Sitting of 8 May 1906

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock.
PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  PRIVATE BILLS [LORDS] (STANDING ORDERS NOT PREVIOUSLY INQUIRED INTO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKERlaid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords,
  at the principal ports in the United Kingdom during the years 1903–1905, and the number of allotments made by them in. the following form:—;
  and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, viz.:—;National Assurance Company of Ireland and Yorkshire Fire and Life Insurance Company Bill [Lords].
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.
  Bethnal Green Borough Council (Superannuation) Bill [Lords]. Read the third time, and passed, without Amendment.
  Antofagasta (Chili) and Bolivia Railway Bill [Lords]. [Not amended], considered; to be read the third time.
  Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. l)Bill; Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill; Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill. Read a second time, and committed.
  Sea Fisheries Provisional Order Bill, "To confirm a Provisional Order made by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries under the Sea Fisheries Act, 1868, relating to the Estuary of the Wash, in the county of Norfolk," presented by Sir Edward Strachey; read the first time;

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  to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 197.]
  London Outer Circle Railway Bill; Ordered, That the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee on the Metropolitan Outer Circle Railway Bill, 1882, be referred to the Committee on the London Outer Circle Railway Bill.—;(Mr. Caldwell.)
  Pontefract Corporation Bill. Reported from the Police and Sanitary Committee with Amendments. Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

RAILWAY BILLS (GROUP 4).
Sir George Doughty reported from the Committee on Group 4 of Railway Bills; That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned till Tuesday next, at Eleven of the Clock.
Report to lie upon the Table.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to Seed Potatoes Supply (Ireland) Bill, with Amendments.
They have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise the Wallasey Urban District Council to construct a tramway and promenades, and to make further provision in regard to their gas, water, electricity, ferries, and tramways undertakings, and the health, local government, and improvement of their district; and for other purposes," [Wallasey Tramways and Improvements Bill [Lords.]
Wallasey Tramways and Improvements Bill [Lords], read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

PETITIONS.
  COALMINES (EIGHT HOURS) BILL.
  Petitions in favour; From Alloa and Devon; Aldwarke (No. 1); Alva; Clackmannan; Fforest Isaf; Hartshead; Lanarkshire; Netherton; Tillicoultry; and, West Bromwich Collieries; to lie upon the Table.

EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL (RELIGIOUS TEACHING).
Petitions against alteration of Law. From Abberton; Acton Beauchamp; Acton Green; Amblecote; Astley; Atherstone on Stour; Attleborough; Ansley; Badsey with Aldington; Beaudesert; Birdingbury; Birlingham; Birtsmorton; Bishop's Waltham (two); Blackheath; Bolton (three); Brecon; Bradley; Bredicot; Broadwas; Broome; Budbrooke; Burnham Thorpe (two); Bushley; Carbrooke; Chaceley; Chad-desley Corbett; Charlecote; Charlton Pershore; Chawton (two); Chiddingstone (two); Chilvers Coton; Claines; Cleeve Prior; Clifton on Dunsmore; Cofton Hackett; Combroke; Cookley; Copdock; Cossall; Coventry (three); Cradley; Croftherne; Darlington (two); Defford cum Besford; Denton; Dersingham; Devynnock; Doverdale; Droitwich; Dudley; Earls Croome and Hill Croome; East Winch; Elmley Castle; Ethington; Farington (two); Farnborough; Farns-field; Flyford Flavel; Foleshill; Fordham; Frankton; Gaydon with Chadshunt; Gow Honeybourne; Grand-borough; Great Alne; Great and Little Hampton; Great Ringstead; Great Yarmouth; Harlington; Horstead; Hayes; Himbleton; Hinton Charterhouse; Holt; Honiley; Honingham and East Tuddenham; Horstead; Hunning-ham; Ickford (two); Kenilworth; Keresky; Kidderminster (two); Knights Enham cum Smannell; Leamington (three) Lighthorne; Little Comberton; Little Hulton; Littleton (two); Lound; Loxley; Marton; Masborough; Moreton Morrell; Moulton (two); Norton and Lenchwick; Norton juxta Kempsey; Old Swinford; Ombersloy; Pershore; (two); Pinvin; Priors Hardwick; Priors Marston; Ripple; Rodmell; Runham; St. Marylebone; St. Pancras (two); Sandon (two); Skillington (two); Snitterby; Snitterfield; Southam; Spetch-ley with Warndon; Stanford Rivers; Stanwell; Stibbington cum Sibson; Stockton; Stoke in Coventry; Stone; Stourbridge; Stretton on Fosse; Studley; Swavesey; Thorpe Abbotts; Toft Monks; Tredington; Upton on Severn; Upton Warren; Uxbridge; Ventnor (two); Walsgrave; Walton d'Eivile; Warwick (two); Wasperton; Waterbeach (two); West Bromwich; West Derby (two); West Drayton; Weston; Which-ford; Wichenford; Wick; Wickhamford;

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Wickham Market; Wilden; Witley; Woburn Sands (two); Wolverley; Wolverton; Wootton Wavven; Worcester (four); Wribbenhall; and, Wychbold; to lie upon the Table.

