committee, also from a speech made by the hon. Member for Carnarvon at Portsmouth at a passive resisters' luncheon, confessed, that with every respect to the genuine expression of conscience that had no doubt found its place in some part of this movement, he could not but regard the movement as stimulated and organised by an energetic political Party for political purposes.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Hive the Bishops done nothing?
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid in the course of this organisation there had been evidence of abundant misrepresentation. He would give to the House as an instance a resolution passed by a meeting of the Methodist Free Churches of Leeds and Bradford in opposition to the Act for the reason amongst others that it had abolished School Boards and substituted for them education boards; which gave the clergy of one section of the Church an almost absolute authority in determining the educational policy of the nation. He had not been able to refrain from pointing out in reply to those resolutions that the board schools were only transferred from the, popularly elected School Boards to the popularly elected county councils; that it could not be said that the clergy had a considerable place on the education committees of the county councils; that he should have thought there were very few clergymen on those committees; and that the voluntary schools were brought for the first time, so far as secular education was concerned, entirely under popular control; while the religious teaching there given was taken out of the control of the parson and brought under the control of the school managers. The answer which he had received was that it would have been fairer if he had taken the resolutions as a whole, especially the last resolution. The last resolution was as follows—
  "That the Act violates the sacred rights of conscience, involving acts which interfere with the solemn relation between God and the individual soul,"
  He confessed he felt it impossible to argue further with persons who applied such solemn expressions to the question of paying probably a few halfpence on a rate to teach children the religion of their parents. His own feeling was that he would willingly contribute to any form of religious teaching which would impart to the persons who passed those resolutions some of the elements of Christian truthfulness and Christian charity. Another form of misrepresentation was used with regard to these "Orders" for foundation managers. The practice was that the
  1024
  Board of Education sent a form of inquiry and received back that form filled up as to the conditions of the trust deed and the wishes of the managers, and the Board did not act further than to conform with the conditions of the trust deed and the wishes of the managers. The Order was circulated among the people of the neighbourhood, and anybody interested in the school could object to it if it did not carry out the conditions of the trust deed or the wishes of the managers or the usuages of the school. In the Daily News of December 6th a statement appeared as to Orders respecting six schools alleged to have been entirely managed by Nonconformists, and now transferred by the Orders of the Board to the management of Churchmen. As a, matter of fact five of the Orders were draft Orders awaiting representations from the locality; in the sixth case no Order had been made at all and every Order made was made as asked for by the managers. One of the two cases mentioned by the hon. Member was under the consideration of the Board, and in one of the cases attacked by the Daily News three out of the four managers were to be free from any Church qualifications. Only one representation had been received from the local education authority of Carmarthen, but a general complaint was made that a communicant qualification was required. In no casein the Carmarthenshire Orders was a communicant qualification required, as it had been the practice of the Board to leave out that qualification unless it appeared in the trust deed, and was especially demanded by the managers. In every case any representations made in respect to draft Orders had been considered, and as regarded Carmarthen the representation "from the local authority would be the subject of an inquiry to be held.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEasked whether the hon. Gentleman would give instructions that the inquiry should cover all the circumstances and conditions and not be subject to technical restrictions.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSONhad every reason to hope that the inquiry would be full and complete.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEpointed out that the nature of the inquiry would depend entirely upon the instructions given. Would the hon. Gentleman instruct the Commissioner to inquire into all the circumstances; unless he did so, all sorts of things might be ruled out of a technical inquiry.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSONthought the Board would impress upon Mr. Lawrence that the inquiry should take as complete a form as possible regarding everything that might affect the judgment of the Board in making the Order which might have to be made as the result of the inquiry.
  He would now turn to the trouble which had occurred in Wales. This began with a conference held at Cardiff last year, in which the hon. Member laid down the startling proposition that voluntary schools would be better off than when they had to rely on subscriptions. That, he was sorry to say, was not so; they had suffered a lost of £12,000 a year. Anglesey schools, perhaps, were better off, but it was not the case generally that schools were better off under the grants. Another conference followed at Swansea, at which a "no rate" resolution was passed, and, though the movement did not require so extended an organisation as did the passive resistance agitation in England, great efforts were made by the hon. Member and his friends to prevent the Act being properly worked. At the Swansea meeting the hon. Member renounced the councils of South Wales for their willingness to carry out the law.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEremarked that they had all come round since.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid that was the result of the hon. Member's endeavours. At that time there were certainly three counties prepared to carry out the Act. The Carmarthenshire Education Committee had an interesting discussion on the subject, in the course of which a "no rate" resolution was proposed and rejected, the chairman characterising the resolution as unchristian, immoral, and cowardly, inasmuch as it inflicted suffering on the innocent children throughout the country. Subsequently, however, the council was
  1026
  terrorised into departing from its decision; a number of Welsh Members of Parliament went down and exercised their influence throughout the county, and when the council met crowds of people attended the meeting, yelling as each vote in favour of the rate was given, and cheering every vote to the contrary. It was under these benign influences that the Carmarthenshire County Council passed a "no rate" resolution. The result of this policy had been deplorable. According to the reports of inspectors, in some schools attendance had fallen off and even ceased in consequence of there being no funds to provide fires, in others coals were supplied by the teachers, and in other instances materials and apparatus could not be provided. There had been refusals to appoint teachers and to make payments beyond the Parliamentary grant. He asked those Members of the House whose efforts had induced the Welsh County Councils to decline to put the Act into operation, so far as the voluntary schools were concerned, whether the Act could be said to have had a fair trial in Wales? Clearly it had not. Not only had the Act not had a fair trial, but the Nonconformists, who had endeavoured to prevent its having a fair trial, boasted of their law-breaking propensities. The Rev. Owen Campbell, speaking at a conference of the Haverfordwest and District Free Church Council, was reported to have said that Nonconformists had always been law breakers and it was by breaking laws that, they could get them repealed Such a sentiment appeared to him to point to anarchy.
  He hoped the House did not think that he was insensible to the difficulties of this religious question. No one who had been engaged, as he had been for more than a year, in administering this Act could fail to be painfully conscious of the continual irritation and difficulties which were aroused by the recurrence of these disputes over the appointment of foundation managers and the payments of the small amounts which the councils were asked to pay to the voluntary schools in Wales. He knew that the difficulty was great. The great difficulty in arriving at a solution such as he should like to see effected was to be found not in the

  1027
  Act of 1902, but in the law of 1870. During the debates on the Education Act he said there was another settlement of the religious difficulty which he hoped that they would reach some day, although the Act as it was then passed appeared to him to be a fair compromise. Believing as he did that education should be part of the child's life, and that therefore its religion should be part of its education, he desired to see a system under which religious teaching should be available for all, and denominational religious teaching for all who wanted it, in school hours, protected by a rigid conscience clause. But at the time of the passing of the Education Act they had to deal with 14,000 voluntary schools, with their buildings and with their trust deeds; they had to consider the condition of those schools, the immense sums which had been spent by the Church of England upon them, the infinitesimal proportion of the rate which was to be paid by those who did not accept the denominational teaching in those schools, and the necessity of bringing the voluntary schools into line as regarded secular education. Therefore he held that the compromise was a fair one. [OPPOSITION laughter and cries of "No," and MINISTERIAL cries of "Arrangement."] He would accept the word "arrangement." He contended that it was a fair arrangement and that it should have a fair trial. So far as he was able to insist upon it, it should have a fair trial. They were instituting an inquiry with regard to the county of Carmarthen, and when the Board of Education were put in possession of the facts they would have to consider what form of Order they must make to provide that the Act should be carried into effect. He thought that the Order might prove to be more effective than the hon. Member for Carnarvon supposed.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I am certain it will not.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid if it was not effective, if the powers possessed by the Board were insufficient or inapplicable, he should have to ask for further powers and he should do so without hesitation. He should like to ask j hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench
  1028
  opposite how they regarded this disobedience to the law by members of county councils who, having voluntarily offered themselves for election and having been elected to carry out certain duties imposed upon them, deliberately and avowedly cist the law aside. Did hon. Members opposite condone those actions? Did they approve of them? If they did not approve of them, would they have the honesty and courage to say so? In order to carry out a political purpose these councils had practised, if he might use the eloquent language of the Leader of the Opposition, "methods of barbarism"; they had neglected the children of their elementary schools, they had left them without books and materials, they had left them to remain cold and wet in the winter months for want of fuel. He doubted whether the country would approve of those actions, stimulated as they were by political animosities and religious bigotry—by the political animosities and the religious bigotry, he might almost add the personal ambition, of certain members of the Nonconformist body in Wales.
  SIR. EDWARD GREYsaid the hon. Baronet's speech had left hon. Members on his side of the House more hopeless than they had ever been of any amendment of the Education Act from the present Government. They knew when the Government were passing the Act that it was their opinion that the Act would not raise strong feeling in the country. They had, until the hon. Baronet spoke, some hope that the Government might have realised now that their anticipations were wrong and that strong feeling had arisen. The hon. Baronet did not believe in the genuineness of the feeling because he said it was political. It was precisely because the feeling was strong and genuine, and because the sense of injustice was deeply felt, that the matter had become political. It had been said that those on the Opposition side of the House had been able to work up this feeling and make the Education Act a political question, but a little while ago it used to be hinted that they were in a hurry to take up the Education Act because the feeling in the country was so strong. Was the organisation

  1029
  of the passive resisters not a genuine feeling? Was tariff reform not organised and was the Anti-Corn Law League not organised. Was there no feeling behind those movements? The hon. Baronet laid down two propositions—that anything that was political, as soon as it became so, was not genuine, and anything which was organised was not sincere. That was the hopelessness of the position. Even the Prime Minister had not shown his inability to understand Nonconformist feeling with regard to the Education Act so perversely, if he might use the word without offence, as the hon. Baronet had done. The hon. Baronet seemed to think that the grievance was- an infinitesimal one with regard to the payment of rates, because it was only a few halfpence contributed out of the rates, which went to denominational teaching. Supposing it was a matter of principle or of conscience, the question of a few halfpence might be just as serious as the question of a few pounds. The whole root of the matter was not objection to denominational teaching, but objection to denominational management of public elementary schools. The hon. Baronet spoke of Nonconformists wishing to force children into schools of their own particular pattern. The hon. Member for Carnarvon had given cases in which the whole of the children of the Nonconformists were being forced into Church schools under the present Act — in one case all the children in Carmarthen and in another case 100 children out of 109. He thought that of all the clauses which had better come out of the Act the particular clause which offered facilities for the setting up of a number of small schools was about the most anti-educational. They could not divide the educational status of the ordinary parish up into a number of small schools. They must have one school, and to that school everybody must go. Hon. Members on the other side were always saying that it was a great hardship for the children of Church parents to be forced into a school where the atmosphere was Nonconformist, but they never seemed to realise that the hardship was just as great for Nonconformist children to be forced into a Church school.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid he did realise that.
  SIR EDWARD GREYasked if other hon. Members opposite realised it. The fact was that, though this might be greater in degree in Wales, it was a grievance which was widespread over the whole country. The Vice-President was going to have an inquiry into Wales. He did not know how far the inquiry was to go. The hon. Gentleman had told them that it was to be very ample, very thorough, and very full, but he had hinted that it might probably lead to a mandamus.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSON: I only said it might result in our having to make an Order. I did not say it probably would.
  SIR EDWARD GREYsaid he would withdraw the word "probably" and say that, although he did not know what the result of the inquiry would be, the only possible result which he did put hypothetically to the House was that of a mandamus, subject to this that, if the mandamus did not prove effective, they must take some stronger measures. That was not a very hopeful spirit in which to conduct an inquiry. He wished personally that the inquiry was going to consider not only Wales, but how far it was possible to bring the provisions of the Act into conformity with the opinion of the country. If they had an inquiry of that kind it would soon be turned, not into an inquiry as to the conduct of the Welsh county councils, but an inquiry into the need of an amendment of the Act itself. The Vice-President deplored the friction constantly arising with regard to the administration of the Act, but it never seemed to occur to him that the reason for the friction was the Act itself. He knew the hon. Gentleman sincerely deplored that friction because he was a friend of education, but he did not see that until the Act was amended they would not get rid of that friction. They would not get rid of the friction till, as the result of the inquiries which might take place, they came to the conclusion that their system of elementary education must be a national system and that they must have all their schools on one footing. To do that he was quite aware that they would have to take over a large number of schools which were now privately owned, and that, so much had the expenditure of the country got out of hand, it

  1031
  was difficult to find the money. But when some of our wasteful expenditure had been brought under control, then they might have money to devote to education and an amendment of the Act which would at last bring peace and thoroughness into education.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,)said he would be interested to hear how the right hon. Baronet would bring all these schools into one pattern and how he would deal with the Cowper-Temple Clause.
  SIR EDWARD GREYreplied that now that all the schools were practically supported by public money, they must be all under representative management. The difficulty was that a large number of these schools were privately owned, but a great many of these privately owned schools had been largely built out of public money. They would have to deal with these, in his opinion, just as they dealt with land or buildings that were required for public purposes. It was absurd that where school buildings already existed in a parish, and there was only need for one, hat the community should be put to the expense of building an entirely new school. They would have to apply compulsory powers of purchase to them, and when they came to that they would have to consider how much money would require to be spent before they were in thorough order. They would have to give to the county councils the power of taking these schools and treating them as provided schools. To give the County Councils the power of taking the schools they would have to find money out of the taxes to put the educational system on a satisfacfactory basis. They had dealt in Ireland with the system of dual ownership of land. The dual system in education was keeping education back, and there would be no settlement, he believed, and no real progress in this country until we got rid of the dual system. The Prime Minister had raised the question as to how they would deal with the Cowper-Temple clause in regard to religious teaching. That was, of course, a question on which opinion might greatly differ, and on which he was perhaps only entitled to speak his own opinion. He should say
  1032
  that, so far as religious teaching was concerned, he had no objection whatever to full liberty of religious teaching provided out of private funds and given outside of school hours. He would give every facility in the way of arranging the school hours for that instruction being given to children whose parents desired that they should have it. As to whether they would have secular education only, or whether they would have Board school teaching, there might be difference of opinion, but he was convinced that if they got over the difficulty of management and control, and got one system of education, they would find every section of religious opinion in the country much more reasonable and conciliatory than they expected.
  LORD EDMUND TALBOT: Do you propose to force Catholic children into these schools?
  SIR EDWARD GREYsaid he knew the Roman Catholic difficulty was a great one in this matter, and he respected their feelings. If they made up their minds to have one system he believed they would find all sections of religious opinion more reasonable, conciliatory, and open to compromise than people were aware of at present. He expressed his personal opinion on that matter. The county councils were not worked up by the speeches of his hon. and learned friend the Member for Carnarvon. No one in the House would under-rate the eloquence and force of the hon. Member's speeches, but he would himself be the first to resent the idea that he and other hon. Members had manufactured the opinion in Wales which had made the county councils act as they had done. The action of the county councils in Wales was due simply to their feeling that the thing was not just, and that in the districts where the majority of the population were Nonconformists they had not had fair play. The county councils, and the Welsh county councils especially, deserved consideration from the House in this matter. Great obligations had been placed upon them. The larger the duties laid upon the local authorities the greater was the consideration with which they must be treated. They could not lay great duties upon them and treat them

  1033
  as indentured labourers bound to take orders without any say in the matter. The county councils in Wales were not backward about education. They were not unprogressive, but they, as he understood, had stated that in the present state of feeling, with the limited powers given them by this Act, they had difficulty in discharge of the obligations laid upon them. There was a time when this the House of Commons used to refuse supplies. Those were times to which hon. Members could look back with credit. The House of Commons was told in those days that it was lacking in public spirit, and that the country was suffering. Its answer always was that is grievances must be redressed. No doubt it might be said perfectly truly that the county councils were local, statutory, and subordinate authorities, but they would not dispose of this difficulty by taking narrow technical points. They would not dispose of it by narrow legal points, or the narrow application of abstract logic. They would have to recognise that, if they laid upon the county councils these great duties, they would have to have their say as to the powers necessary to entrust them with, in order to enable them to carry out their obligations. It was not the backward county councils that were making the difficulty. It was the most progressive county councils. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Hoard of Education said that in Wales they were not giving the Act a fair trial. Was the Act giving the county councils a fair trial? The progressive county councils were the local authorities which would have been most ready, sympathetic, and keen in working the Education Act, but these were the ones with whom most difficulty was found. The hon. Gentleman would have to realise that this feeling was genuine. He was convinced that until the matter was taken up in a broad spirit which would get rid of the dual system, they would have in education neither peace nor progress.
  *SIR W. HART DYKEsaid that the hon. and learned Member for Carnarvon, after all his declamation, had scarcely produced two instances in Wales showing solid grievance in regard to the
  1034
  working of the Act. The hon. Member had referred to isolated cases in Wales where there had been special difficulties in connection with the schools. These were invariably cases which had rightly been brought under the notice of the Department, but no one of these cases had been dealt with under the clauses of the Act. They were all as it were sub judice, and had not yet been dealt with by the Board of Education. He was not going to dwell on this question as it affected Wales. He admitted that there was a great distinction between the Principality and England with regard to the working of this Act. He wished to be fair and just. One or two cases which the hon. and learned Gentleman quoted did show a certain inequality and injustice which might be remedied. They did occur in out of the way places, but he did not believe that many of them could be cited. So far as he was concerned, he would be one of the first to accept some possible Amendment which would enable the Board of Education to deal with such cases in an equitable manner. In Wales there were Radical county councils, but the position was very different in England. There were a large number of counties in England where the county councils were essentially Tory in their character. It seemed to him that the hon. and learned Gentleman ought to be a little more patient with regard to the campaign against the Act. He ought to have tested the Act and given it a chance before attacking its provisions in the way he had done.
  He, himself, would give the House his opinion of the working of the Act in Kent, where the Nonconformists would be more likely to have a rough time if it were not working fairly. Having given nine months close attention to its working he said advisedly that he had never known so much gross misrepresentation and calumny sown broadcast with regard to any Act of Parliament as there had been with regard to this Education Act. He knew that the word calumny just now was supposed to be a very ugly word, but if one half the calumny had been used against the character of any hon. Member as there had been against this Act, he would have been able to recover very substantial damages. He held in his hand a leaflet

  1035
  which denounced the Act as one for handing over the School Boards to the Romanistic clergy of this country. The changes made by the Act in regard to the position of the Nonconformists were, in his opinion, changes in favour of Nonconformity, and not of the Church. It is true that the difficulties surrounding the question had clogged the way of education to a very great extent. These difficulties met Mr. Forster in 1870, and prevented all succeeding Governments from touching the question of higher and secondary education until this Government tad the courage to face the situation. This Government had the same dilemma to meet, but they successfully encountered it, by founding a compromise on the top of the earlier compromise. What was that compromise? It was to ask those who possessed the buildings of the voluntary schools, and to whom the value of the site also appertained, to hand over these to the nation if a portion of the rates were assigned to them. Of course, in addition to that, there was the alteration by the introduction of the outside management. A fairer or more just compromise was never offered. The great controversy between the two sides of the House had been in regard to control; but he said advisedly, after nine months experience of the working of the Act in his own county, that before another year was over, all the old parson-controlled schools would have disappeared. The introduction of one-third of the representatives outside the trustees into the management of these schools had thrown all the inner working of the schools open to the public and made it public property. It enabled daily and even hourly tests to be applied to the working of the conscience clause in everything appertaining to the Church schools; and now there was no grievance for which there was not an immediate remedy. If any wrong whatever was being done, there was a court of appeal in the educational committee of the county or borough council. One thing he had discovered was that if there was one difficulty greater than another it was to give the managers of those schools something to do. The result was that the representative body was practically the managers of the schools. There was not a single complaint
  1036
  made by any Nonconformist parent connected with any Church school in his county brought before him which he was not prepared to deal with at once and to rectify to the full. And yet they were told that this was an Act to hand over the schools to the power of the priest. A more unfounded statement was never made.
  A grievance much touched on was a very just one—that of the treatment of the pupil teachers. They all knew that for a vast number of years it was not possible for Church schools to have Nonconformist pupil teachers. But no test was now to be applied either to pupil teachers or assistants; and under the Cowper-Temple Clause, Nonconformist students could now enter pupil-teacher centres, training colleges, and hostels without any test whatever. That was a very serious change in favour of Nonconformists. He was prepared to admit that there was one grievance remaining, and that was that Nonconformists could not become headmasters of certain school, but that was part of the compromise to which he had alluded, and it was on that compromise that the buildings and leases had been handed over to the nation for public purposes. He was bound to say that except for that bar, the highest posts in the teaching profession were practically about as open to Nonconformists as to Churchmen; and before long there would be openings for the children of Nonconformists in the secondary schools and all the other branches of the teaching profession generally. He welcomed some of the remarks from the hon. Baronet the Member for Berwick, who suggested a possible Amendment to brush away once for all these difficulties. Hon. Members opposite knew that his views in regard to these matters were not illiberal. He had always looked at this question from an educational point of view; but in common fairness and justice they should admit that the Church of England first of all introduced the great question of education, and occupied the ground to an enormous extent when first the education of the children of England was seriously grappled with. The Church of England was there to-day, and it was because she was there to-day that he wished to separate education from mere