MERCHANDISE MARKS BILL.
Petition from Birmingham, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
PREVENTION OF CORRUPTION BILL.
Petition from Birmingham, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY.
Petition from Great Grimsby, for prohibition; to lie upon the Table.
WAGES BOARDS BILL.
Petition from Birmingham, against; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORT'S, ETC.
  BOARD OF EDUCATION (SPECIAL REPORTS).
  Copy presented, of Special Reports on Educational Subjects, Vol. 16, School Training for the Home Duties of Women. Part II. Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, and France [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
ALIENS ACT, 1905.
Copy presented, of Return of Alien Passengers brought to the United Kingdom from Ports in Europe or within the Mediterranean Sea during the three months ending March 31st, 1906, together with the number of Expulsion Orders made during that period requiring Aliens to leave the United Kingdom [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
ULTIMUS HÆRES (SCOTLAND) (ACCOUNT AND LIST OF ESTATES).
Return presented, relative thereto [ordered May 7th; Mr. McKenna]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 161.]
TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
Copies presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 3579 to 3581 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
TRADE REPORTS (MISCELLANEOUS SERIES).
Copy presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Miscellaneous Series, No. 649 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
NEW WRIT.
New Writ for the Borough of Camber-well (Dulwich Division), in the room of Dr. Frederick Rutherfoord Harris (Chiltern Hundreds).—;(Sir Alexander Acland-Hood.)
PURCHASE INSPECTORS (IRELAND).
Return ordered, "showing (1) names of Inspectors on behalf of the Estates Commissioners; (2) date of original appointment; (3) date upon which appointment expires; (4) ago on appointment; (5) residence at time of appointment; (6) locality in which practical experience of land was acquired; (7) where educated; (8) previous occupation; (9) acreage of land farmed; (10) whether held as owner or tenant; (11) what other experience in agriculture; and (12) what experience in valuing, mapping, and surveying."—; (Mr. Ginnell.)
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

    Irish Postal Assistants—;Religious Qualification.
    MR. BARRIE: To ask the Postmaster-General if it is with his sanction and approval that certain Irish postmasters, when advertising for assistants, stipulate that applicants must be Roman Catholics.
    (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I have no knowledge of any such advertisements as those referred to by the hon. Member, but if he will give particulars I will make inquiry.

  Winton Sub-Post Office, Bournemouth.
  SIR ROBERT HOBART: To ask the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the fact that the subpostmastership of Winton, Bournemouth, is now vacant, and in consideration of the large amount of work performed at that office, he will consider the question of putting it on the head office scale of the establishment; and if

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  he will state what are the emoluments of the position, and how many applications have been received for the vacancy.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton) It is considered that the circumstances do not at present justify the post office at Winton, Bournemouth, being constituted a salaried sub-office. According to the latest returns the gross emoluments attaching to the sub-postmastership will be about£237 a year. Up to the present time two applications for the sub-postmastership have reached me.

  Postal Sorting Allowances.
  MR. J. P. NANNETTI: To ask the Postmaster-General, having regard to the fact that the experiment of town sorting and stamping by postmen which is now being made in several towns in England has been in successful operation in Dublin for years, if he will be good enough to extend the allowances to all the men performing those duties in that office.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The old system of allowances was abolished in 1897, following the recommendations of the Tweedmouth Committee, but the whole Question is at present under consideration.

  Englishmen and Foreigners in Natal.
  MR. MYER: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can state what proportion of the white population of Natal is of British origin; and what proportion is composed of German, Dutch, Italian and other nationalities who hail from the borders of the Adriatic.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill). According to the last Census figures, out of 97,109 Europeans over 74 per cent. were of English, Scotch, or Irish origin; nearly 13 per cent. of South African Dutch origin; and the remainder include nearly 5 per cent. of Germans,·38 per cent. Dutch,·37 per cent. Italians, and similar small percentages of other nationalities.

  Passive Registers.
  MR. PIKE PEASE: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will state the number of passive resisters in England
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  during the year 1905; and what was the amount of money involved.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary-Gladstone.) I am not in possession of any information on this point, and do not know of any means by which it could be accurately obtained. There is no legal distinction between a passive resister and an ordinary rate defaulter.