  1037
  denominational squabbles. He, for one, would therefore welcome any compromise by which they would secure that every parent could have the particular religious education which he, or she, wished for his, or her, children absolutely given in the schools.
  The lion. Baronet the Member for Berwick suggested that this was a question of money, and with that he agreed. The hon. Baronet suggested that religious education should not be given in school hours, but that the schools should be open for it an hour earlier; but he believed that that system would break down because of the difficulties concerning the attendance so early, of the children whose parents wanted them to earn a little money. The difficulty might be solved by the State stepping in and, for the sake of peace, giving a grant of so much a year for the purpose of religious education. Rather than that there should be no settlement of this vexed question, he would hand over that money to all denominations alike for religious education. He believed that no money of the State would ever be spent to better purpose. Those were questions on which he felt very deeply. He did not and he could not believe in the evil prophesies concerning the working of the Act in which some lion. Members opposite indulged. He believed in the local authorities; that they were practical business men who would look at these difficult problems purely and simply from an educational point of view, and he was certain that they would not lean either to the advantage of Church or Dissent to the injustice of either. And so far as those with whom he was associated in his own county were concerned, though there was a preponderance of Churchmen on the committee, every possible injustice and grievance of Nonconformists which came before the committee would be remedied. And of this he was certain, that all the extraordinarily exaggerated statements made concerning the Act would vanish into thin air, and that the Act would be worked wisely and well in the future.
  MR. ABEL THOMASsaid he was not one of those who did not want the local authorities to carry out the Act. It was perfectly true that when
  1038
  the Act was under discussion he thought the School Board system was the best: but he had changed his opinion and he believed now that the present was the best. They had been told that the Act was a compromise. He repudiated that. The Act was thrust down the throats of Members on his side of the House, and to talk of it as a compromise was ridiculous. The hon. Baronet the Member for Dart-ford said that the Act was a good Act so far as it went; that it was good for England.
  *SIR W. HART DYKEsaid he acknowledged there were great difficulties in Wales.
  MR. ABEL THOMASsaid that no Act of Parliament which was good for one part of the country and impossible for another part could be a good Act in itself. It had been said that the hon. Member for Carnarvon had started this agitation in Wales. With all his admiration for the hon. Gentleman he did not think that he would claim that he had started the agitation. He could not imagine that hon. Members opposite who made that statement really appreciated the position. After all, would hon. Gentlemen opposite put themselves in the position of the people in Wales? He ventured to say that there was not a voluntary school in Wales in which every two out of three boys and girls were not the children of Nonconformist parents. Out of those sixty schools there was not a single one in which the majority of the children were not children of Nonconformist parents. Imagine the position reversed, and instead of the Church people having the majority of the management of these schools that four Baptists had the management, and only a Baptist was able to become headmaster. Under such circumstances there was one noble Lord opposite who would be a passive resister, and he would give the Bishops the credit for being passive resisters, and their Party would be ashamed of them if they were not. The position was the same throughout Wales. The majority of the children in 99 out of 100 of the voluntary schools were Nonconformists. In more than half they were two to one and in the remainder they were five to one. The parents sent their children to these

  1039
  schools with the knowledge that four out of the six managers were certain to be Church people, and that the headmaster and head mistress were Church people. It was nonsense to say there was no Church of England atmosphere in such a school. The Government must face the difficulty that many had become passive resisters honestly, truthfully, and concientiously.
  What was the position? The Government was paying the whole: cost of carrying on the schools, the buildings had to a large extent been supplied by Church people, but they had had the use of them for thirty years, and it must be remembered many of them were built to prevent a Board school coming into the place after the passing of the Act of 1870. Were the children to be impressed and stamped with Church doctrine for all time? Under these circumstances he thought the county councils were justified in the action they had taken when they found that the vast majority of their constituents were in favour of their not carrying out this Act. Assuming a mandamus I was applied for what was to be the result? Were they to be fined or sent to gaol? Let the Committee imagine what the result would be in that case. The posit on was ridiculous. If the new members who had undertaken to carry out the Act in the way suggested, attended any of the meetings of the council and the other members withdrew, there would not be a quorum to carry out any business and this Act could not be carried out; was everybody in Wales and Monmouth to be sent to goal? Was the whole country to be fined? Would it not under the circumstances be best for the Government to admit that they had passed an unworkable Act, and one that could not be carried out so far as the management was concerned. And inasmuch as they would never get the people of Wales to assent to the proposition that all who were appointed to headmasterships should be Church of England people, would it not be better to face the position at once than to have an inquiry to find out whether or not the late county councils had committed a breach of the Act. If that were done and new county councils elected, their majorities would be even greater than before. The hon. Member had spoken about Christian
  1040
  truthfulness and Christian charity, could not Christian truthfulness and charity be obtained from the Church side? Was it Christian truthfulness and charity to build denominational schools and compel the people of the neighbourhood to send their children to these schools, which were Church schools in every sense of the word? Let hon. Members put themselves in the position of the Nonconformists, and see how they would feel in that position. He ventured to assert that if they did, the Act would be impossible in M ales in a very short time. If the Government knew the feeling in Wales in reference to this Act he did not believe they would ever force it down the throats of the Welsh people. He ventured to say five out of six Welsh people were prepared to go through a considerable amount of martyrdom, not because of what their Parliamentary representatives told them, but because of what they thought and spoke of among themselves.
  SIR JOHN GORSTsaid this reduction had been moved by the hon. Member for Carnarvon in order to censure the Board of Education for their administration of the Act. Some of the grievances brought forward by the hon. Member appeared to be in course of consideration by the Board. One or two of them, as he understood, had already been dealt with and mitigated. Therefore, so far as the question of the reduction of the Vote and the grievances brought forward were concerned, he thought there was nothing more to be said. But his hon. friend in his turn had made a very grave charge against the local authorities in Wales. He had himself always maintained that the great principle of this Education Act was not the Church clause, as they had been called, but the devolution on the local authority of all educational powers and responsibility, and be did not think if the Liberal Party came into power to-morrow they would alter the principle of the Act. In future the whole responsibility for the organisation and administration of education would rest with the local authorities; and the charge which the Secretary to the Board of Education was bringing against the Welsh local authorities was that they were now refusing to administer this statute law,

  1041
  and were by their attitude making it impossible for the Act to be carried out. This attitude was assumed by the Welsh people not because they were opposed to the local administration, because there was no part of the United Kingdom where local responsibility was more welcomed than in Wales. When the first Education Bill was presented its warmest supporters were the Welsh Members. Therefore it was not the fundamental idea of the Education Act which caused this hostility on the part of the Welsh county councils, but a desire to procure the amendment of certain parts of the Act.
  Whether it was right or wrong to attempt to force the House of Commons to amend in certain directions the Act of 1902 he would not discuss, but the attempt would be much more likely to secure his sympathy if the sufferers from the attempt were not the unhappy children in the schools. He put it to the Welsh Members, was it right to attempt to procure the amendment of an Act of Parliament by putting this stress and strain upon the children attending the schools in Wales? Under the law of the land it was the duty of the Welsh county councils to provide for and supervise the secular instruction in the voluntary schools which they now refused to touch. The fact that in those schools, although the instruction given was according to the formularies and doctrines of the Church of England, the greater proportion of the children were Nonconformist, well deserved the attention of the House, and if any amendment of the law could be introduced by which that grievance could be alleviated, it was one the House must properly consider. But if the children were Nonconformist, there was the conscience clause of which they could take advantage. The religious instruction even in Church schools was to a very small extent denominational, and in few schools was denominational instruction given on more than one day in the week. There was nothing whatever to prevent the parents withdrawing their children while anything in the shape of denominational instruction was being given. But the children in these schools were entitled to have their secular instruction
  1042
  cared for by the county council, and it was not right that they should be deprived of the advantages of warmth, light, and proper apparatus, which Parliament had conferred upon them by this Act. That consideration caused him entirely to disapprove of the particular method by which the Welsh county councils were attempting to secure the amendment of the Act. He respected their conscientious scruples, but he thought they were wrong in adopting a procedure by which injury was inflicted upon the totally innocent children. When Vice-President of the Council he avoided as much as possible discussing the religious question because, while he did not think it caused any real difficulty in the schools, it had recently caused great difficulty in the administration of the Act.
  In dealing with the religious question three courses were open to Parliament. The first was to restrict the operations of the State to secular instruction. Such a course, for which much might be said, had been adopted in many of the Colonies and almost universally in America, and experience had not shown that it led to a very irreligious character on the part of the population. It certainly developed the Sunday school, making that institution a much more real thing, and many of the American States bore evidence to the fact that a religious and pious population could grow up under such a system. But the people of this country were not prepared to adopt that system; certainly public opinion was not ripe for it at I present, and it must be put aside as not being practical politics. The second course, tried to some extent in the Act of 1870, was to invent a form of religious teaching on which everybody agreed. He knew of no religious instruction which came as near to that definition as the instruction given under the London School Board. That instruction was admirable, as far as it went; it was based I on the Bible; it dealt with simple portions I which the children could understand; and, as a preparation for further instruction in more advanced theology, or more advanced dogmatic religion, it could not be surpassed. But there again the great objection was that the people were not I content with it.
  DR. MACNAMARA (Camberwell, N.): I Who are not content with it?
  SIR JOHN GORSTsaid the Roman Catholics, the Jews, and a large proportion of Church of England people were not content with it. To force children of these people to receive undenominational teaching against the will of the parents was a matter of oppression. The third course was to provide frankly denominational teaching. It was because there had been such teaching ever since the Act of 1870 that that measure had worked as well as it had. The children were able to go to Church of England, Wesleyan, Roman Catholic, or Jewish schools, and get the particular kind of instruction desired by their parents. He admitted that in many places there was no choice, and it was in those places the agitation arose which culminated in the Act of 1902. He had always thought that the religious difficulty could be solved in the simplest possible way. Why should it not be made a part of the duty of the managers to see that as far as practicable all the children received such religious instruction as was acceptable to their parents? That would be just and fair all round. That was not a mere theatrical suggestion; it had been carried out in hundreds of schools for the last thirty or forty years. In many schools, theoretically Church schools, there were committees on which Nonconformists had representation; on most days of the week religious instruction applicable to all the children was given, and on one day in the week separate religious teaching to the Nonconformist, and the catechism, or other forms of Anglican teaching, to the Church children was given. Why could not the whole of this difficulty be settled in that way?
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEasked what the right hon. Gentleman would do when there were half-a-dozen sections.
  SIR JOHN GORSTsaid there were not half-a-dozen sections who could not agree upon a common form of religious teaching. At the outside there would not be more than two or three different sections to provide for. That seemed to him the only solution possible, and if it were carried out fairly—as he was sure
  1044
  it would be under the county councils — he believed the religious difficulty would cease to exist. He earnestly pleaded with the Welsh people that, in the meantime, until an amendment of the present arrangements could be procured, they should not let the poor little children suffer, but come to some modus vivendi with the Church and the Board of Education. [Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: Hear, hear!] He congratulated the hon. Member on his attempts to bring about such an arrangement; he had nothing but praise for his action; but would not the hon. Member, joined by his friends, renew those efforts, and see whether, in conjunction with the Board of Education, a modus rivendi for the next year or two could be arrived at, so that the schools would be taken over by the county councils, the secular instruction in Wales kept up to a proper standard, and these children saved from the deprivation of education, warmth, apparatus, and so forth, which appeared to be the result of the present deadlock.
  *DR. MACNAMARAsaid the last speaker had left the matter in a far more hopeful condition than had the speech of his successor at the Board of Education. His scheme would be workable given two previous conditions. In the first place, they must have absolute public control over education, and, in the second place, the teachers must be entirely the servants of the public authority. He thought the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University would agree with him in that. If they could have those two points conceded then they could see their way out of the difficulty. With regard to the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, he persisted in stating that the Act of 1902 was a compromise, and he had complained of serious misrepresentations of that Act. The most serious misrepresentation he (Dr. Macnamara) had heard was to call the Act a compromise, because that was exactly what it was not. The Act of 1902 repealed the whole legislation of thirty-one years, and one-third of the Act was closured, and the situation afterwards worsened in another place. He did not know how an Act like that could be called a compromise. The Act of 1870 was a real compromise, for Mr. Gladstone and Mr.

  1045
  Forster were continually receiving and accepting suggestions from the Conservative side, and as much of that Act belonged to the Conservatives as to the Liberals. That was a compromise, but how many opportunities did they, the Liberals, get of introducing any workable alterations is the Act of 1902? The Parliamentary Secretary said he did not understand their position on the question of religious instruction, but all they desired was to secure religious liberty. He said they had now to choose between universal denominationalism and universal secularism. The choice was not between these two. If they were driven back to secularism in their schools it would be because of the bickerings of sectarian bodies, and he personally should deplore that. The choice was along the lines so able set forth by the hon. Member for Carnarvon and the Member for Cambridge University, namely, the St. Asaph compromise. That system consisted of undenominational instruction with Biblical instruction, along the lines of the London School Board system. [An HON. MEMBER: That was outside the time-table. No, it was not outside the time-table. There were certain hours during which the children came to school, and it was no use fixing the religious education outside those hours. It was no use offering the Church of England facilities for religious teaching at hours at which the children would not come. What the Bishop of St. Asaph and those who acted with him agreed to, was that on the days upon which specific denominational teaching was to be given the time-table hours should be altered from 9.30 or later, so that the children might attend in ordinary hours and come to school as they did under ordinary circumstances, but State compulsion was to begin at the later time. That was not outside the ordinary school hours, but it was agreed that if these special facilities were given they should be paid for by the denomination themselves. He deplored very much the breakdown of the St. Asaph compromise, but they could not blame Nonconformists for it. They must blame the stupidity of one or two Church dignitaries in Wales. Another effort was made by the Rev. Canon Eade and Mr. Samuel Storey in the county of
  1046
  Durham, and they went further than the Bishop of St. Asaph. Did hon. Members think that tie Darham proposal, which would have settled the difficulty all over the country, was not a fair and reasonable one? The Durham proposal was put forward as an experiment, and it met the difficulties in the fairest way, for it gave preferential treatment to the managers of non-provided schools. It laid down that the county council should appoint the teachers on the recommendations of the managers of the school, Non-provided schools were to be leased for a period and even the State teacher night, for a consideration, become the denominational volunteer. That meant that the Nonconformists of Durham were prepared to go a very long way to meet the difficulties, and he deplored the lack of foresight and statesmanship shown by the leaders of the Church of England, one or two o; whom opposed the whole scheme and thus brought about this bitter struggle He thought that half-a-dozen men chosen from both sides of the House could settle the matter in a very short time. If they were to look up the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich with his hon. friend the Member for Carnarvon and say that they should not come out until a settlement was effected, he really believed they would arrive at a settlement. He had grave doubts as to which would come out alive; but there would be a settlement all the same. He deplored the stupidity of those who had caused these struggles, which a little generosity and liberal-mindedness on both sides could have avoided.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid he understood that the matter before the Committee was a proposal to reduce the Vote, on the ground of the maladministration of the Board of Education. In all matters of concordat the Board of Education, so far as it had any powers in the matter, had done its best to stimulate any proposals made to it. Therefore, what the hon. Member was saying did not apply to the Board of Education.
  *DR. MACNAMARAsaid he had been very careful to limit his remarks to one or two dignitaries of the Church of England, and not to the Board of Education.

  1047
  He came now to a matter of pure administration. To-day he asked a Question with regard to the London education scheme, and he understood that it would be discourteous to the Council to reply to his Question at the present time. He understood the sanction of the Board of Education to the London County Council scheme was on its way, but the Parliamentary Secretary did not want to say co at the present time. They could not expect consistency from Governments, but they did expect it from Government Departments. He thought the London scheme was hopelessly inadequate. There were to be thirty-eight members of the London County Council, and five women to be co-opted under the London scheme. Section 17 of the Act laid it down that representatives of other bodies and persons of experience in education acquainted with the needs of the various kinds of schools in the area, might be appointed. In the early days of the Act the Board of Education laid the greatest stress upon that provision, and at Loughborough and Bridgwater they rejected schemes because they did not include representatives of the outside area and persons of a more wide and varied experience in education. The Board of Education had been sending back schemes all over the country on these grounds, and he asked for a little consistency in dealing with big and little authorities. On the 5th of November, 1902, the hon. Baronet said county councils were not elected specially for educational matters and some of them might not be the best for education, and it was therefore desirable that the local authorities should be assisted by persons acquainted with the work and that it should be incumbent upon them to appoint a committee. The Board of Education had been fighting Cardiff, Swansea, and Newport ever since they submitted their schemes, although they were similar to that of the I London County Council. He protested very vigorously against that kind of treatment in the case of these Welsh boroughs. The scheme of the London County Council did not satisfy Section 17 of the Act. When the Committee were discussing the Estimates on 9th July 1903, the hon. Gentleman explained what these
  1048
  schemes would have to contain. The hon. Gentleman said then that he was prepared to stand by the declarations which had been made, and to insist that these provisions should be met in the schemes, and he had been insisting ever since until he came to deal with the London County Council. He thought it was discreditable that a great Department of the Government should worry these little towns to meet their desires in the matter of their schemes, and that it should be afraid to tell the London County Council that their scheme did not satisfy the requirements. His Welsh colleagues had been taunted with having defied the law. He thought that men who defied the law showed a good deal more respect for it than those who made it farcical, which was what the Board of Education had done.
  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY, Inverness Burghs)said the Act of 1902 had certain features regarding which he desired to offer a few observations. The first of these features was that the School Boards should be abolished throughout the country; the second was the endeavour to make provision for the more efficient teaching in the schools in which a majority of the children of this country had to receive their education; and the third was the substitution of the county council for the School Board as the education authority. The Committee must have listened with the greatest possible interest to what was said by his hon. and learned friend the Member for East Carmarthen. The hon. Member was formerly opposed to the county councils having charge of education, but he now stated that he was convinced that he had been wrong, and that the county councils were the better authority. When the Bill was passing through the House they were told from time to time that the propel body to take charge of education was an ad hoc authority.
  *DR. MACNAMARA: You will have that in Scotland.
  SIR ROBERT FINLAYsaid he supposed that what was said by the hon. Member for East Carmarthenshire might be taken as a sort of epitaph on all those prophecies.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: All the Welsh Members, with one exception, voted for control by the county council at that time.
  SIR ROBERT FINLAYsaid he was very glad to hear that, and it confirmed what he was saying, that there was a large body of opinion in favour of the Government proposal for the substitution of the county councils for the School Boards. The second feature which the Act of 1902 dealt with was this. A considerable majority of the children of the country were then in what were called voluntary schools. These schools were not, in many cases, as efficient as they ought to have been. They were not efficient for the best of all reasons—that was, the want of means to bring the education up to the level of that given in the best Board schools, and in addition to that there were complaints that these schools were very much under clerical control. He could not help feeling that the second complaint was one unduly exaggerated. The existence of abuses arising from clerical control were few and far between. The influence of the clergy on ducation had been for the advantage of the country. Hon. Members seemed to be altogether oblivious to the services rendered to education in this country by the clergy of the Church of England at a time when the State did little or nothing for education. When no one else would take it up, it was taken up by the clergy, and carried to a considerable point by them. A vast number of the children attending the voluntary schools which he had described were Nonconformists. How was their grievance to be redressed? He was one of those who believed that it was the right of every child to have as good an education as could be secured for it. He believed that in the matter of education a good healthy element of lay control was a desirable element.
  Was there any alternative proposal be-lore the country when the Act was passed? Nothing whatever. If it might be called an alternative policy the idea which seemed to be at the back of some of the opposition to the Government measure was that the voluntary schools should gradually be allowed to bleed to death until they were unable to compete with the Board schools, so that when in
  1050
  the course of time they would cease to exist they would be universally supplanted by a system of Board schools all over the country. There were many objections, to which he was not going to refer, to that proposal, but what he did ask the House was this—What was to become of the children in the meantime while that process was going on? He thought the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University was quite right when he called the attention of the Committee to the fact that, in a debate in regard to the administration of the Education Act, the first thing to be considered was the interest of the children. The schools attended by a large majority of the children of the country being admittedly inefficient, were they going to continue that state of things indefinitely until one by one they had disappeared, and until in the course of a generation, after any amount of friction had been gone through, they should find them supplanted by a universal network of Board schools all over the country? He ventured to say that that was an impossible proposal in the interest of fair dealing towards those schools. The Act had remedied those evils which existed before it was passed. Wherever the Act was fairly administered the non-provided schools would now be on the same level of efficiency with the very best provided schools; and the result was that, whereas the majority of the children had formerly to put up with an education not so good as that at the service of the minority, every child would now have the best education which could be provided. The alleged grievance of too much clerical control in the voluntary schools had no foundation whatever in fact, while so far, as the grievances of Nonconformist teachers were concerned the Act was a great step in advance [An HON. MEMBER; No.]—well, a step in advance.
  He dissented altogether from the doctrine that the State should adopt the system of secular teaching, and hoped the day would never come when such a system would be introduced into the schools. Whatever might be said of the abstract merits of such a system the people of this country would have none of it. It was absolutely outside the range of practical politics. From every point of view it was extremely undesirable, and for this

  1051
  reason—that there were a great many children who would receive no religious instruction if it did not form part of the teaching in the elementary schools. But, was it impossible that there should be something of an agreement among the great bodies which represented religion in this country? Of course, the case of the Roman Catholics must be dealt with separately; but was it not possible- that, among the other bodies which held so much in common, there might be an agreement as to what was suitable religious teaching for children? The hon. Member for Carnarvonshire, when something of that kind was suggested by the right hon. Member for Cambridge University, said, "How is that possible where you have six sects to deal with?" But surely these six sects were not at variance on the subject as 10 what was suitable religious teaching? Or, if they were, it was a scandal to their common Christianity. Speaking for himself, he could most devoutly have wished that some such compromise as that associated with the Bishop of St. Asaph could have been arrived at. He understood it was that religious teaching such as was provided for under the London School Board syllabus should be given, supplemented by such denominational teaching as was desired by the parents of the children. If he was correctly informed, the hon. Member for Carnarvon was very largely responsible for the miscarriage of that proposal, because that hon. Gentleman insisted that denominational education should not be given in school hours. It was no use providing denominational education unless it was allowed to be given in school hours, for in a great many cases the children would not otherwise be got to attend.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid that if that were the reason the compromise was refused, that reason was not assigned by the clergy at the time. On the contrary, all the conditions laid down by the clergy in regard to religious education were agreed to in the most unqualified terms.
  SIR ROBERT FINLAYsaid he was not familiar with the details of what had passed, but he gathered that he was right when he stated that the hon. Gentleman had insisted that the denominational
  1052
  teaching should not be in school hours. To his mind denominational teaching, to be a reality, must be given in school hours, because, if given out of school hours the temptation would be very strong on the parents to employ their children in these hours for the profit of the family, or in amusing themselves, instead of attending, to the religious instruction provided for them. He desired, in conclusion, to emphasise the appeal made to consider the interests of the children in Wales on this subject. Was it not too bad that, while this dispute was raging, the children should be left without proper fires, proper books, and the best teaching The children were far too valuable to be mere counters in the game of political or ecclesiastical controversy. He hoped that the Committee would recognise that the Act of 1902 was an honest effort, in the interests of the children, to promote thoroughly good and efficient education, and that that Act had been well and honestly administered by the Department in charge of it.
  *SIR MICHAEL FOSTER (Londen University)said he wished to say a few words to express his sympathy with the proposition of the hon. Member for Carnarvon in so far as this meant that the Act of 1902 should be amended. He felt the more justified in saying that, because he had always from the beginning expressed his opinion that the Act had within it many admirable provisions for the improvement of the general education of the people. He did not wonder that it had excited an interest in education, and had promoted education throughout the country to a very remarkable extent. But the Bill even as presented and still more when it left the House as an Act contained within itself, in his opinion, certain evils. One evil was that, for the first time, teachers paid by the State were called upon to declare their religion. But an even greater evil than that was that, so it seemed to him, the Act contained the possibility of stirring up religious strife throughout the country, and so interfering with the interests of the education of the children. When he looked back on the history of the past two years, he must confess that it had raised up strife.

  1053
  Admirably as it had been carried out in the case of his right hon. friend the Member for Dartford, the very complaint of the right hon. Baronet proved that it had created religious controversy. The number of passive resisters showed how a real element of religious strife had been stirred up by the Act. His political conscience was stronger than his religious conscience, at least to this extent, that he was willing to accept the little wrong which might be done by the Act in order to secure its greater benefits. But his religious conscience was strong enough to make him appreciate the working of the conscience of those in all conditions of life, following all manner of occupations, in every variety of circumstances, who had been led by their consciences to do that which they had never done before, and what they trusted they would never do again, resist the law; and it was in order that that religious strife should as soon as possible be brought to an end that he wished to see the Act amended. From what he had heard that day, he had greater hope than he had two years ago that the real solution of the problem, that which was contained in the suggestion of his right hon. friend the Member for Cambridge University—a solution, however, which had formerly been rejected—would be in the end accepted. That solution lay in this, that the State, since it could only well and truly handle those things about which it was not bitterly and widely divided, and since it was bitterly and largely divided about religious instruction could not handle that, but could well and truly offer teaching which included the teaching of right and wrong, and man's duty to his neighbour. Looking round, it seemed to him that there was a growing public opinion in favour of what had been suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Haddingtonshire and supported by the right hon. Baronet from the Front Bench. He did not like to use the phrase secular teaching, because secular teaching seemed to connote the idea of teaching which did not help in the formation of character or of moral well-being. Moral teaching did not depend on any one religious opinion; it was the basis and the product of all religions.
  1054
  The solution towards which public sentiment seemed to be tending, although some hon. Members said that it was not within practical politics, was that the State should confine itself to, and pay for, that teaching which was the basis of every religion and allow each denomination to come in and teach its own particular tenets at its own cost. If the person who carried out the denominational teaching was a teacher in the school, so much the better, for it would have a greater effect upon the children. Depend upon it, that was the only real solution of the education problem; it was a solution which must come sooner or later, and the sooner it came the better.
  *MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENsaid the House would congratulate itself on the very fair spirit of compromise which appeared to prevail on all sides. There was an evident desire shown by hon. Members in all parts that this present strife, this religious bitterness, this sectarian spirit which appeared to have done so much harm to the cause of education, should, if possible, be brought to an end. He claimed for himself that during the discussion on the Act of 1902, he always held that some compromise, rather different to that decided upon, should have been arrived at to remove the grievances, real or imaginary, of people who did not see eye to eye with Churchmen in this question. He believed most hon. Members were anxious to bring about this result. But surely there was one condition that ought to precede any alteration of the law, and this was that the law as it at present stood ought to be administered. He was emphatically for a compromise; hue he did say it was the plain duty of the Government and of public authorities like the county councils to administer the Act as a condition precedent to any alteration of the law. What was the position of affairs now? The Motion brought forward at the instance of the hon. Member for Carnarvon represented the case of the Welsh county councils, but he contended that the Welsh county councils' refusal to administer the Act had involved enormous hardships on the children of Wales. Whether the Act was suitable for Wales

  1055
  or not, their first duty was to administer it. But what were the special grievances brought forward by the hon. Member for Carnarvon? When they considered what he said, they amounted to a very little— viz., that certain draft Orders had been issued which inflicted a hardship in cases where Nonconformists had subscribed, along with Churchmen, to the building of certain schools. But these were only draft Orders; they had not yet I the force of law; the Board of Education was considering them; they were not in operation, and, therefore, the grievance brought forward was an exceedingly small one, and one which did not justify the action of the county councils in refusing to administer the Act altogether. The hon. Member for Carnarvon gave a long list of grievances in connection with Wales, and he did not deny that there might be grievances; but the hon. Member went on to tell them; that the county councils wished to act in the broadest spirit and that they were acting in a spirit of religious equality. What, however, was the state of affairs in one of the boroughs which the hon. Member himself represented? Were they exhibiting an example of the spirit of religious equality in the borough of Pwllheli? There were two schools, a national school and a Board school. In connection with the Board school all the teachers and all the officials were Nonconformist, though Church people paid at least half of the rates.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: But what about the Church school in the same place?
  *MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENsaid he would come to that presently. In the Board school the headmaster of the boys' section, the headmistress of the girls' department, the county clerk of education, the attendance officer, the assistant teachers, the pupil teachers, and the school cleaner, all were Calvinistic Methodists. This was the spirit of religious equality in which hon. Members opposite acted when they got a majority in the council. In the case of the Church school there were no less than three pupil teachers who were Nonconformists; and he ventured to say that the spirit of religious equality was much
  1056
  more manifest in the persecuted Church school than in the schools conducted as hon. Members opposite would desire to see them. When the Act came into force the local authority for that district was careful to appoint six managers to the Board school, every one of whom was a Nonconformist, and the majority of whom were Calvinistic Methodists. He had put this case forward to show there were grievances on both sides. He fully admitted there were difficulties in Wales. There was, he granted, a Nonconformist majority there, and where there was only one school and that Church of England, even with the conscience clause, there was, he admitted, the appearance of a grievance. But what ought to be done. The hon. Member had spoken about the Bishop of St. Asaph's compromise. He knew a good deal about that compromise. For his part he supported a compromise on those lines, but what was the real reason why it broke down? It was that under the existing state of the law no compromise would have been valid and might have been repudiated afterwards.
  MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN: You could not trust our word.
  *MR GRIFFITH BOSCAWEN: That is not quite fair. It is not a case of trusting an individual's word. You have to trust an elective body. Under the compromise the Church would have handed over her schools, a new council might have been elected, and there could have been no charge of bad faith against these successors. No public authority can bind its successors, and they might have gone back from what was a purely private arrangement, and then the Church would have been in the position of having parted with her schools and of having no possible means of getting them back.
  MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN: There was to have been a short period at the termination of which, if they had found that the compromise did not work, they would have got their schools back.
  *MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENsaid that under the compromise the Church would have handed the schools over.
  MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN: Yes, for three years.
  *MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWEN: But you cannot make them provide schools for three years. Where is the power in the Act to do it? If there was a power to lease the schools temporarily, I agree, but the leaders of the Church were advised that it could not be done, and that they ran the risk of losing their schools altogether. The general opinion was that in the case of schools provided by Church people for Church objects they had no right to run that risk, and, therefore, in the present state of the law, even if the compromise were desirable, they could not to do it. Continuing, the hon. Member said they knew that a spirit of compromise was in the air, and he looked forward to some new Education Bill which might relieve their difficulties. He did not think they had quite arrived at that compromise yet. For his part he would never accept any compromise unless definite denominational teaching were given in school hours and not out of school hours; but they were going on lines which he hoped would lead to some such arrangement; and by degrees they might understand each other better. He appealed to hon. Members opposite—granting that compromise might come—whether it was not their duty to administer the law while it lasted. He was not referring to passive resisters. An individual might like to break the law, though, in his opinion, they did so largely for political reasons, but they were not concerned with individuals. It was a far more serious thing for great local authorities to deliberately set their faces against carrying out the law, or, at all events, to say they would not carry out the law except under conditions not within and never contemplated by the Act. It was their duty to see that the law was carried out, and, while this was being done, they might endeavour to come to some better system. He would support any compromise which met the religious difficulties of others without placing disabilities upon any other sect or community.
  MR. HUMPHREYS OWENexpressed the opinion that what was now being fought was the claim of the clergy to
  1058
  control elementary education, thus continuing the controversy which was begun with the Act of Uniformity. Education had so long been the monopoly of the Church of England that she was naturally reluctant to give up control, but she must now realise that the time had come when the control must be relinquished. The clergy regarded the denominational schools as their own private property, but that was an entire mistake; they were merely trustees. They held the schools for the purpose of giving education, and education was now a public trust, and if Parliament had the power to direct what should be done with public trust property, the trustees were under no obligation any longer to regard their responsibilities under the trust deed, and the handing over of the schools to the public authority was nothing more than the execution of their duty. He would be no party to any compromise upon the subject of public control, and on the subject of religious tests the Nonconformists could not give way. The imposition of religious tests either engendered and encouraged hypocrisy or tended to drive out of the teaching profession those best fitted for it. He was opposed to the counsel of despair which counselled either strict denominationalism or purely secular teaching. He could not regard the teaching of religious facts as they presented themselves in the New Testament as denominational teaching.
  And, it being half-past Seven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again this evening.

EVENING SITTING.

  SUPPLY [3RD ALLOTTED DAY].
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.]

  CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES 1904–5. (VOTE ON ACCOUNT).
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £21,500,000, be granted to His Majesty, on account,

  1059
  for or towards defraying the Charges for the following Civil Services and Revenue Departments for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1905, viz.:—

  CIVIL SERVICES.
  CLASS IV.

  £

  Board of Education

  7,000,000

  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That, Item, Class 4 (Board of Education), be reduced by £500."—(Mr. Lloyd-George.)
  MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN,continuing his speech, said that some appeals had been made to the Welsh county councils to abstain from the policy which they had adopted, but no expectations had been held out that if they did the Act would be amended, although it was admitted by all that it required amendment in the two vital principles, public control and the abolition of religious tests. It had been said that the Act did not impose new religious tests. That was true, but the Act had made every school a public school, and had placed the whole charges of the maintenance of the schools on the public funds, and therefore for the first time imposed a religious test on public servants. That was one of the things

  1063
  about which they complained. The only other point was that of religious facilities. It was common ground that facilities should be given in all schools for religious teaching. If denominational teaching was to be given at the cost of the State that was a solution of the difficulty for which Wales was not ripe, and therefore the only alternative was that the cost of the denominational teaching must be borne by the various denominations. He felt confident that if each side would trust more to the good faith of the other, a settlement could easily be arrived at, as to the time at which such teaching should be given in the schools. If the Government would only take a broad and statesmanlike view of the matter it would not be impossible to amend the rules so as to enable the provided schools to be retransferred to their managers if the arrangement entered into did not work satisfactorily. If the Government, instead of taking a broad and statesmanlike view, continued to try this stupid plan of repression they would still in the end have to give way, and the only question was whether they should now try and make the Act workable by giving Wales what she desired, or be forced to consent after considerable mutual recrimination. The county councils had been charged with using the schools for political purposes but had not the Church party also appealed to politics. Everybody knew the fight was entered into with the utmost alacrity by the Church party in Wales. For his part he did not share in this censure as to the political agitation. He thought, if politics were to be any more than a battle of place and profit, every man ought to take part. But one of the fundamental rules of the political game was that the Party defeated should admit defeat and if in power should carry out the legislation necessary. Purely secular teaching was not within the realm of practical politics, and when he knew the only way in which the Bible could be brought within the reach of our child population he would be loth to take part in any administration which would prevent it. Those who advocated purely secular teaching rather than denominational teaching were doing a very
  1064
  dangerous thing and should consider well before they adopted a plan which might result in the total exclusion of the Bible from the schools.
  MR. GEOPGE KENYONsaid there was no question on which he would like less to come into conflict with his Welsh friends than this. They in Wales had worked together and he had always been glad to back up Welsh ideas in national and educational questions. For many years they had been successful in keeping away what was called the religious difficulty and had managed to carry on their great University and the University Colleges without friction. The Church party had been much abused for the action they had felt it their duty to take with regard to what was called the concordat of the Bishop of St. Asaph, but he was present at the whole of the meetings, which were conducted with great urbanity and courtesy, at which, however, though principles were discussed, no decision was arrived at. In those days the hon. Member for Carnarvon was very friendly with the Bishop of St. Asaph and thought that he had captured him. The Bishop of St. Asaph, on the other hand, thought that he had captured the hon. Member. However that might be, the Bishop's position throughout the discussions was one of great moderation and his earnest desire was to promote a reasonable settlement of the difficulty. The concordat, however, broke down on what was called the Cowper-Temple Clause, which prohibited doctrinal teaching being given in provided schools in school hours. The hon. Member for Carnarvon on that point was asked whether he would give facilities for teaching dogmatic religion to the children in school hours, but the answer given was a diplomatic one, that he believed it was not possible under the law, but he would try and persuade his colleagues to take that course. It was on that that the negotiations broke down. The Church party had conceded the point that the teachers should be appointed by a joint body containing representatives of the county council and the diocesan conference, but they insisted that they must have adequate facilities for teaching the children in the schools, and not outside, and in school hours. But hon.

  1065
  Gentlemen opposite really conceded nothing. The schools were the property of the Church party which had built them and maintained them to a large j extent, and on every principle of fight and justice they ought to have facilities given to them to teach the children in their own tenets.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid the Nonconformists gave a guarantee for general religious teaching in the non-provided schools, and were also prepared to give facilities for religious teaching in the board schools so long as that teaching was given technically outside school hours, surely that was something.
  *MR. GEORGE KENYONregretted he could not quite follow the hon. Gentleman. He then quoted a letter written by the Bishop of St. Asaph, which he said meant that no facilities that could be offered to the Church party could be secured without the abrogation of the Cowper-Temple Clause, and, as the hon. Member for Carnarvon had stated, since he never dreamt for a moment of assenting to any arrangement which would have abrogated that clause. That was the whole history of the concordat in North Wales. He was free to confess he had gone to the conference with some reluctance. He did not think in the present temper of the people it was possible, in Wales, to arrive at any concordat which would be satisfactory to the Church and Nonconformists alike, but he hoped at no j distant day, when the turmoil and hubbub was abated, it might be possible to arrive at some solution of this difficulty, which was really a very small: part of the general education question. If the Church party were prepared to give so much, and the hon. Member was willing to go so far, in order to promote a fair and reasonable compromise, he did not despair of arriving ere long at a satisfactory arrangement. He congratulated the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs on his return from his triumphal progress through the Principality. The hon. Member could stand on one of the mountains in his native land and survey the whole of the county councils at his feet. As to Jupiter of old they bowed themselves to his nod. He admired the abilities and the invective of his
  1066
  hon. friend. They were one of the assets of that House. But was it really worth all the invective, all the trouble, all the motor-car journeys, merely to deprive the children in the schools of warmth and gas and a few elementary reading books? Supposing the scale of political fortune turned tomorrow and the hon. Member found himself where his abilities and talents entitled him to be would he still advocate a "no rate" policy on the part of the county councils of Wales? It would then be the hon. Member's duty to maintain the law, pending any alteration he might persuade his colleagues to make, and he would find some difficulty in adapting his present position with the really comfortable scat on the Treasury Bench.
  There was not much heard about passive resisters in Wales; they were to a large extent obviated by the policy of the hon. Gentleman opposite. He only knew of one whom he saw before him, the hon. Member for Carmarthen. But there was more in these violent attacks on Churchmen, in the matter of the schools, than appeared on the surface. There was the latent idea that the present agitation would tend to the disestablishment of the Church in Wales by rendering her unpopular and making her responsible for the gathering of the rate. The present movement was only a step towards the greater and more acute controversy. The hon. Gentleman had doubtless secured for the present the support of the county councils, but throughout the Principality there were large numbers of Nonconformists who regarded this policy of illegality with dislike and even aversion. It might be that before long that feeling would gather strength, and then the action of the county councils would be as gall and wormwood to the hon. Gentleman and his friends. There was, at any rate, only one course open to those who believed that the sine qua non of education, in the interests of the children themselves, was a sound religious training—not undenominational, but dogmatic. This being so how could they do otherwise than separate themselves from hon. Gentlemen opposite. They would fight on until it was no longer possible to struggle, and

  1067
  they had to surrender to force. He congratulated the Government on having taken, some what tardily, after some hesitation, a line worthy of them in this matter. Without giving unnecessary offence, and in studiously moderate language, the hon. Baronet had shown that he believed it to be his duty to see that the law was carried out. That was the only consistent course open to the Government, and, if the present powers were not sufficient to enable them to pursue it, they must ask the House for further powers. He had never been a special lover of the Act in some respects, but he believed that, with all its defects, it would prove to be a great, judicious, and honourable landmark in the history of education.
  *Mr. BAMFORD SLACK (Hertfordshire, St. Albans),after craving the indulgence of the House on this the first occasion on which he had presumed to address it, said he would not have risen but for his sincere desire to contribute if possible to the peaceful and lasting settlement of this vexed and vexing question. He thought that he might without presumption claim to occupy a position which peculiarly fitted him to speak as to the attitude of the people of the country with regard to the administration of the Education Act. He had carefully watched its working, and in the recent election in which it had been his privilege to take part the education question loomed very large before the electorate; consequently he felt that he could not allow the present occasion to pass without neglecting the duty imposed upon him by his constituents. There existed amongst the people the gravest anxiety as to the principles involved in the Act, the most serious apprehension as to its method of working, and already the most sincere dissatisfaction as to its effects in practice. The hon. Baronet had said it was very difficult to distinguish between popular objection and organised obstruction. If he had been in the recent fray in Mid-Hertfordshire he would have found no difficulty in drawing the distinction. There was no organised obstruction to the Education Act; it was a spontaneous agitation arising from the fact that the conscience of the people had been aroused and stirred. The main objections to the
  1068
  Act were, in the case of the non-provided schools, that the whole cost of elementary education was now thrown upon public funds, whilst the effective control remained in sectarian hands; and, in the case of the provided schools, that the directly elected boards had been replaced by an appointed committee not directly responsible to any electorate. The foundation managers presumed upon their position because it had been legalised, and in some cases they overrode in the most shameless manner the locally appointed representatives. The new system afforded the gravest opportunities for the exercise of clerical influence, even in the provided schools which formerly were unsectarian. Popularly elected, though small, School Boards had given place to boards of managers appointed by the distant county council, the great majority of whose members were Anglicans. The constitution of the county education committees themselves gave great dissatisfaction. To a large extent they had been chosen from outside the county councils. Secondary election was bad in principle; it was of the essence of popular control that those who controlled the public funds should be liable to dismissal by those whom they represented and whose money they spent, and in no matter was this more essential than in education. In Hertfordshire more than one-third of the education committee had been selected from outside the council; thirty-five of the fifty-one members were Anglicans, two were Roman Catholics, and only fourteen were Nonconformists, although quite one-half of the scholars in the schools were Nonconformist children.
  With regard to the constitution of the boards of managers, a similar state of things existed in Hertfordshire as in Carnarvon. Out of 170 schemes relating to Hertfordshire, 148 contained the provision that the four foundation managers must be members of the Establised Church, and this though the whole cost was now thrown upon public funds. In one case the rector, the two churchwardens, and the rector's curate were the four foundation managers; the County Council representative was an Anglican, and the representative elected by the parish council was the local Nonconformist minister, whose election was apparently resented by the rector as an insult to himself. To

  1069
  call that representative management was a farce. The people's representative was in a helpless minority of one; he was brow-beaten by the rector on every possible occasion; and when it came to the appointment of a correspondent for the school the rector appointed his own butler, at a salary of £10 a year, although the parish representative offered to do the work for nothing. In the school itself, even before the Act came into operation, there had been serious difficulties. The assistant master asked to be relieved of the office of organist in the church, which he held at a salary of £30 a year, and he was thereupon dismissed from the school, being told by the rector that the two offices went together. In St. Albans before the Act a Progressive School Board existed. Notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of the citizens, the city council last year decided to hand over the work of the board to the county council. The municipal elections in November turned upon the question, and for the first time in the history of St. Albans four Progressives were returned at the head of the poll for the four vacant places, as a protest against the action of the city council. Of the twelve managers of the provided schools in St. Albans, of whom eight were appointed by the county council, and four by the city council, seven were members of the Anglican Church and five were Nonconformists. This being the body which had taken the place of the Progressive School Board, could it be wondered at that the people of St. Albans resented the interference with the method by which they had managed their provided schools in the past? It was no matter of surprise that wide-spread dissatisfaction existed and passive resisters were to be found in that city.
  The people of England were now realising how cunningly and with what subtlety the Act of Parliament was framed, how ingeniously and disingenuously it was contrived. It gave the semblance of popular control while the reality was absolutely denied. County councils could not effectively do the additional work imposed upon them. The divorce of taxation from representation and the permission to impose sectarian tests upon teachers whose salaries were paid by the State had
  1070
  revolted the conscience not only of Nonconformists, but of the majority of patriotic citizens belonging to all churches. He had found that farmers and others who had hitherto taken little part in national affairs had been aroused to indignation by the Act, and hon. Members opposite, when they came to face their constituents, would find that that was a fact with which they would have to deal. Conscience had been sneered at in this matter, but he thought those sneers were very misplaced. Was not conscience recognised as the religious authority in Protestant England as opposed to the authority of the Church in countries under the Roman communion? The solemn language so slightingly referred to by the hon. Baronet was the expression of a deep religious conviction, which no pressure, coercion, or jibes, would ever eradicate. The clerical party would find that the movement they had inaugurated would end in their own discomfiture; they had grasped after entire public support, and sooner or later they would have to submit to entire public control. Why should not all Parties in the House combine to establish a great homogeneous national system of educasion, whose first and only care should be the interests of the children? Why should they not remove all occasions for the unseemly strife which had arisen, and do all they could to quench the fires of religious persecution and bitterness which had been enkindled? Let them trust the people, who, after all, were the parents of the children in the schools, and let them not force particular theological tenets as elements of animosity into the elementary schools, which, it should never be forgotten, were really the nurseries of the nation.
  LORD HUGH CECILsaid he observed that while they were often told that the main ground of the grievance of hon. Gentlemen opposite was the absence of popular control over elementary schools, the hon. Member opposite had found that element of popular control very strong, and had complained with great bitterness of the fact that the Hertfordshire County Council was composed mostly of members of the Church of England. He was amused to hear that, because the county council had appointed seven members of the Church

  1071
  of England to five Nonconformists, in substitution for a Progressive majority on the School Board, no one could be surprised that there were passive resisters. That was the consequence of the hon. Member's argument, and so they were to have passive resistance, not only whenever the foundation managers were in a majority and exercised the rights given them under the statute, but even in cases where the popular representatives controlled the provided schools. He had never had a strong objection to passive resisters. They were an interesting illustration of the right of the subject to rebel; but if principles of this kind were to be accepted, they ought to be applied on many other occasions. The cases of grievance which the hon. Member for Carnarvon had brought forward were all of the kind which he had always admitted—the grievance of the single school district. That grievance constituted a very hard case, but it was no remedy for it to substitute a Nonconformist for a Church majority in the management of the school. He must pass over those cases alleged by the hon. Member where Nonconformists had subscribed to schools without knowing that they were to be Church schools. Unless the parson had made a false declaration, the subscribers must have known. If the hon. Member could prove that—
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Certainly.
  LORD HUGH CECIL: Then it was nothing against the Education Act, however strong a case for action under the Church Discipline Act. The only way to meet the single school difficulty was to provide for the religious convictions of all the inhabitants of the district, and they must meet the conscientious, scruples of all sections of the community. The hon. Member opposite debated at some length the action of the county councils in Wales, and this question had been dealt with so elaborately that he would only touch very briefly upon it. The hon. Member for Carnarvon had played in Wales the part of what was called a missionary. The missionary was becoming quite a feature of modern politics. The hon. Member was the missionary of passive resistance. The function of a missionary was to induce constituencies
  1072
  to bully their representatives, and the hon. Member opposite hid been more successful than another person, for he found more amenable constituencies and more plastic representatives. There was no one corresponding to the Unionist free-fooders in the Carnarvonshire County Council. Perhaps things would have been different if there had been. But it was a fact, at any rate, that the local education committee rejected the hon. Member's view, and he believed that the chairman, who was a Nonconformist minister, strongly attacked the hon. Member opposite for his views. Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman persisted in his agitation. He remembered that when he once suggested that the Welsh county councils might not treat the Church schools fairly he was indignantly assured that the Welsh people were the most law-abiding in the world. That was before the hon. Member undertook his mission. Since then the character of Carnarvon had gone down steadily. Now they took another view, and were prepared to starve the schools. He sympathised deeply with the hon. Member's grievance in regard to single school areas. The hon. Member said that there were many Nonconformist schoolrooms that could be used, but that were not used because of the reluctance to divide the children into sects. He thought that the hon. Member overlooked the fact that the division was made once for all when Nonconformity was established. No doubt it was true that schism was a great evil. It would be much better if they could all be of one mind, and if all the children went to one place of worship on Sunday; it would be better for the community and better for the religious life of the country. But the Nonconformists had deliberately chosen the other alternative, and they had separated from the single unity which once existed. If there was to be a distinction drawn they should endeavour to make their educational system conform to their religious system. The hon. Member said that it would be perfectly easy to draw this distinction.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: At the ratepayers' expense.
  LORD HUGH CECILsaid this was a question of conscience, and surely the case

  1073
  was an overwhelming one. By his argument the hon. Member really gave away the whole ground of passive resistance which he had placed before the Committee. They had always been told that it was a religious scruple. It was not a religious scruple at all; it was a doctrine of social unity, a political theory, not a religious doctrine. It seemed to him that this destroyed the grievance whether they could find a school building suitable for use under Section 10 of the Act. He disapproved strongly of the attitude of uncompromising resistance to the existing Act, but he did not disapprove on the ground that the law was always to be obeyed. He thought it was legitimate to say that there were grievances which justified disobedience to the law, but they must establish a very good case, otherwise they might return to a state of anarchy. It was sometimes forgotten that the exact business of the Executive Government was to insist on the observance of the law. If Parliament made an alteration, that was another question; but as long as the law existed the Government should require its observance. Resistance to the Education Act was in the nature of an act of war, and as long as war continued there was no use in waging it in a half-hearted way. They must press their views to the utmost of their ability, but this fact should not prevent them from welcoming pacification on equitable terms, in bringing to an understanding all the different conflicting religious elements on an elastic and fair basis.
  The House had been told that the matter might have been settled by the acceptance of the St. Asaph compromise. He was not able to accept the view that facilities outside school hours were satisfactory in any degree. First of all there was the practical inconvenience that children might be kept away. There was another argument that had not received sufficient attention. All these suggestions involved the idea that Churchmen were to accept the proposition that undenominational religious teaching had the same claim on the State as denominational. He could understand people saying that the State should have nothing to do with religion at all. He could understand the State saying that it ought to do its best to
  1074
  meet the desires of all sorts of religious beliefs; but he could not understand any one maintaining that the State should create a new established religion, that it should create a new Established Church of the realm in respect of education, and favour the suggestion that undenominational teaching was a better and more necessary thing, and that the rest was a sort of spiritual luxury which those who were fastidious might insist upon. Anything which raised in any way the presumption that they should prefer undenominational to denominational teaching ought never to be accepted, and he hoped never would be accepted, by the House. He thought the hon. Member for Carnarvon had used language in the past which did suggest some suspicion as to the way his proposal would work In a speech delivered on 22nd January, 1903, the hon. Member argued that the school time-table should be arranged so that religious instruction might follow at the close of the school session and that those children desiring religious instruction should return and those who did not should continue to play. He thought that all the suggestions made by the hon. Member and his friends were devices to change for the worse the existing division between undenominational and denominational religion. There was a great difference between the point of view of Churchmen and Nonconformists in one respect. Nonconformists of undoubted convictions evidently attached more importance to the machinery of education than the Churchmen did. Churchmen, on their side, cared nothing for the machinery so that they should be assured of the result. They cared for the management of the school and the appointment of the head teacher, because these things enabled them to secure that the religious teaching should be of a particular character, and that the children should benefit by it. So far as he could judge, no machinery had yet been suggested which would afford to Churchmen and Roman Catholics an equal security for good religious teaching as the machinery that at present exists in non-provided or voluntary schools. This was not a Church of England question only. He should deprecate in the strongest way their separating in any degree their fortunes from

  1075
  their Roman Catholic friends, who had stood by them so loyally and so long. No settlement ought to be accepted by either party which was not satisfactory to both. Subject to that, he thought that on the lines his right hon. friend laid down there was a prospect of a settlement which might be not unacceptable to all parties. They had the power of appointing the teachers and he did not think that was an unreasonable provision. The teachers existed for the sake of the children, and if they wanted to teach the children a particular religion they must exact a certain religious standard. They must exact a certain standard of religious belief, or otherwise religious teaching would become a mockery.
  Supposing they could adopt the system which he indicated in the Amendment which he proposed when the Bill was in Committee, supposing they allowed every local authority to teach any religious system they liked, supposing the parents expressed a wish for the religious system they preferred, and supposing they threw the duty on the local authority to carry out their wishes so far as it was practicable, he believed they would have gone a long way towards solving the problem. He did not believe local authorities would be unwilling to work such a system. It was worked in Germany and in the industrial schools of this country. The truth was the practical difficulties were grossly exaggerated. He knew what was in the minds of some hon. Gentlemen. They were afraid the system would be used for the benefit of a particular section of the Church of England, whom they regarded with great suspicion. They thought it was part of an elaborate propaganda by which it was desired to capture the children for the extreme High Church section. Surely, hon. Gentlemen mistook the signs of the times. There was a High Church movement, and a great many people whose zeal led them beyond the limits of discretion did injudicious things. The really formidable movement was a very different one. The real danger to be apprehended was from another quarter. The whole fabric of Christianity was in peril. He saw in every city and in every town growing indifference to religion. Public worship was notoriously much more neglected
  1076
  than it had been, and not only neglected, but where it was attended it was made as agreeable as possible in order that it might not be neglected. People attended church or chapel more for the music or the preacher than for worship. The whole Christian system seemed to be passing from the region of certainty into the region of doubt. People were not quite sure whether Christianity were true or not.
  MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR: Like free trade.
  LORD HUGH CECILsaid that no religion which had arrived at that point could long survive as an active force. The danger which he feared was not to the theological system, but to the moral system, for when religion was gone morality would go with it. Was not that a state of things which the Nonconformist as well as the Anglican and the Roman should try to avert? Those who thought that that was a pessimistic view he would ask whether in 1504 a break with the See of Rome, or in 1750 a revolution in France, seemed more probable than a break with Christianity appeared to-day. Great movements came in that fashion. They were latent for years, then suddenly they burst forth, producing lasting effects. Therefore his appeal was not so much in the interest of the Church as in the interest of Christianity. He wished to give to Nonconformists all the protection against proselytism in the schools which their ingenuity could devise. Indeed, no one desired to use the national schools of the country to convert children from one religion to another. All he desired was to make each child as good a Christian of his father's denomination as was possible. He agreed that the springs of human conviction lay beyond the schools to a great extent; but still in the schools much good might be done for Christianity. Even if they could influence one child in that direction it was worth doing. The enemy outside was more to be dreaded than the opponent within. The differences which divided the extreme Nonconformist from the extreme Roman Catholic were trivial compared with the differences which separated the Christian from the non-Christian. He asked them to approach the question of

  1077
  education from that point of view, and to make the schools of the country the citadel of Christianity.
  MR. BRYCE (Aberdeen, S.)said the noble Lord's speech was both amusing and suggestive. He noticed three admissions in the speech which seemed to him very valuable not only to this side, but to all parts of the House. He admitted that the Act needed amendment; and he was good enough to admit that the single-school district constituted a grievance for the Nonconformists, and that that grievance, if it were serious, justified resistance to the law. Their argument was that it was a serious grievance. He was, therefore, pleased to hear the noble Lord say emphatically that there might be justification for what used to be called the sacred right of insurrection. Lastly, the noble Lord expressed the hope that, on the lines indicated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University, some settlement might be arrived at. The noble Lord deplored the conditions which in Christian life were due to differences of belief. He ought to deplore them all the more, because it was a clear and palpable aggravation of these conditions if they began with children at the very first step, and taught them to regard one another with aversion. The noble Lord's argument appeared to be that things were bad and that it did not matter if they made them worse. It was not, as the noble Lord seemed to think, entirely a question of expense. It was a question of the worth of the education to be given. To set up two or three small schools in an area where there were only 100 or 150 children would be to make them absolutely useless—he meant by that, to make them ineffective—because they would not have the apparatus and the teaching which would enable them to do what was wanted for the children. That suggestion was really inadmissible. What was called undenominational religion consisted in matters on which all Protestant denominations were agreed in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. It was in the rural districts where the difficulty chiefly arose, and there the Catholics were a small portion of the population. It was in the large
  1078
  towns where the difficulty with the Catholics arose. Therefore, the noble Lord must pardon him if he did not take him as the exponent of the feeling of the laity of the Church of England, though he recognised that the noble Lord worthily represented one school of thought in the Church. He believed himself that the general feeling of the laity was in favour of undenominational instruction, as was shown by the large support they had given to School Boards. As to the latter part of the noble Lord's, speech, with the earnestness of which all who heard it must be impressed, he agreed both with his diagnosis of the age in which we lived and in the regret he had expressed at the tendency which was manifesting itself; but he differed from the noble Lord with regard to the remedy he proposed. It must not be supposed, however, that he regarded the tendency of which the noble Lord had spoken as a permanency. He saw no reason to entertain any grave alarm. That tendency might last for a generation or two and then disappear, as similar tendencies had done before. The noble Lord seemed to think that this tendency, which was in a certain sense a world movement, could be arrested by the simple expedient of giving children denominational teaching in the schools.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: He said just the reverse.
  ME. BRYCEsaid that if the noble Lord would look at what had been done by education in the forming of opinion where the applicances were more effective and universal than in England, he would have reason to reconsider his opinion. In Protestant Germany the children got Protestant instruction. Had that made them as devoted to Christianity as were the children of the Protestant United States, where no denominational instruction was given? The sectarian teaching on which the noble Lord laid so much stress, related to points which did not incorporate themselves in the child's life, and which were not guides to its moral conduct because in a great majority of cases the child did not understand them at all. He agreed that a school ought to implant moral lessons in the mind of the child; but that was not to be done by

  1079
  the denominational part of the teaching, but by that part which belonged to the essence and foundation of Christianity.
  They had had a debate which had dealt partly with the resistance of the Welsh county councils and partly with the merits, or demerits, of the Act of 1902. He ventured to say that his hon. friend the Member for Carnarvon had made his case in a very moderate and temperate way, and his contention was that, in such circumstances as the Board of Education found in Wales, they ought to act with caution and conciliation. Wales had a right to bring the matter forward, because its case was a peculiar one, the vast majority of the people—probably three-fourths, or even a larger proportion in many parts — being Nonconformists. Could any one say that the Act of 1902 would have been passed for Wales if it had not been that it was being passed for England? Was it not a little hard that Wales, which was a country, for ecclesiastical purposes, so unlike England, should have to suffer merely because the Government of the day thought the Act a good thing for England? The Secretary to the Board of Education had ascribed what had passed in Wales to the agitation of the Welsh Members. It was not the Welsh Members who had roused Wales. They only went to Wales because Wales was roused. The inflammable material was there and took fire of itself. Feelings of the same sort were rampant in Yorkshire. It had been seriously discussed in the West Riding whether or not the Act should be set in force. An agitation could never be got up unless there was material on which it could work. This was true about the passive resistance movement, which had been in an eminent degree a movement springing from the rank and file. It was the people, too, who had usually been very languid in their political opinions who had been stirred by this question. They were a class who had been amongst the most law-abiding, quiet, steady-going citizens of this country. What had impressed them had been, first, the idea that this was an Act which had put a strain on their consciences, and in the second place the belief that it had not moral authority because it was an Act which had not been properly passed.
  1080
  [An HON. MEMBER: No.] He was telling the Committee what was their view. It might be wrong. They thought that the Act was not submitted to the people in the way Acts usually were. They said that the Act had not the stamp of popular approval on it. He did not recollect any Act which had been passed, rightly or wrongly, which had carried so little moral authority as this Act had done. If the Secretary to the Board of Education did not know the feeling about the Act, which was entertained even in his own Party, he stood alone in that ignorance. It was impossible to go about England without knowing that a more unpopular Act had seldom appeared in the Statute-book. Its first result had been to produce confusion in the county councils, who had found suddenly imposed upon them a mass of work with which they were unable to grapple. The Act had involved them in an enormous increase of expenditure. The managers, not being the servants of the councils, were not trusted with so much work as they had been, and were disappointed in consequence. It was said that not only in Wales, but also in the South of England, the Board of Education were making Orders for the creation of Church of England managers where there was nothing in the trust deed to justify this.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid this was the converse of the complaint made by the hon. Member for Carnarvon. The Board of Education had, in fact, endeavoured to carry out the existing practice and usage.
  MR. BRYCEsaid it was difficult to discuss this matter without having a concrete case before them. He would like to know what length of time would justify the Board of Education in making a school sectarian which had not been sectarian by foundation.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid that in each case they must go on the merits. The Board of Education had to consider the settled usage and practice of the schools.
  MR. BRYCEsaid he was informed that protests had been received by the Board of Education from local authorities against their Orders, and perhaps if he

  1081
  put a Question on the subject, the hon. Gentleman would be able to tell him how many protests had been received. There was another difficulty about the managers which he thought ought to be mentioned. Transfers were being made. Was it required in all cases that transfers should be made without the reserve of any rent to the persons who had the freehold of the school? It was very import ant to bearin mind, when terms were to be given to schools in private ownership, that in many cases such schools were not private schools in the ordinary sense of the term, but charities. He should like to know to what extent the new schools which were being provided were provided by the local authorities and by the organisations.
  *SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid he answered that Question that afternoon.
  MR. BRYCEsaid he was sorry he had not heard the hon. Gentleman's explanation. Among other difficulties that had arisen in the working of the Act were those in relation to the terms of transfer, the use of school buildings out of school hours, the refusal of managers, to put the buildings in a proper state of repair for such use, and the use of school buildings for infants, boys or girls, according to the needs of the locality. He, was informed that there had been cases in which the managers, by insisting upon keeping up the school in a particular way, had obliged the local authority to incur the cost of providing another school. That was one of the cases which inflicted the country with a great deal of unnecessary expense. Another difficulty had arisen in connection with the appointment of teachers. He was told that the National Society had circulated a form of agreement for the appointment of teachers in voluntary schools and which it requested managers to use for all teachers. The terms of that agreement pledged the teachers to give religious instruction according to a syllabus or scheme to be approved of by the society from time to time. The local authorities denied altogether the right of the managers to submit such a scheme or syllabus to the teachers, and they contended that they had a right to demand that no embarrassing conditions should be
  1082
  attached by the managers to the engagement of teachers; that those conditions which the National Society desired to see imposed were improper conditions, and ultra vires of the managers. Was that so, and if so, what was the attitude of the Board of Education to it? Had the Board come to a decision on the point, and what was that decision? If the hon. Baronet desired time to consider the matter, good and well; but he did not wish to lose that opportunity of calling the attention of the Committee to it, because he was told it had given rise, to a great deal of friction between local authorities and the managers in some parts of the country.
  Lastly, he desired to ask what was being done, to promote secondary instruction. Secondary instruction was most important at the present moment, and he feared that it would suffer from being associated with elementary instruction owing to the increased cost of elementary education. He was afraid that very little was being done by most county councils for secondary education, and that it was being allowed to fall altogether into the background. That was one of the greatest misfortunes attending the passing of the Act. He hoped the Department would urge the county councils to keep clown expenditure, on elementary education, so far as was consistent with efficiency, in order to have money to spare for secondary instruction. Secondary education, both general and technical, was one of the most important objects local authorities could have in England, and they should be constantly reminded of their duty by the Board of Education. When they were passing this Act, the First Lord of the Treasury had a favourite phrase by which he described it; he always spoke of it as being a great educational reform. Well, they had had some, experience, although not complete, of the working of this great educational reform; and he must say that its chief result had been additional expense, additional confusion, none of that unity of administration which they were promised, and a great exasperation of ecclesiastical controversy, coupled with neglect of the most urgent needs of the country. There had been some consolation in that debate.

  1083
  Everyone, except the Members speaking from the Treasury Bench, had admitted that the Act had been at fault, and required to be reformed.
  He would not attempt to solve the riddle as to how the religious difficulty involved in the Act could be removed. Everyone had his own scheme. But there was a growing wish, and he regarded this with satisfaction, for an arrangement upon fair lines towards all denominations. They would only get a fair arrangement by admitting popular control. With popular control everything would be easy; without popular control everything would be difficult. He had been very glad to hear the Attorney-General give approval to the compromise suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University. There were moments during the debates on the Act of 1902 when they thought that such a compromise might be accepted; and therefore he could not feel too sanguine that it would now be carried out. But they all wished that Ministers would take the matter to heart at once, and try to bring about, through their influence on their own Party, some pacific arrangement; because it must be clear to everyone that the Act could not stand. He knew that the First Lord of the Treasury thought that the passive resistance movement was quite ridiculous; but it was a fact which the right hon. Gentleman could not deny. He was in the recollection of many hon. Members that the right hon. Gentleman had scouted the passive resistance movement altogether, and did so because he thought it absurd. The right hon. Gentleman was a great dialectician, and nobody had ever admired the First Lord's dialectical powers more than he had done this session, because, unlike, the man in the play who endeavoured to persuade two ladies in separate rooms that each of them swayed his heart, he had endeavoured to persuade the protectionists in the presence of the free-traders that he was a protectionist—[MINISTERIAL cries of "Question"]—and had endeavoured to persuade the free-traders in the presence of the protectionists that he was a free-trader. [Renewed cries of "Question."] Hon. Gentlemen did not seem to like any reference to that; but he was only using it as an illustration, and not necessarily as an argument.
  1084
  With all his dialectical skill, the right hon. Gentleman could not argue facts out of existence. There were the facts—the facts that passive resistance existed, and that the Act was unpopular. He held that if they could see into the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite, it would be found, at this moment, that all agreed that the Act must be amended; and he ventured to predict that whatever Government came into power alter the next general election, they would have to deal with this Act. It was perfectly impossible to allow it to stand as it now stood. Indeed, the, present Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education admitted that he would have to get greater power. The sooner they approached this work the better; and he hoped whoever did approach it would endeavour to give them a truly national and popular system, and would endeavour to set the country free from this ecclesiastical strife in order to make education a really progressive element in the life of the country.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I really should not have supposed that there were two speakers in this House more unlike each other, not only in their opinions, but in their style and methods, than the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down and my noble friend who preceded him. I should have thought that they differed on almost every subject, but that, if there was a subject on which they differed more than any other, it was the subject of education. And yet I observe that neither of them could keep out the fiscal controversy when they were touching upon this apparently alien theme. There is something—in such studies of political economy as I have made I have, never been able to find out in what it consists—but there must be something closely connected between theological and economic controversy which makes it impossible for anyone to take a passionate interest in the one without going rather mad over the other. I do not say where the passion or the madness lies; but, at all events, they both have some intoxicating, and perhaps elevating, effect on the human mind, and when any gentleman passionately interested in the one begins to discourse upon one of these subjects, he

  1085
  seems insensibly drawn off into metaphors and arguments which pertain to the other. It is a psychological fact which I commend to those interested in the currents of opinion which sway this Assembly. The right hon. Gentleman, except in the latter part of his speech, sank very much below my noble friend in the breath of view and in the general treatment of the subject which he laid before the House. The right hon. Gentleman told me in particular, but the House in general, that in his judgment the Education Bill of 1902 was a very unpopular Bill and a very bad Bill. I did not know that it was a very popular Bill. I never brought it in believing that it would be a popular Bill. The Government, of which I was a member, never supposed that it was a Bill which would conciliate universal opinion or arouse great enthusiasm either among those represented by hon. Gentlemen opposite or among the general ratepayers of the country. What we did believe, and what we believe now, is that the time had come when a great educational reform was absolutely necessary, popular or unpopular. The right hon. Gentleman says the Bill is unpopular because it is increasing the rates.
  MR. BRYCE: No; I did not say that quite. That is an element also, but it is unpopular for other reasons.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am alluding to an element of unpopularity to which the right hon. Gentleman alluded. Does the right hon. Gentleman suppose that he could have brought in a Bill which would have done anything whatever for education and in which the ratepayer would have been wholly spared?
  MR. BRYCE: My case is that it is the machinery of the Bill—the dual control of the Bill and the complications and unnecessary multiplication of schools—which has greatly added to the expense.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman's panacea for expenditure is machinery, the economy of which would have been to maintain the School Board system universally, notoriously the most costly system this country has ever known, and to buy up at the ratepayers' expense
  1086
  all the voluntary schools of the country. That is the economy of the right hon. Gentleman. And the only mitigation I can see in the financial disaster which would have thereupon ensued arises from the fact that the right hon. Gentleman would have bought up the voluntary schools at much less than their proper value. I venture to submit to the House that in 1902 we honestly approached the great educational problem in no unworthy or sectarian spirit. Hon. Gentlemen may have disliked our particular solution. They may have preferred, I think the right hon. Gentleman does prefer, or would have preferred, a universal system of small School Boards all over the country.
  DR. MACNAMARA: Large ones.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: There was that plan; there may have been other plans. We adopted a plan large in its outlines, in conformity with the whole position in this country, and fitting in with our general system of local government. Of course there is some difficulty and some confusion, when you make a transition from the old system to the new, from the unreformed to the reformed system, but I believe it will be found, so far as secular education is concerned, that we have laid broadly and permanently the foundations of that which will hereafter be looked upon as the greatest educational reform this country has ever known. It was unfortunately impossible for us, as it would have been impossible for any Government sitting on this Bench, to deal with the general question of secular education without' touching on the question of religious education, and when people talk of the unpopularity of this Bill, when they talk of the educational friction which this Bill has produced in nine times out of ten, in ninety-nine out of 100, they refer not to the difficulty with regard to secular education, but to the difficulty with regard to religious education. And how, may I ask, could any Ministry, be their political complexion what it may, have avoided that? I see opposite my hon. friend the Member for the London University, who made a most interesting speech this afternoon, a

  1087
  speech which interested me particularly because he is keenly alive to the needs of education, and he is altogether outside these unhappy religious controversies. And yet even my hon. friend could not avoid charging the Government with having unnecessarily stirred up religious feeling, and he measured our iniquities by the amount of the passive resistance which the Bill aroused. Did my hon. friend for a moment reflect how dangerous was the argument he employed? If we are only to measure the sincerity of opponents to any Bill by the amount of illegality [Ironical laughter from the OPPOSITION Benches.]—in any case it is very cheap illegality, because in the history of the world there has never been a less expensive form of martyrdom than the present—if my hon. friend measures the faults of the Bill by the amount of that sort of illegality it arouses, does he not see he puts a great premium upon the same kind of illegality being practised when any change in the Bill is made in the direction which the right hon. Gentleman opposite desires? I do not approve of these methods and I shall not encourage them, but the people who encourage them are those who say, "Look at the dreadful results you have produced; here are Mr. A, Mr. B, and Mr. C, all respectable law-abiding citizens who have all got their rates paid by somebody else! Is it possible that you should still maintain a law which produces this disastrous result?" Well, then another Party conies into office, they carry out the reforms foreshadowed by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and then, instead of Mr. A, Mr. B, and Mr. C, getting their rates paid by somebody else, Mr. X, Mr. Y, and Mr. Z will follow the same ingenious procedure. What then is my hon. friend to do? He will again have to measure the iniquity of the new law by the same standard as that by which he measured the iniquity of the old law; and each successive Government will be impelled to what is called reform the law by the amount of illegal resistance to which that law leads. I think my hon. friend—and I still refer to him because I think him one of the most impartial persons in the House on this subject—if he looks back on the history of this question, will see that you cannot avoid the religious question, and that the
  1088
  Government in dealing with the religious part of this great educational problem have dealt with it in a manner of which the Nonconformists had very little reason to complain.
  I am aware that I was charged, I think by the right hon. Member for Berwick, with a "perverse ignorance" of the feelings of Nonconformists. That may be so; it is certainly through no want of good will on my part; it may be through want of natural capacity. Certainly neither by training, habit, nor education am I disposed to rate low or to think ill of any sect of Christians because they are non-Episcopal. But I honestly admit that there have been arguments used by Nonconformists in this great controversy which I have never, with the best will in the world, been able thoroughly to understand. In what, for instance, lies the conscientious distinction, the moral distinction, between contributing to schools in which denominational religion is given out of taxes rather than out of rates? There may be a reason, but I can truly say that neither in this House nor out of it, neither in conversation nor in literature, have I ever seen that reason, if it really exists, stated in explicit or intelligible language. I have never been able to understand this argument about tests applied to teachers. The point was dealt with by my noble friend, I thought fully, and with his argument I am in entire agreement. I will endeavour to summarise what he said, and at all events hon. Gentlemen opposite, if they do not agree with me, will see where my difficulty lies. If you hold that education should be secular and that teachers engaged in secular education should not have the duty of teaching religion in any form thrown upon them, then I agree to require their conformity with the creed of any particular denomination is the application of a religious test in the true and in the offensive sense of the word, because the application of tests in its historic sense meant this, and nothing more than this—that you should compel a man to go through some religious ceremony before he obtained a secular appointment, which religious ceremony was intended to show conclusively that he belonged to this or that religious denomination, and did not belong to this

  1089
  or that other religious denomination. These are tests. That is what tests have always meant historically; that is what they mean now in the minds of anybody who thinks clearly on these subjects. But who would think they were applying tests when they made inquiries as to whether a tutor of their own family was capable of teaching their own religion to their own children? [An Hon. MEMBER: But they pay.] I will come to the question of payment in a moment. I do not think the hon. Gentleman has got up his own case.
  DB. MACNAMARA: They do it at their own expense.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The whole theory, as I understand it, of the Nonconformists is that you can teach religion—a religion common at all events to all Protestants in board schools. Is it or is it not a religious test to find out whether the teacher who is going to teach that religion common to all Protestants believes in the religion common to all Protestants and is capable of teaching it? The hon. Gentleman who interrupted is wisely silent, and in truth his interruption does expose the hollowness of the whole proceedings. It is logical to refuse any inquiry into a man's religious belief so long as he is not going to teach religion. But as soon as you require him or expect him to teach religion, be it Roman Catholicism, be it Anglicanism, be it Wesleyanism, or any other form of religion, or, above all, or not least, be it the London School Board syllabus, as soon as you require him to teach that you ought to find out formally or informally, but effectively, whether he is capable of teaching it or not. I know I am
  1090
  not at one with the Nonconformists of this country, with whom I would most gladly live at peace; but, do the best I can, I honestly say I have never been able to see an answer to the argument I have just ventured to lay before the House. If I have failed to understand, as I admit I have, these objections of my Nonconformist friends, have they on their part been fair to the efforts which the Government have conscientiously made to alleviate the difficulties of their position? I have read a great many leaflets and a great many articles and a great many speeches delivered against the Education Bill of 1902 in what professed to be the Nonconformist interest. I have seen a great many statements which seemed to me to be absolutely in conflict with notorious facts. I have seen leaflets in which I really could not detect one specific statement that was true, and I have been informed, rightly or wrongly, that these pamphlets, in which I was unable to detect one single true statement, had been left with every householder over large areas in the country. I think that is very unfortunate, especially when the interests supposed to be at stake are the interests of religion. But while I have seen a great many things that I regret, there are some things which I have never seen at all. I have never seen the smallest recognition in any Nonconformist's utterances whatever—except some private letters which I have received from Nonconformists—of what I conceive to be great changes in our education system made entirely in the interests of Nonconformists. I used to hear before the Bill of 1902 was passed that it was an iniquity, considering in how many parishes the only

  1091
  school was a Church school, that no Nonconformist in those parishes could get his child the first start on the educational ladder by allowing him or her to be introduced as a pupil teacher. I believe a complete remedy was provided by the Act of 1902.
  MR. TREVELYAN (Yorkshire, W. R. Elland): A profession they cannot rise in.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am talking of the introduction into the profession. The complaint was that the parson of the parish restricted the choice to boys or girls belonging to his own communion. That has been completely changed. ["No."] It has been changed as far as statute can change it. ["No."] As a matter of fact, it has, and every boy and every girl has an absolute right, irrespective of religion, to become a pupil teacher. ["No."] The hon. Gentleman says he cannot rise in his profession. Before I come to that, let me say—there were a few dissentients from the statements I made just now, but there will not be one dissentient from the statement I now make—that the condition of things after the Act of 1902 became law was incomparably better for Nonconformists in that particular than it was before. Now I come to what the hon. Gentleman said about rising in the profession. Before the Act of 1902, in the voluntary schools, unless under special trust deeds, it was impossible for a Nonconformist to obtain a large number of teaching positions. I know hon. Gentlemen claim that the head teacherships in voluntary schools have not been thrown open by law. That is true, but the number of subordi-
  1092
  nate places is far greater than the number of head places, and the subordinate places have been thrown open. [An HON. MEMBER: If the managers think fit.] The hon. Member thinks there may be obstinacy on the part of the managers, but, supposing there is, is not this an enormous improvement on the condition of things that we found before we set to work to deal with this matter? Then is this the Nonconformist point of view—that the system under which the school was entirely in the hands of the parson, who could forbid any child becoming a pupil teacher unless he or she belonged to the same denomination was a better system? Well, I need not pursue that further. Then we used to be told, and told with a great deal of truth, that in a large number of parishes through no fault of the clergyman, but through his sense of public duty in most cases, the whole secular education was under his control, and that was made a matter of bitter complaint by Nonconformists. In the matter of managers they can no longer say that the one-man management of schools continues in any part of this country, and it is childish to say that from their point of view the Act of 1902 did not carry out a great reform in that respect also. Finally, the grievance I have always felt the Nonconformists had was in the matter of the education of teachers after the pupil-teacher stage was passed. It is the Act of 1902, and that Act alone, which has made provision by which Nonconformist teachers should get the teaching in their profession which would enable them worthily to carry out its high functions. I am not going to discuss all the questions raised by these points; but do critics opposite, who heard all these

  1093
  debates in 1902 and know that the account I have been giving of that Bill is an accurate account, think it fair controversy to come nigh to the spreading, or to make no protest against the spreading, of these amazing falsifications of the Act which have been thrown broadcast over the land, and never once in any speech, in any pamphlet, in any article, to suggest that in every particular the Act of 1902 is far more favourable to the Nonconformist than its predecessor? I was roused to make this protest by the remarks of the Member for Berwick-on-Tweed, I hope I have shown, at all events, that if I, with the best will in the world, have failed in some part to find myself in harmony with them, they have not acted with perfect justice towards the Government of which I am a member.
  With that observation the last touch of controversy, so far as I am concerned with it, shall be put aside from the remainder of what I have to say. I concur absolutely with my noble friend in the speech he made this evening that there are interests before us, interests which we have got to safeguard, interests which are imperilled, incomparably greater than the relatively insignificant fights between this or that Protestant sect. I entirely agree—perhaps here my noble friend will not agree with me—I entirely agree with those who think that there is a body of truth common to all Protestant sects—I would venture to say common to all Christian sects—which may be most profitably and usefully taught to the children of this country. But are you going to settle what the common body of doctrine is by Act of Parliament? Do you think this House, do you think the
  1094
  late London School Board, or the present London County Council, or any other educational authority you please to name, is qualified by tradition, by learning, or by any gift except that of good will, to settle what is this common body of doctrine which is to be taught to the children of tins country, and in which they may all agree. The task is impossible; and, if it were possible, this is not the age of the world in which a House situated like this House can undertake it. You must leave it, and you can only leave it, in logic, to the parents of this country to decide how that should be taught. If there be, as there may be, great difficulties in bringing to bear upon the problem the actual will and intention of the parents of each child, your solution is not, ought not to be, and cannot be, to say that, as the parents are incapable of saying in what denomination their children are to be brought up, it is to be left to the School Board or their successors to settle for them. And yet, although I see all these difficulties before us, I concur with those who think that there are symptoms that religious men in this country, be their denomination what it may, are becoming sick of these disputes, which do infinite harm to education, and, I would venture to say, do still greater harm to religion. But if the controversy is to be approached in the spirit of some Gentlemen I have heard to-night or on previous occasions, I do not see how this embittered strife is to be brought to an end. It cannot be brought to an end, I am confident, as long as one element in the Nonconformist programme is that in no circumstances shall you trench upon the Cowper-Temple Clause. You cannot work the Cowper-Temple Clause. I can imagine many systems which would be just, though

  1095
  do not say that they would always be practicable; but I can conceive of no system which would be just and which would absolutely deprive the parents of the children of every provided school in the country of the opportunity of having those children taught in school hours the religion which they desire. That cannot be. It is not on those lines we can find any solution. Nevertheless I do feel that even as regards the Cowper-Temple Clause there is some change of feeling among those who have hitherto supported it, and that to obtain a really national system of education in which all sects might join, even this ancient prejudice—or, if they will allow me without offence to say, this ancient superstition—might be abandoned for a greater end. However that may be, I have no solution, here and now, even to suggest or hint to the House. On the solution of the question of the Welsh difficulty I have nothing to say in connection with the religious difficulty. All I have to say is in connection with the administrative difficulty. There I am convinced that, however much the hon. Member for Carnarvon—that missionary of peace and good will to all men—may differ from my opinions, he will at all events admit that the education of the children of Wales is a duty which devolves upon the Government of this country, and that, if it is not effectively carried out by those who are legally responsible for it, some remedy for such a state of things must be devised. I think he will allow, speaking as an educationist, and not as a Nonconformist, that to allow the children of Wales to go
  without their proper books and without the necessary machinery of education, to make it doubtful whether the teachers will be paid, and to leave the schools unheated and unrepaired is a state of things which no man, whatever his religious views may be, can contemplate with equanimity, and in which no Government can acquiesce. I hope that without any legislative interference on our part this lamentable state of things can be brought to an end. But if it cannot be brought to an end by those primarily responsible, then it seems to me that a clear duty lies before us, and we must take some measures which shall be effectual to see that the children of Wales do not lack the education given to the children in every other part of His Majesty's dominions.
  MR. ALFRED DAVIES, said he could not help telling the House that he was a passive resister, and that he was in good company. They had with them ministers of the Gospel, prominent citizens and well known members of society. He did not refuse to pay the rate in order that some one should pay it for him. At any rate he was honest in this matter. He refused to pay the rate because he considered that the Education Bill of 1902 was unjust, and he held that no man who had any conscience ought to agree with it.
  Question put.
  The Committee Divided:—Ayes, 128; Noes, 248. (Division List No. 53).

  AYES.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Asquith, Rt Hon Herbert Henry

  Bell, Richard

  Allen, Charles P.

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Black, Alexander William

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Barley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Brigg, John

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Brown, George M. (Edinburgh)

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Rose, Charles Day

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol, E)

  Runciman, Walter

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Russell, T. W.

  Burns John

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Caldwell, James

  Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

  Shackleton, David James

  Cameron, Robert

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Joicey, Sir James

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick, B.)

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Cawley, Frederick

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Cremer, William Randal

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Slack, John Bamford

  Crombie, John William

  Kitson, Sir James

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Lambert, George

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Davies, M. Vaughan (Cardigan

  Leese, Sir Joseph F(Accrington

  Spencer, Rt Hn C R (Northants

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Leng, Sir John

  Stevenson, Francis S.

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  Levy, Maurice

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Duncan, J. Hastings

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Tennant, Harold John

  Dunn, Sir William

  M'Arthur, William (Cornwall)

  Thomas, Sir A. Glamorgan E.)

  Edwards, Frank

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr)

  Elibank, Master of

  M'Laren, Sir Charles Benjamin

  Toulmin, George

  Ellice, Capt EC(SAndrw'sB'ghs

  Mansfield, Horace Randall

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Ellis, John Edward (Notts.)

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Emmott, Alfred

  Middlemore, John Throgmorton

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Eve, Harry Trelawney

  Mitchell, Edw. (Fermanagh, N.

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan

  Farquharson, Dr. Robert

  Morley, Charles (Breconshire)

  Wason John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Fenwick, Charles

  Moulton, John Fletcher

  Weir, James Galloway

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro(Leith)

  Newnes, Sir George

  White, George (Norfolk)

  Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmund

  Norman, Henry

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Foster, Sir Michael (Lond. Univ

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Whiteley, George (York, W. R.

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

  Partington, Oswald

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Freeman-Thomas, Captain F.

  Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Furness, Sir Christopher

  Perks, Robert William

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Gladstone, Rt Hn Herbert John

  Price, Robert John

  Woodhouse Sir J T(Huddersf'd

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Priestley, Arthur

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Grant, Corrie

  Reckitt, Harold James

  Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Berwick

  Rickett, J. Compton

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Lloyd-George and Mr. Haldane.

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  Rigg, Richard

  Harmsworth, R. Leicester

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  NOES.

  Abraham William (Cork N. E.)

  Bousfield, William Robert

  Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Bowles, Lt.-Col H F (Middlesex

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton

  Allhusen, Augustus Henry Eden

  Bull, William James

  Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Burdett-Coutts, W.

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Arnold-Forster, Rt Hn Hugh O

  Butcher, John George

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn Sir H.

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Delany, William

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Balcarres, Lord

  Cavendish V. C. W.(Derbyshire

  Dimsdale, Rt Hon. Sir JosephC.

  Baldwin, Alfred

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Doogan, P. C.

  Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manc'r

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Dorington, Rt Hon. Sir John E.

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Chapman, Edward

  Doughty, George

  Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W(Leeds

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Clare, Octavius Leigh

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Bartley, Sir George C. T.

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Beach,Rt Hn Sir Michael Hicks

  Coates, Edward Feetham

  Dyke, Rt Hon Sir William Hart

  Bentinck, Lord Henry C.

  Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  Bignold, Arthur

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Bigwood, James

  Colomb,Sir John CharlesReady

  Fergusson, Rt Hn Sir J (Manc'r

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Ffrench, Peter

  Bond, Edward

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  1098

  1099

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Lawson, John Grant(Yorks. NR

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford

  Fison, Frederick William

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N S.

  Ridley, Hon M.W. (Stalybridge

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

  Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green

  Forster, Henry William

  Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R.

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson

  Foster, Philip S. (Wariek, S. W.

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Fyler, John Arthur

  Long,Col. Charles W.(Evesham

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Gardner, Ernest

  Long, Rt Hn. Walter (Bristol S.

  Roche, John

  Garfit, William

  Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

  Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

  Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H.

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft

  Rothschild Hon. Lionel Walter

  Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

  Lundon, W.

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Gordon, Hn J E (Elgin & Nairn)

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

  Gordon Maj Evans-(T'rH'mlets

  Macdona, John Gumming

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool

  Gore, Hn G R C Ormsby-(Salop

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

  Gore, Hon. S F. Ormsby-(Linc.

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Samuel, Sir Harry S(Limehouse

  Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

  MacArthur, Charles (Liverpool

  Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  M'Kean, John

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Greene, W. Raymond (Cambs.

  Malcolm, Ian

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East

  Gretton, John

  Maxwell, W.J.H.(Dumfriessh.)

  Smith, H.C (North'mb. Tyneside

  Hall, Edward Marshall

  Milner, Rt Hon Sir Frederick G

  Smith, James Parker (Lanarks.)

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Montagu, G. (Huntington)

  Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)

  Hambro, Charles Eric

  Montagu, Hon. J. Scott(Hants)

  Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset)

  Hamilton Marq of (L'nd'nderry

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.

  Hammond, John

  Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow

  Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Stock, James Henry

  Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Harris, Dr. Fredk.R. (Dulwich

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Sullivan, Donal

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley

  Mount, William Arthur

  Talbot, Rt. Hn J G (Oxf'dUniv

  Heath, James (Staffords, N. W.

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Helder, Augustus

  Murray, Rt Hn A Graham(Bute

  Tollemache, Henry James

  Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W.

  Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

  Myers, William Henry

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Nicholson, William Graham

  Tuff, Charles

  Hobhouse, Rt Hn H(Somers'tE

  Nolan, Col. John P. (Galway,N.

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

  Hogg, Lindsay

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Valentia, Viscount

  Hope, J F. (Sheffield Brightside

  O'Brien, Kendal(TipperaryMid

  Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

  Hozier Hon. James Henry Cecil

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Walker, Col. William Hall

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.

  Walrond, Rt Hn Sir William H

  Hunt, Rowland,

  O'Dowd, John

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

  Jameson, Major J. Eustace

  O'Malley, William

  Welby, Sir Charles G E (Notts.)

  Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred

  O'Shee, James John

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton

  Palmer, Walter (Salisbury)

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

  Parker, Sir Gilbert

  Willox, Sir John Archibald

  Joyce, Michael

  Peel, Hn Wm Robert Wellesley

  Wilson, A. Stanley (York E R.

  Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T.(Denbigh

  Percy, Earl

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E.R(Bath

  Kerr, John

  Plummer, Walter R.

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Keswick, William

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Wyndham-Quin, Major W. H.

  Knowles, Sir Lees

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Young, Samuel

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Rankin, Sir James

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow

  Rasch, Sir Frederick Carne

  Alexander Acland-Hood and Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Reddy, M.

  Original Question put, and agreed to.

  And, it being after Midnight, the Chairman proceeded, in pursuance of Standing Order 15, to put the Question necessary to dispose of the Vote.
  Resolution to be reported upon Wednesday; Committee to sit again tomorrow.
  Adjourned at twelve minutes after Twelve o'clock.

PETITION.
  MARQUESS OF SLIGO.
  Petition of Henry Ulick, Marquess of Sligo, Earl of Altamont, Viscount West-port of Westport, in the county of Mayo, and Baron of Monteagle, in the same county, in the Peerage of Ireland, and Baron Monteagle of Westport, in the county of Mayo, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, claiming a right to vote at the election of Representative Peers for Ireland; read, and referred to the Lord Chancellor to consider and report thereupon to the House.
  NEW PEER.
  The right hon. John Adrian Louis Earl of Hopetoun, K.T., G.C.M.G., G.C.V.O., having been created Marquess of Linlithgow, in the county of Linlithgow or West Calder, was (in the usual manner) introduced.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Young and Bell's Patents Bill [H.L.]; London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Bill [H.L.]; Govan Burgh (Electricity) Bill: [H.L.]; Appleby Corporation Gas Bill, [H.L.]. Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
Whitby Gas Bill; Hampden-in-Arden Gas Bill. Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.
Mersey Docks and Harbour Board Bill [H.L.]; Matlock and District Gas Bill [H.L.]; Cambrian Railways Bill [H.L.]; Tyneside Tramways and Tramroads Bill [H.L.]; Newcastle-upon-Tyne Corporation Bill [H.L.]. Report from the Select Committee, That the Committee adjourned this day at Twelve o'clock.
Middlesborough, Stockton-on-Tees, and Thorley Tramways Bill; Bristol Tramways (Extensions) Bill [H.L.]; North
918
Wales Electric Power Bill [H.L.]. Examiner's Certificates of non-compliance with the Standing Orders referred to the Standing Orders Committee on Monday next.
Matlock and District Gas Bill [H.L.]; Cambrian Railways Bill [H.L.]; Tyneside Tramways and Tramroads Bill [H.L.]; Newcastle-upon-Tyne Corporation Bill [H.L.]. Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Duke of Manchester and the Lord Barnard be proposed to the House as members of the Select Committee on the said Bills in the place of the Duke of Bedford and the Earl Fitzwilliam, and that the Lord Barnard be Chairman of the said Committee read, and agreed to.

PRIVATE AND PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILLS.
THE ACTING CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Lord BALFOUR of BURLEIGH): My Lords, the Regulations standing in my name on the Paper are the ordinary ones usually passed about this time of the session dealing with Private and Provisional Order Confirmation Bills. I beg to move that they be agreed to.
Moved, "That no Private Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after Thursday the 16th day of June next. That no Provisional Order Confirmation Bill originating in this House shall be read a first time after Tuesday the 3rd day of May next. That no Provisional Order Confirmation Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after Thursday the 16th day of June next. That when a Bill shall have passed this House with Amendments these orders shall not apply to any new Bill sent up from the House of Commons which the Chairman of Committees shall report to the House is substantially the same as the Bill so amended. That this House will not receive any petition for a Private Bill later than Tuesday the 3rd day of May next, unless such Private Bill shall have been approved by the High Court of Justice; nor any petition for a Private Bill approved by the High Court of Justice after Friday the 6th day of May next. That this House will not receive any report from the Judges upon petition

919
presented to this House for Private Bills after Friday the 6th day of May next.— (Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Ordered, That the said orders be printed and published, and affixed on the doors of this House and Westminister Hall. (No. 32.)

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  No. 3125. Belgium (Shipping and Navigation of Antwerp); Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  SUPERANNUATION.
  Treasury Minute, dated 9th March, 1904, declaring that Alfred W. Harman, hammerman, Royal Laboratory, War Office, was appointed without a civil service certificate through inadvertence on the part of the head of his Department.
  Treasury Minute, dated 10th March, 1904, declaring Nanking to be an unhealthy place within the meaning of the Superannuation Act, 1876.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  STANDING COMMITTEE.
  To meet To-morrow at Four o'clock.
NEW BILL.
  SUNDAY CLOSING (SHOPS) BILL.
  A Bill to provide for the closing of shops on Sunday—Was presented by the Lord Avebury; read 1a; to be printed, and to be read 2a on Tuesday, the 26th of April next. (No. 31.)

  THE FISCAL QUESTION.
  *THE EARL OF WEMYSS: My Lords, I rise to move that an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying him to appoint a small Commission to inquire into, and report upon, the present state and prospects of our trade, and whether any change of methods or other action is needed in furtherance thereof. I think I owe your Lordships an apology for having
  920
  so frequently put off this notice, but I did so at the request of a distinguished Member of your Lordships' House who is friendly to the object of my Motion, and in the belief that the Government would perhaps accept this Motion. But, so far from that being the case, I believe they have sent out a three-line whip, which is about the full extent to which they can sjambok their supporters, in opposition to the appointment of this Commission. My Motion is short but comprehensive, and takes in the whole question. When I first placed this notice upon the Paper, I chanced to meet a friend of mine, a Member of your Lordships' House, who put this question to me, "In what sense are you bringing this Motion forward? Do you bring it forward in the sense of free trade or protection?" My answer to him was, that I brought it forward, not in the sense either of free trade or of protection, but in the sense of common sense. I shall then endeavour to put this Motion before your Lordships simply as a question of common sense in dealing with a business matter, and I can promise that I shall not enter into a discussion of the fiscal question. I shall not quote from Adam Smith in favour of free trade, nor shall I read extracts from the speeches of Sir Howard Vincent to show the blessings of protection. As I have said, I shall confine myself strictly to the business point of view in the matter.
  Let me review the situation. What was the state of things in England fifty-eight years ago which led to the repeal of the Corn Laws? We then had famine in Ireland, famine in Scotland, and agricultural wages in the southern counties of England were eight shillings a week. This state of things rendered action such as was proposed, it seemed to me, absolutely necessary. I myself was in Parliament at that time and I felt that I could not oppose this measure. I had been elected in 1841 as a protectionist and as a defender of the sliding scale versus Lord John Russell's fixed duty. Owing to my pledges I resigned my seat, rather than oppose the measure; and, luckily for me, in less than a year I came back again to Parliament as Member for my own county in Scotland, unfettered and with a clean slate, which I have endeavoured to keep clean during the years which have since

  921
  elapsed. What was expected from the repeal of the Corn Laws? I turn to the Gracious Speech of that noble lady and great Queen whose memory is ever dear to us. I find in the Queen's Speech of 1846. which was read by the Lord Chancellor of the day, by Commission, these words: —
  "Her Majesty trusts that you will be rewarded by witnessing the beneficial results of the measures which have been sanctioned by Her Majesty for the present relaxation and ultimate repeal of protective duties on corn and sugar. Her Majesty entertains a confident hope that the more free admission of the produce of foreign countries into the home market will increase the comforts and better the condition of the great body of the people."
  Have the hopes thus graciously expressed by Her Majesty been realised? I own myself that, until May last, I was under the impression that they had been in great measure realised; that our trade and commerce had increased, that our Empire had grown in strength and unity, and that the general well-being of the people— though the poor, I am afraid, we shall always have with us—had risen considerably compared to what it was at the time the Corn Laws were repealed.
  I venture to think that I was not alone in that opinion and that it was shared by many in this country. Hut it appears that we were all dwelling in darkness, for suddenly, in the month of May last, a light was sprung upon us from Birmingham which showed that everything was wrong, that our trade and commerce were going to the dogs, and that if we did not do something pointed out by that light, we should sink into the condition of a fifth-rate Power. That certainly astonished me, and what one naturally wants to know is, What is the nature of that light? Radium is a wonderful light. It can penetrate and make its influence felt, so it is said, thrush two feet of polished granite, but that is nothing to this light from Birmingham. For what has this light from Birmingham one? It has smelted a Government and reduced the great Unionist Party to a state of flux. Now, what I want to know is the nature of this light, whether it is a true light and be in which we can place trust—whether it is a light that of our great lighthouses, which shows the trader rocks to be avoided and points out to him the direction in which lie can safely steer, or whether it is a light
  922
  of a very different description. I recollect many years ago seeing a light burning on the Table of the House of Commons. It was a stearin candle made from Irish bog, and Lord Shaftesbury—the great Lord Shaftesbury of factory fame—was speaking in favour of regenerating Ireland by turning the bogs into stearin candles. At the present tune this regeneration is sought by this Government to be effected through the expropriation of the Irish landlords. But the object of Lord Shaftesbury came to nothing. The candle was not worth the game, because, I believe, it took about an acre of bog to make a caudle. When I came into the House. Mr. Shiel, that most eloquent of Irishmen, was standing at the Bar. I went up to him and said, "Shiel, what do you think of this?" and he replied, "I think it is very much like an ignis fatuus." What, then, we want to know is whether this Birmingham light is like the light of our lighthouses, or whether it is an ignis fatuus or bog light. It is only through a Commission such as I ask for a small independent Commission—that we can get at the true facts, because all the speeches that we hear and read on this question, delivered both in Parliament and on platforms, are more or less coloured by Party feeling and are not to be trusted as safe guides.
  Now what is the position of the Government? Does their policy throw light on the situation? Does it show that it is based upon inquiry and full knowledge I am afraid it does not. There is much that I should like to say about the Government's policy, but I shall abstain from saying it. I do not desire to speak a single unkind word of the Prime Minister. He is a great personal friend of mine and my county neighbour, and I abstain then from saying much that I would otherwise say. But as to the policy of the Government, I will take what was said by the noble Earl the First Lord of the Admiralty. In answer to Lord Salisbury, Lord Selborne declined to give details of a policy which, he said, was "not yet born" Those were his actual words. I will assume that this policy is not yet born, and will not, there are, go into the question of retaliation, when it is supposed to mean, nor consider what a rebaliatory policy means, whether it will stop there, or whether

  923
  when this policy is born retaliation will appear as a little bantling of the election, or whether retaliation will come into life coupled, like a Siamese twin, with protection. I pass that by. But on Wednesday last we had a distinct statement from the Prime Minister as to what the Government's policy really is. Replying to Mr. Asquith, the Prime Minister said—
  "The right hon. Gentleman asked me in the early part of his speech whether I adhered to the view that the fiscal programme of the Government involved a fundamental change in the policy pursued by this country for the last two generations. In my opinion it does involve that."
  My Lords, that seems to me to go further than retaliation. It may, or it may not; but, at any rate, what we want to know is whether the proposals which are to make a fundamental change in the policy pursued by this country for the last two generations are founded upon full inquiry and full knowledge of whatever is available in the shape of information on this vital question. My impression is that it is not so founded.
  When the Education Bill came up two years ago I wanted to know something about technical education in this country as compared with technical education abroad, and I was told to go to the Board of Trade. I went to the Board of Trade and received from Sir Alfred Bateman, head of the Statistical Department of the Board of Trade, two Blue-books. One of the those Blue-books was up to the year 1898, and in it were contained the reports made by our Consular officers on the state of our trade throughout the world. There are, I think, 171 of these reports, and also accompanying them were Sir Ah red Bateman's conclusions. The word "tariff" is not mentioned. The Blue-book was published before tariff protection was, last May, so suddenly and unexpectedly sprung upon us. The only question then was, whether our trade was in a prosperous condition or not and these were the ordinary routine Blue books issued by the Board of Trade. In the Blue-book of 1898 Sir Alfred Bateman says—
  "The reports indicate that the following a some of the causes which are considered as tending to place British trade at a disadvantage in those districts where, especially of late years, foreign competition has been more than usually been."
  924
  He places them under six heads:—

  (1) The disinclination of British traders—(a) to supply a cheaper class of goods; (b) to be content with a small order at first; (c) to study a customer's wishes; (d) to adopt the metric system in calculations of weights, cost, etc.; (e) to grant credit facilities.

  (2) The scarcity of British commercial travellers, in comparison with those of other nationalities, their ignorance of the language of the countries they visit, and the endeavour to supply their place by a lavish distribution of catalogues and other matter printed in English only.

  (3) The inferiority of the British to the German and American methods of packing.

  (4) The additional cost of goods caused by the high rates of freight on British lines of steamers.

  (5) The frequency of strikes in the United Kingdom tending to cause uncertainty in the delivery of orders.

  I believe the last named to be one of the most potent causes in placing our trade at a disadvantage, but, for reasons best known to themselves, both Parties avoid touching upon the question of the influence of trades unions on industry. I hold in my hand a book published by Mr. John Murray, containing a reprint of The Times articles on "The Crisis in British Industry," by Mr. Edwin A. Pratt, with introductory letters. In one of the letters, which appears on page 7, I read this most astounding statement:
  "A member of the present Government was asked if a little elementary political economy might be taught in our schools; but his answer was that the whole body of trades unionists would be up in arms against it."
  I hope that this brave member of the Government does not sit in your Lordships' House; it is more probable that he sits in the other House. It is regrettable that the brave men who govern us — I include both Parties, for they are all tarred with the same brush—dare not deal with this subject. When Mr. Vince, of Birmingham, was approached as to the reason he gave for the state of our trade, an was asked why the question of trade sunions had never been touched upon, he replied that it did not come within the range of practical politics at the present time. Yet this is one of the main causes why our trade is not in all respects what it might be. The sixth reason given by Sir A. Bateman is as follows—
  (6) The development of technical education in Germany, and the greater attention paid in

  925
  schools to modern languages, added to the system of sending young Germans all over the world to acquire a practical knowledge of the language, business habits, etc., of other countries, by means of which they are afterwards able to compete with those countries with a greater chance of success.
  It is not so much the want of education in this country as the application of it. It is better applied in Germany. In fact, the whole question, according to the Hoard of Trade Reports, turns upon method. In the Annual Report on Trade published in 1892—a year before the great light shone upon us from Birmingham—the following are given as Sir A. Bateman's conclusions from the data he had before him—
  "It is necessary, more than ever, that the change of conditions should be recognised, and we can scarcely expect to maintain our past undoubted pre-eminence, at any rate without strenuous effort, and careful and energetic improvement in method."
  and he goes on to add—
  "The problem, how best this can be done, is of vital interest to all classes of the industrial and commercial community alike, though the assistance which the State can give in the matter must necessarily be of a limited character."
  One would have thought that these reports would have been thoroughly considered by the Cabinet when the disruption took place; but, so far as I have been able to ascertain, they were never brought before the Cabinet and have never been considered up to the present time.
  The Government themselves have admitted that there is necessity for inquiry, for after the disruption, and before they had settled on their policy, what did they do? They promised an inquiry—a grand inquest of the nation. What form did the result of that inquiry take? It took the form of an "Inquiry" Blue-book of 495 pages of statistics, which was dumped down on the Table of both Houses of Parliament without any conclusions drawn from those facts and figures being appended. Such conclusions were originally furnished, but they have been cut out, and the country has a right to know what they were. I am speaking to noble Lords who have been in the House of Commons, and I ask them whether they ever remember a Commission or Committee which did not, in their Report, give their conclusions as well as facts and statistics. I venture to say that we
  926
  have not had a complete inquiry until we have a distinct conclusion from the facts that are adduced in this Blue-book. It is absurd to dump all these statistics and data upon the constituencies throughout the country; without independent expert help, it is indeed vain to hope that an unexpert community can possibly draw sound conclusions as to our home and foreign trade from the 495 pages of statistics as now submitted to them. I therefore, ask His Majesty's Government to fulfil their undertaking, and to give us the inquiry for which I am asking, by appointing a small Commission. In America they appoint Commissions of one, but what I suggest is a small Commission instead of the wagon-load of 50 Commissioners—a cart would not hold them such as is now sitting to frame tin-tariff most beneficial to their own trades. In that case the wagon has, L think, been put before the horse, for the country has not decided as yet on having a tariff at all. The Cabinet then have acted without full and proper inquiry, and they owe it to the country and to themselves to show that their policy rests on a sounder basis than any that has yet been revealed. We have a right to expert that the Government should carry out their promise and give us a complete inquiry.
  I believe that if the Government had appointed this Commission earlier they would not have found themselves in the awkward and unpleasant position in which they are now placed. Mr. Balfour was with me in Scotland in the early part of the year, and I urged him by letter after he had left, that alter the Cabinet meeting, which was then about to be held, on the 23rd January, he should let it be announced that the whole question was to be sent to a small Committee of experts. If he had done that, how different would have been the position of the Government. I do not think it is even now too late. I believe that if they were still to act on that, and to issue such a Commission their position would be greatly improved. Nothing will get them out of the "bunker"— an expression not unfamiliar to the Prime Minister—into which they have got themselves except the niblick of a Royal Commission. I shall be surprised if

  927
  my noble friend Viscount Goschen does not back me up in my request for a Commission. I see Lord Avebury in his place, and I think I may expect support from him, and also from my noble friend behind me, Lord Brassey, who has published an able book on this question, the heading of the last chapter of which is "A Royal Commission." The Chamber of Commerce of Glasgow passed a resolution in favour of the appointment of a small Commission. That has been followed up by the Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom, who also passed a resolution in favour of a Commission. Therefore, whatever backing I may or may not get in your Lordships' House, at any rate I am backed by the opinions of the Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom, who think it not only advisable but necessary that such a Commission should be appointed if you are to come to a wise decision on this question.
  I have only a word or two to say on the colonial question. We are asked to tie the Colonies to us by what I hold to be a mercenary rope of straw. The Colonies have shown their patriotism in the late war, when they came forward to help the mother country from love of the mother country. It was an American admiral who once came to our help and said, when he did so without orders, that "blood was thicker than water. I, my Lords, believe that blood is thicker than tariffs, and that if you try to tie the Colonies to the mother country by mercenary tariffs it will lead to friction, disputes, and discontent, and will have the contrary effect to that which you desire. No, a better and loftier keynote was struck on this subject by Mr. Gladstone. I find in Mr. Morley's "Life of Gladstone," Vol. 1., page 363, that Mr. Gladstone, speaking of the Colonies, said—
  "Their natural disposition is to love and revere the name of England, and this reverence is by far the best security you can have for their continuing, not only to be subjects of the Crown, but to render it that allegiance which is the most precious of all—the allegiance which proceeds from the depths of the heart of man."
  That I believe to be a sound view. The other I believe to be wholly unsound. Rut there is a bigger question than this behind. It is something much wider,
  928
  larger, and more important, than even the tying together of England and her great Colonies—I refer to the union of the English-speaking race throughout the world. That, my Lords, is an object for which all should strive. It means nothing more nor less than the peace of the world, and I say it is a crime against humanity if everything is not done to bring about such a happy state of things as that. Do you think that the union of the English-speaking race will be promoted by firing hostile tariffs into America? No, that is not the way to bring about such a union.
  I do not intend to raise the fiscal question more than I have done. I have brought this before your Lordships as a matter of business and I would ask noble Lords to consider what they would do in the management of their own estates. We all have estate offices. We have our head agent, and, if the estate is large enough, there are sub-agents. Believing that your estate had been for generations, perhaps, well managed, what would you say if suddenly a sub-agent in your office declared that "The whole thing is mismanaged, I will have nothing to do with it. Your estate is going to the dogs under its present management, and I wash my hands of it." What would your Lordships do in those circumstances? Would you accept for gospel all you had been told by the sub-agent? Far from it. You would institute a full and searching inquiry. And an inquiry by whom? By the best experts in the management of estates to be found in the country. We are all in our different ways trustees and guardians of the property of the nation, and our duty is to be careful in its management, and to transmit it, if we can, not impaired but improved to posterity. I then ask your Lordships to treat the main property of the nation, which is its trade and commerce, precisely in the same business-like way in which you would deal with your own estates. I know that there is a three-line whip against me on the Government side, and that the Opposition on this occasion are supporting the Government: and I think I know the reason for it. It is that my noble friend Lord Spencer and his colleagues feel that if my Motion was adopted it would get the Government out of the hole in which

  929
  they wish to keep them. That is very natural. I move my Resolution, nevertheless, as being the right course for the Government and this House to take. My Lords, I thank your Lordships for the patience with which you have listened to me.
  Moved, "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying him to appoint a small Commission to inquire into, and report upon, the present state and prospects of our trade, and whether any change of methods or other action is needed in furtherance thereof."—(The Earl of Wemyss.)
  EARL COWPER: My Lords, I think everybody will feel, at first sight, that there is a great deal to be said, or that there might have been a great deal to be said, in favour of the course which the noble Earl has proposed. This is a very complicated question, depending upon a great many things which require very careful investigation, and just the sort of question which one would imagine ought in the first instance to be settled round a table by a few people of very deep and practical knowledge on the subject. To consider all that has been written during the last 100 years by the chief professors of political economy, with the assistance of the greatest thinkers of the day; to digest that vast mass of facts and figures with which we have been provided in sufficient quantity; to weigh carefully the respective interests of the consumer and the producer; to consider, with regard to retaliation, how far that powerful and formidable weapon can be used without firing, at the same time that we fire at the enemy, on our own men—all these matters outfit to be settled in some way of this sort. The very worst way of settling a great and complicated question like this is on the public platform. It strikes me that by doing it in that way, which is rather the way we have adopted, we depend entirely upon very broad and general arguments addressed more or less to the passions of the crowd. If we look at the innumerable speeches which have been made on the subject we see that it is chiefly this sort of argument which is used—on the one side that of the cheap loaf in contradistinction to the dear one, which naturally appeals to the multitude, and on the other side premises of un-
  930
  limited employment and of high wages, which is also very taking in the country. Then the duty put by foreign countries upon our goods is reprssented as a direct insult and injury to the nation, and the people are asked whether they intend to take it lying down.
  I think that a Commission, if it had come some time ago, would have been a most admirable thing, but I am rather afraid that it is too late in the day to appoint one now. People's passions have been very greatly roused over the subject. One would have thought that a matter which depends entirely upon facts and figures and minute calculations would have had a contrary effect; but, indeed, there is no subject on which passions have been more excited than this. I think people's minds are already so much made up on this matter that even if you could get a Commission together, which perhaps you could, it is too late for it to have the effect that it would have had a year ago. Only those who already agree with it would be moved by any Report it might present, and those on the other side would remain of their old opinion. I think, too, it would be very difficult, in these days, when every man has a pronounced opinion, to get a Commission the members of which had not already declared their views, and this alone would prevent their being listened to so much as they would have been a year ago. I fear that for these reasons it is almost too late to decide the matter in the manner proposed. What we must look forward to is that the excitement which now prevails may gradually subside. I think it is already showing signs of doing so. I have great confidence in the ultimate good sense of the British people. I have no doubt that eventually, when the decision is arrived at, it will be most likely a sound one.
  It has been said that we generally succeed in muddling through our wars and in emerging victorious in the end. I think, also, that in all great questions of reform and of policy we talk a great deal of nonsense in the first instance, and appeal too much to mere passion and sentiment; but I do believe that the English people generally muddle through to a right conclusion. But it takes time. They generally end, either by accepting the reform or rejecting it, or shelving

  931
  it indefinitely, or sometimes by a sort of compromise, by admitting part and rejecting the remainder. I do not know that the great question which is before us now is one that admits of such a compromise. That is a matter for consideration, but what I do hope and trust is that the British public will have plenty of time given to them before they come to a conclusion. It is said by some that we cannot possibly go on as we are, that we should disorganise trade, and unsettle men's minds if we continue leaving this matter in abeyance. But it strikes me that trade would be much more disorganised if we came to a hasty and ill-advised conclusion, and had in a short time to reverse our decision. It seems to me clear that the Opposition are very anxious to hurry on the decision of this subject, and that His Majesty's Government desire to give time, and wish the decision not to be arrived at until the subject has been carefully considered. I am glad to hear from the cheers of noble Lords on the Front Ministerial Bench that I correctly state their opinion. I agree with them in wishing to postpone the verdict, though I am afraid I do not agree with all their followers in my personal hopes and expectations of what that verdict may be.
  *VISCOUNT GOSCHEX: My Lords, I do not wish to deal with this matter as representing any group or Party; I wish to deal with it as a matter of business. I do not know whether others who are in favour of a Commission would wish to see a Commission appointed to make recommendations and advise a policy for the future. I have something different in view. What I think a great portion of the community would like, would be a clearer and more authoritative and exhaustive statement of facts. I feel confident that the nation has not yet got the full facts before them. A great part of the facts which they have got have been submitted by rival schools and rival combatants, and the public are bewildered and puzzled by the conflict of authorities. This feeling is shared by a very large part of the public. Apart from the Associations and Unions on each side there is a large body of practical commercial men who have not yet been able to see clearly in the matter, and who are
  932
  asking, and energetically asking, for more information. Allusion has been made to the fact that the Associated Chambers of Commerce have voted by a majority in favour of a Commission. Is not that a very strong argument in favour of a proper inquiry? Are there any bodie3 of men in the kingdom whose interests are likely to be more closely affected by any decision which may be arrived at on fiscal policy than those represented in the Chambers of Commerce?
  The resolution of the Chambers of Commerce strikes me as a great factor in the case. I believe it is admitted that a great portion of the City of London consider that there is a great deal to be elicited, and that they have not yet got before them all they have a right to know. At the beginning of the controversy a great many men decided that there must be a great deal to be said for the Birmingham policy, because they had an absolute belief in the strong personality and in the wisdom and discretion of Mr. Chamberlain. Many men who felt themselves unable to grapple with this complex problem said, "Mr. Chamberlain is the strongest man in the kingdom and is likely to be right." I know of my own personal knowledge many men who reasoned in this way. As the controversy has developed, however, that confidence—I will not say in the political world, but in the commercial world—has been somewhat shaken. They are not converted to the other side, but they see there is more to be said on the other side than they thought at first; and in their present state of doubt they are anxious to have more put before them. The difficulty is that so much heat has been developed that any new contribution of facts or figures is generally looked upon as an attack upon the side with whose position it does not entirely square. There is an intense desire to score on both sides.
  The facts before the country, I submit, are not sufficient, because they are not accepted as authoritative; and what I should like to see, and what a great portion of the community, apart from political Parties, would like to see, would be an orderly, exhaustive, and impartial examination of all the facts. I am not so certain about the tariff reformers. They are instituting a further inquiry of

  933
  then own, and I do not feel confident that they would be in favour of a Commission for obvious reasons. I say no more than that. But while the great political Parties on both sides may not be anxious for a Commission, a great portion of the trading, the manufacturing, and banking community is anxious for further knowledge. Have the Government, then, given us enough? The Blue-book is the, only authoritative document we have, though the figures are not accepted by all the controversialists, and some other matters in it have been questioned. On the face of the Blue-book it is expressly stated that —
  "The present volume does not profess to cover lie whole ground of the inquiry."
  Therefore there remains other ground of inquiry which has not been covered, and the country has a right to ask that the whole ground should be covered. Are we to make this great fiscal change when, on the authority of a Government document, it is stated that the whole ground has not been covered?
  Again, it would be an immense service if a summrry of the facts bearing on the present controversy could be extracted from the Board of Trade Returns enumerated in the appendix, and brought together. There are curious traps in the Blue-book. It is difficult to understand why some subjects are in the Blue-book and others are omitted. There is no system in the arrangement of the materials; nor are the terms of Reference given. Who asked the questions which areanswered in the Blue-book? For instance, there is a Memorandum on the iron trade of the North-east of England. Why was the Northeast selected- and why were other districts ignored? Again, the Blue-book states "it has been thought desirable to produce statistics about the tin-plate trade." Who thought it desirable? Why was that trade selected? Many similar questions might be asked about the contents of the Blue-book. It would really appear as if the Blue-book was merely a haphazard amalgam of a number of cases and a number of statistics which have been asked for by different Ministers. But do not take me as under-valuing the worth of the Blue-book. It is a storehouse of information.
  934
  Many of the matters dealt with are admirably treated. It contains a mass of useful information. I do not think there is any part of the Blue-book I should like to see omitted; and if it is not altogether that which the country has a right to have, it is not the fault of the officials of the Board of Trade, who with immense industry compiled it.
  Again, my Lords, there is another curious omission. At the Treasury there are gentlemen thoroughly acquainted with the history of taxation. For years they have been accustomed to weigh the incidence of taxation on the various classes of the community. Yet not one of those experts, so far as I know, has been officially invited by the Government to give evidence. Why was that? I think the country would like to know what these experts think of the question. I hope it is not because the gentlemen of the Treasury—who have given a life study to the question of taxation—hive served mainly under free-traders, that it was decided their views should not be heard. Such an argument could not fairly be put forward by the Government. There are other matters not in the Blue-book upon which further information would be very desirable. I do not think we know nearly enough about our home trade. It has not been examined in the same way as our foreign trade. Yet the home trade is as important an element in our prosperity as the foreign trade. I do not know whether it has been observed how the prosperity of the home trade may be, as it were, temporarily in opposition to the prosperity of the export trade. We may have a most prosperous home trade, employing manufacturers to such an extent that they are obliged to decline orders from foreigners and our colonies because their workmen are already fully employed. Thus when there is really great prosperity, it might appear that our exports are declining. I say we scarcely know enough about the course of our home trade, side by side with the course of our export trade, and that is a matter which can be ascertained only by experts.
  I should also wish for a clear, short, and authoritative statement as to our trade in the neutral markets, given in

  935
  such a form that a conclusion may be arrived at on the assertion of tariff reformers that, while our trade with protectionist countries is declining, we are making no progress in the neutral markets. If it is the fact that where there are no tariffs and no protection—where there is a fair field and no favour for all—we are falling behind, the position ought to be exactly defined, because it is a most crucial matter. The protectionists may interject that it is due to "dumping." It is most important to examine the exports of the foreigner to neutral markets in such a case in order to see whether in these exports are included to any large extent the articles in which dumping takes place. In a word, what I want to know is why you should not aim at bringing out clearly the causes why we are not advancing—if we are not advancing — with our competitors in neutral markets. Is the falling off in our export trade due to tariff or to other causes? If it be due to other causes let us set to work to remove them rather than to attempt completely to alter our fiscal system in order to remedy a state of things which has not been brought about by the protectionist tariffs of other countries.
  Next, there is the excess of imports over exports. There is a very able note on the subject in the Memorandum of the Board of Trade, but I think much remains to be said about it for the guidance of the country. I should also like more authoritative information upon the subject of foreign securities. I should like to know the extent of our holding in foreign securities, and I think there is a vast amount of capital invested abroad which must be added to the amount which is represented by so-called securities. I will give a curious instance of the way in which England derives profit, dividends if you choose, through its trade abroad, which does not enter into exports or imports. The English insurance companies have had to bear the loss of £2,000,000 in connection with the fire at Baltimore. For years the premiums for that insurance have been sent here to swell the receipts of the insurance companies. If in one acre of a city in America the business was so large, what must be the dimensions of our insurance
  936
  business over the whole of the world? The profits on that business are remitted to this country, not in money, but in those imports which, if I wanted to use a controversial phrase, I should say are so disliked by the tariff reformers. Illustrations of this kind which might be multiplied ad infinitum ought to explode much of the anxiety which has been felt with reference to the excess of imports over exports.
  Another point to be taken into account is the method of valuation adopted in this and other countries with regard to imports and exports. It is generally, but quite incorrectly, assumed that our exports ought to balance with our imports. Apart, however, from the point I have just raised, it must be borne in mind that if we take the case of any foreign country or colony and examine our exports to and imports from that country or colony in our own statistical and then in theirs, we shall find that there is an enormous discrepancy between the two. Why is this? Because in both cases the Returns add the freight and the charges, but while we add them to our imports, they add them to our exports. I have seen in an excellent book written by a free-trade senator in Australia the matter put this way, that during the years 1888 to 1901British Customs returns showed imports from Australia amounting to £128,000,000 and exports to Australia amounting to £108;000,000, so that it would appear from those figures as if our imports from Australia were £20,000,000 higher than our exports to Australia. An examination of the Australian statistics, however, shows that the colonists estimate that £128,000,000 at £119,000,000, and the £108,000.000 which they take from us at £119,000.000, also, imports and exports thus balancing each other. There is accordingly a difference of £20,000,000 between the two calculations. It means £10,000,000 added on the exports outwards for freights and charges, and £10,000,000 for the freights and charges backwards. We do the whole of the carrying trade and the Australians do none of it. This illustration shows why our imports appear always so much greater than our exports. What I would wish is that a similar calculation should be made in regard to

  937
  the great foreign countries with which we trade. The difference between exports and imports in the case of Germany, for instance, would be represented by a totally different sum if you were to take the German statistics. If we could get these matters brought clearly before the country I think a great advance might be made in the understanding of this subject.
  I have pointed out these various matters, I hope the Government will see, in no controversial spirit. I have pointed out that we have an area which still, I think, demands wise exploration, which I cordially wish the Government would undertake. Like my noble friend I received, a three-line whip stating that the Motion is to be opposed. I think it is a pity; I am very sorry for it. Personally I should be quite content as a free-trader to leave the matter where it stands, if I did not wish also to bring round to free trade those doubting masses who, I believe, would be gratified and relieved if they had further authoritative information. I can understand that the Opposition may not care to support the proposal; I can understand that the Government should not support it. As to the effect upon Governments and Parties, so far as I have been spoken to to-night, I care nothing. It is not from that point of view that I have looked at the question, but from the point of view of the commercial and manufacturing classes, the men who want their judgment to be informed, and who almost anathematise political Parties and that partisan warfare which only obscures their judgment, and who wish to see this matter treated as a matter of business, as becomes a common sense and commercial country. Neither the Opposition nor the Government need think that if they were to assent to such a Motion they would be showing any doubt in their own cause. They know all; the public does not know all. That is the important point. Is it a concession the Government would have to make? Concession to whom? Not to the Opposition, because they have not asked for it; not to any Party, because no Party has asked for it. Therefore it is a concession which might easily be made, and which, I think, would be received with great satisfaction by
  938
  those who are, perhaps, more than any others, interested in the final issue. We all agree that the issues are vast, and there has never been proposed a change of any great policy on so small an amount of impartial and systematic information. Weare all agreed upon the greatness of issues. I wish we could be agreed upon the methods. I have pleaded for the method proposed by my noble friend, but I leave the matter in the hands of the Government. I have done my best to place before your Lordships and the Government that class of information which, apart from polemical questions, might be given with advantage.
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE): My Lords, it may be convenient, before the discussion proceeds further, that I should state to the House how the Motion on the Paper is regarded by His Majesty's Government. In the few words I shall address to your Lordships I shall certainly follow the example set to us by my noble friend who has just sat down, and endeavour to deal with the question from a strictly business point of view, avoiding all those more acutely controversial arguments which it is difficult to exclude from these debates, and even, if I may say so, endeavouring to regard the question without reference to those tactical considerations which the noble mover told us are likely to prevail with the noble Lords on the other side of the House. I am obliged to distinguish between the speech of the noble mover and the speech of my noble friend who spoke last. Both of them, it is true, have expressed themselves in favour of the appointment of a Commission, but the Commission which the noble mover desires is a very different kind of Commission from the Commission which would content my noble friend behind me. The speeches of the noble mover always delight this House. They are characterised by a vigour and energy which many of us would like to emulate, if we could. If there is one characteristic more than another which distinguishes them, it is the intrepidity with which the noble Earl always approaches his subject; he is never deterred by difficulties, and

  939
  upon this occasion I think he has ridden at the fence with characteristic courage.
  Let us see what he; asks us to do. He asks us to support the appointment of a Commission, and he was careful to tell us more than once that it was to be a very small one. However small the Commission may be, the task which the noble Earl proposes to assign to it may, I think, without exaggeration, be described as a colossal task. What is the scope of the inquiry with which the noble Earl proposes to entrust the Commission? They are to inquire into and report upon the present state and prospects of our trade. Now the trade of the British Empire is a trade whose ramifications cover the whole face of the earth. I suppose nothing in the world is bought or sold in which our commerce has not a direct or an indirect interest. It is the state and condition of that trade which the Commission are to investigate; and they are to inquire, not only into its condition, but into its prospects. They will have to consider, for example, how that trade is affected not only by the fiscal policy of other countries at the present time, but how it may be affected by the developments which that fiscal policy may or, indeed, is likely to undergo in the not distant future. In addition to that, they would have to consider the effects upon our commerce of all the industrial, scientific, and political developments which are going on in different parts of the world.
  But while that branch of the inquiry would in itself be of immense extent, what are we to say of the second branch of it? The Commissioners are to report whether any change of methods or other action would be in furtherance thereof. I presume the noble Earl means of the interests of trade. Now whose methods and whose action are to be changed? He may refer either to the methods and action of the Government, or to those of the traders themselves. I take leave to assume that the noble Earl means both, because obviously the inquiry would not be complete unless it included the methods and action of the traders themselves as well as of the Government. I ask your Lordships to consider where such an inquiry would carry us. It would carry us not only into the
  940
  whole of the details of the fiscal question, into an examination of the merits of free trade and protection, and of all the intermediate stages between the two, but it would lead the Commission into an investigation of all the various forms of assistance which Governments can give to trade, not only in this country, but in foreign countries. I think the noble Earl, in quoting from a return, mentioned the Consular system and especially the collection of commercial intelligence. Those are matters which obviously could not be excluded from the inquiry.
  Then, again, there is the most interesting subject of technical education and of scientific research in all their bearings upon industrial development. Besides that the Commission would have to deal with such questions as the laws which govern patents, the state of the law with regard to merchandise marks and trade marks, the question of the law with regard to merchant shipping, with regard to railway and shipping rates, and the practice of other countries in regard to shipping subsidies. Another branch of the inquiry which could not be excluded would be the question of the protection afforded to labour by such legislation as the Factory and Workshops Acts. Those are all matters which would come under consideration in connection with an inquiry into the methods of the Government. But then there arises the question of the methods of the traders themselves. The Commission would have to inquire into all the alleged deficiencies of our traders, and the allegations that they do not sufficiently study the wants and requirements of their customers, that their commercial travellers are not as enterprising as might be desired, that their arrangements as to weights and measures are not such as to facilitate transactions with foreign countries, that their technical and commercial education leaves something to be desired, or, again, that they are, as is sometimes said, too conservative in their methods and not quick enough to adopt modern labour-saving machinery and improvements. I mention all these details because it seems to me that none of them can be excluded from the purview of such an inquiry as the noble Earl has proposed; and surely, if they are* to be included, does it not follow that the

  941
  inquiry, instead of being, as the noble Earl supposed, a short and simple matter, would be one of interminable length and far from likely to lead us to an early conclusion?
  I wonder how the noble Earl would constitute that Commission. Where would he find members with sufficient authority and at the same time not committed to one or the other way of regarding these problems? I wonder whether the noble Earl would tell me in strict confidence whether he has got his eye upon a chairman suitable to take charge of such an investigation. I cannot help thinking that if we had in the earlier stages of this controversy proposed an inquiry of the kind suggested by the noble Earl we should have been told, and I am not sure that we should not have been told with a good deal of force, that we desired to shunt, this question for two or three years, during which time it would undergo dissection by a Royal Commission. I say, therefore, almost without hesitation, that an inquiry such as the noble Earl proposes does not seem to me to be a practicable proposal. I wish now to say one or two words with regard to the, as I understand, much more limited inquiry which finds favour with my noble friend behind me. I gather that his object is to obtain information simply with regard to matters of fact. He wants the public to be made aware of the basis of fact upon which His Majesty's Government have founded their proposal that we should alter our fiscal policy in regard to these matters.
  VISCOUNT GOSCHEN: Not only the basis of fact on which the Government have founded their policy, but the whole basis of fact upon which the nation should be called upon to form an opinion upon that policy. It might be quite other than the basis of facts upon which the Government founded their policy.
  *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I do not in the least quarrel with my noble friend's correction. Well, are there not two questions involved in his proposal? There is the question in the first place whether the policy which we have proclaimed is defensible in principle, and there is in the next place the question
  942
  how that policy should be applied. With regard to the first of those two points we do not admit that inquiry by a Royal Commission is necessary to justify us in recommending to the country that limited policy which we have proposed to Parliament. We consider that no one, and particularly no one who proclaims himself to be a freetrader, can be in any doubt that the high tariffs which are imposed by many foreign countries are injurious to our trade. If it be true that the course of commerce should, from a free-trader's point of view, be allowed to run freely and without obstruction, then it seems to me that we require no additional proof in order to show that when a foreign country builds up a tariff wall against you, and excludes your products, your trade must suffer thereby. That seems to me, if I may say so, to be axiomatic, and in addition to the, à priori argument, the statistics which are in our possession and have been published are, I believe, sufficient to establish that that injury has been, in fact, done to our commerce by these tariffs. Bat if it is suggested that the inquiry should not be for this purpose, but for the purpose of deciding how, when, and against whom we are to enforce the Government policy, then I say that these are points which it must be for the Government of the day to decide, and which the Government of the day will decide on the merits when the time comes, and not in consequence of the recommendations of any Commission which may be appointed in the year of Grace 1904. If we or our successors resort to retaliation, we shall, no doubt, do so because, owing to the circumstances of the moment, it has become evident that in certain cases it is possible to retaliate with effect. The inquiry which my noble friend behind me proposes we should now undertake is an inquiry designed to supply the public with data—with what I may call, I suppose, information as to the symptoms of the disease, if it be that the disease; exists. Now, is it not the case that, so far as data are concerned, your Lordships have already in your possession a very considerable body of useful and trustworthy information. There is, in the first place, the Board of Trade Blue book; and may I be allowed to express

  943
  the pleasure with which I heard my noble friend state his approval of the manner in which that Blue-book had been prepared by the officials of the Board of Trade, who certainly had thrown upon them a task of very great difficulty and importance, which they seem to me to have fulfilled in the most admirable manner. But my noble friend told us that, although he gave credit to the compilers of the Blue-book, it did not entirely satisfy his requirements. He said that there were a good many gaps in the story, and I daresay the noble Lord is perfectly right. As to that, allow mc to say that, if the noble Lord or any other Member of this House desires further information upon any particular portion of the subject which is insufficiently dealt with in the Blue-book, we shall be glad to do our best to provide that information for him.
  The noble Viscount referred for example to the absence of information with regard to our home trade. I quite agree with him as to the importance of that trade; but much as further information of that kind is to be desired, I am under the impression that there would be very considerable difficulty in obtaining it under a separate head; I will, however, make inquiries as to this. He also expressed a wish for more information as to our trade in neutral markets. There I am not without hopes that we may be able to supplement the information given in the Blue-book; but whether it is possible to collect information as to the extent of our foreign investments I am quite unable to say at present. I venture to think that we should be more likely to get at the truth in a form of which we shall be able to make use from information provided from these sources than by the appointment of a Royal Commission, even with the more restricted reference which would content the noble Viscount. I am not at all sanguine as to the utility of an elaborate; investigation by Royal Commission. I am sure that the noble Viscount remembers the Royal Commission appointed in 1885 to inquire into the subject of the depression of trade. I believe that that Commission sat for nearly two years. It produced a Majority Report, a Minority Report, and an independent Report by one Commissioner who
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  could find room in neither of those camps; and to both the Majority and the Minority Reports there were attached a string of riders all pointing to different shades and varieties of opinion. It was a litter of Reports. But in this matter, from the moment that you allow an inquiry to extend into the region of tendencies and of the significance of the facts, you plunge at once into a sea of controversy from which I do not believe that you will extract anything except a very protracted and inconclusive investigation. Such an inquiry we are not prepared to undertake; and therefore I have to suggest to your Lordships that we should not support the Motion of the noble Earl, and that even an inquiry in the modified form suggested by my noble friend the noble Viscount is not one which we could in the present circumstances usefully undertake.
  *EARL SPENCER: My Lords, after the announcement made by the Leader of the House, it might be thought unnecessary for mo to say anything; but there are one or two points to which I should like to refer in the same non-controversial spirit as that of the speakers who have preceded me. My noble friend says that we on this Bench are opposed to a Commission because it would get the Government out of a hole. This is generally a very legitimate attitude for an Opposition, but on this occasion I entirely deny it. I have always said that I should be ready to accede to the appointment of such a Commission only if I thought that the cause of free trade was in danger, because I am sure that out of such a Commission, properly constituted, free trade would come triumphant. I am not now in favour of a Commission of inquiry. First of all, I believe that there is ample information available. The noble Viscount opposite, in his admirable and able speech—I need hardly say I always listen to him when he speaks on this subject with the utmost attention, for he is an expert on the subject to whom I should almost entirely bow—referred to the omissions from the Blue-book. Is there any subject in the world which could be referred to a Commission and from the Report on which experts like the noble Viscount could not find omissions? I admit that the

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  points he has mentioned are important; but as to the iron trade statistics, and their limitation to the north-eastern district, my interpretation of the Blue-book is this—that it had to be prepared within a certain time, and that typical cases were taken in the different industries. The Blue-book is full of most interesting and valuable information. No doubt an interpretation of the facts has not been given as fully as we might have expected, but in some cases that interpretation is given in the clearest way.
  We should all have welcomed the views of the Treasury officials; and also that of Sir A. Bateman but if those views were not given I suspect it was because they were very strongly in favour of one side, and that the free-trade side. I have no objection to the information which the noble Marquess promises to give on specific points; but I quite agree with him as to the colossal nature of the task which the Commission would have if they followed out the suggestion of my noble friend; and that, if the Report were limited as the noble Viscount suggests, it would still develop into a very long and laborious undertaking. The Chambers of Commerce have, no doubt, a great influence in the country; but many of them have not the experience which we politicians have of the work of Royal Commissions. Those bodies have a very effective dilatory action on legislation; and to my mind they are generally appointed for the sake of postponing the settlement of any question. It is of the utmost importance that we should not prolong the controversy on this question, which is so sharply dividing Parties and which must have a very serious effect on all commerce and industry. I desire that the question should be submitted to the constituencies. Would the information obtained by a Royal Commission be read and digested by the constituencies? In every part of the country the electors are guided by local leaders, who are in turn guided by others above them, until we reach the hierarchy of Parliament. Would the experts that in part form that hierarchy have their opinions on this subject altered one tittle by any further information which could be collected?
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  We have ample information already, not only in the Blue-book, but in the Foreign Office Reports, to form a proper opinion on this subject; and, as the experts are not likely to change their opinions, I do not see the advantage of appointing a Commission.
  The noble Marquess said that it would be a matter of the greatest difficulty to appoint a Royal Commission. Ministers often differ as to how such a Commission should be appointed. Certain persons think that a Commission should be appointed representing the most forward defenders of particular doctrines. I have always differed from that mode of appointing a Commission, because it should be composed of the most impartial men you can find. Among the Commissions that have reported in late years I will cite the important body which dealt with temperance. I believe that the representatives on the Commission were equally divided: and what was the result? We merely had two conflicting Reports. After this fiscal question has been discussed so long, and with so much heat, I maintain with the noble Marquess that it would be extremely difficult, if not almost impossible, to appoint a Commission. Last year I was visited by a clergyman from the country, a Conservative. He told me that he had been brought up as a free-trader, but now that the fiscal question had arisen, he asked "What am I to do?" I told him to look at the experts who were on his side, and to note that the Chancellors of the Exchequer belonging to the Unionist Party are all free-traders. Those are the experts to whom I refer. I believe that the people do not require the Report of a Royal Commission so much as to read the views which are put forward by each side in the controversy. If the people will only read some of the speeches of the noble Viscount which he has delivered in an uncontroversial spirit, or those of the noble Duke the late Leader of this House, I think they will find the case for free trade put most forcibly and in the best spirit. No doubt there are speeches on the other side which will be able to guide them in obtaining a view of the controversy; but, after all we get the best information from the Parliamentary Papers and other documents which are

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  presented to us. We want the question thoroughly threshed out in Parliament and in the country, but I am confident that the country will not desire to continue this controversy a very long time. It is ripe for decision now, and the sooner the electors are appealed to for their opinion the better it will be for every interest concerned.
  *THE EARL OF WEMYSS: My Lords, I should like to say, in reply, that it is not my intention to press my Motion to a division. I am perfectly satisfied with its having been discussed, and I should like, while thanking my noble friend the Leader of the Government in this House for his kind expressions with regard to myself, to say that he has misunderstood what I really want. I want the Board of Trade Reports carried to their full conclusion. Sir Alfred Bateman's conclusion was, that it was our method and want of pushfulness which were at fault. My main point is this, that the Government themselves some months ago thought an inquiry was necessary; they instituted an inquiry, and when that inquiry came back with an expression of opinion on matters that had been inquired into, they cut it out and sent this document of 495 pages of statistics to the electors, who are to settle in their own minds whether we ought to have free trade, protection, or retaliation; they are to settle it not from any opinions given them, but from these facts and statistics. I contend that it is impossible for them to form any opinion without having the conclusions before them. I am asked what kind of Commission I would propose. I should have suggested a Commission of three, and I would have put a judge at the head of it—Mr. Justice Bigham, for instance. I would also have appointed Sir Alfred Bateman, kite Head of the Statistical Department of the Board of Trade, and a gentleman of great weight like Mr. Schuster, representing the Chambers of Commerce. A Commission of that kind could collect these, draw sound conclusions therefrom, and give the public, data upon which to form an opinion. I deny that the inquiry which has taken place, when no conclusions are submitted, is of any value. It is in the interest of knowledge on this subject that I brought this matter forward, and I
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  think it is a great mistake on the part of the Government to have declined to appoint this Commission. I ask leave to withdraw my Motion.
  Motion, by leave of the House, withdrawn.
  House adjourned at twenty minutes before Seven o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.