  Provision for the Temporary Discharge of the Duties of Deceased Recorders.
  MR. ADKINS: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that, owing to the death of the Recorder of Grimsby, on the 8th of April, two days before the day fixed by him for the holding of the quarter sessions, the deputy he had duly appointed could not legally sit, and in consequence the sessions were adjourned for a month by the mayor, and seventeen prisoners were remanded in custody to Hull prison; and whether, seeing that there is no statutory provision for the temporary discharge of the duties of a deceased recorder, pending the appointment of a permanent successor, the Government will initiate legislation to supply the want and to prevent the delay of justice, and the public inconvenience caused by the present state of the law.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) I am aware of the facts stated, and I have already a Bill in draft to meet similar contingencies in future, which will, I hope, be introduced at an early date.

  The Albert Hall Demonstration.
  MR. NIELD: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has given, or is aware of any special instructions having been issued, to the Metropolitan police, and, if so, by whom, to prevent any overflow meeting or demonstration in the neighbourhood of the Albert Hall on Friday evening next, on the occasion of the Church of England meeting called to protest against the Education Bill; if so, what are the nature of such special instructions, and why they should have been especially applied in regard to this meeting.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) No special instructions have been given

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  to the police for dealing with an overflow meeting on Friday evening; and the police are not aware that there will be any organised demonstration outside the Albert Hall.

  St. Helena as a Naval Depot.
  MR. RIDSDALE: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether, in view of the strategical importance of St. Helena, and the approaching withdrawal of its military garrison, steps will be taken to establish a naval depot there.
  (Answered by Mr Edmund Robertson.) The Answer is in the negative.

  Non provided Schools—;Value of Provision of School House, etc
  MR MOND: To ask the President of the Board of Education whether he can state what is the estimated amount of expenditure contributed by the managers of non-provided schools, by their providing a school building and doing the repairs thereof, per scholar on the register.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) I have no figures in my possession which enable me to reply to the hon. Member's Question.

  Expenditure on Elementary Education.
  MR. MOND: To ask the President of the Board of Education whether he can state what is the average sum expended on elementary education per scholar in non-provided schools, and how much of such sum is provided from Treasury grants and how much by rates.
  (Answered by Mr Birrell.) Previous to the Act of 1902 coming into force grants from the Imperial Exchequer to voluntary schools were paid to the managers, and statistics as to the total amount of grant paid were therefore available. Since the Act of 1902 local authorities have been responsible for the maintenance of council and voluntary schools alike; only one account is kept of the receipts and expenditure, and no separate figures are available as to the amounts received on behalf of one or other class of schools.

  Religious Instruction in Secondary Schools.
  MR. LEHMANN: To ask the President of the Board of Education what
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  restrictions, if any, with regard to the religious denomination of pupils or teachers and public control over the management at present exist in the secondary schools recognised as eligible for grants by the Board; whether a local authority is allowed in the allocation of its grants of aid to distinguish between such schools on the ground of religion; and whether the Government contemplates, by legislation or otherwise, to secure that after a certain date grants shall be given only to schools in which there is no denominational disqualification of teachers or pupils, and which are subject to popular control.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) So far as concerns the Board's regulations for the Parliamentary grants in respect of secondary schools (i.) no school is eligible unless it admits day scholars freely upon a full conscience clause, and (ii.) no restrictions of any kind are laid down in regard to the teaching staff except that of educational efficiency; while (iii.) each school must have a governing body constituted in a manner approved by the Board upon which in the majority of cases there is some representation of the local authority, though this is not yet laid down as an invariable condition in the regulations, (iv.) With the exception above named the current regulations of the Board, being drawn in conformity with the principles of existing legislation, do not restrict the Exchequer grants to such secondary schools as have no denominational or undenominational restrictions upon pupils or staff; and schools of very varying types in this respect, some with and some without the characteristics referred to, are at present on the list of State-aided secondary schools. As regards grants in aid of secondary schools from the rates or the local taxation fund, a local authority is precluded by Section 4 (1) of the Act of 1902 from requiring "that any particular form of religious instruction or worship, or any religious catechism or formulary which is distinctive of any particular denomination shall or shall not be taught, used, or practised in any school, college, or hostel aided but not provided by the council." I am not aware of any other religious distinctions which a local authority is statutorily precluded from making. The suggested policy referred to in the third paragraph of the Question,

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  which raises problems of grave importance and would have far-reaching effects, has been receiving the serious attention of His Majesty's Government. In this connection it must be noted that local authorities have as yet themselves provided secondary schools to a very limited extent, and in many cases show great reluctance to incur rate expenditure in this direction, and the large number of efficient secondary schools which would be affected by the proposal are in nearly all cases greatly needed at present for the supply of secondary education in their respective districts. I am, therefore, not yet prepared to state that they could, without either imposing a burden on the ratepayers which they are apparently unwilling to accept or without inflicting too serious a loss to our existing educational provision be henceforth deprived of those public moneys upon which depends in almost all cases their efficiency, and in many their very existence. And this is the case, whether it be a question merely of the cessation of the Parliamentary grants, which is a matter of departmental regulation, or further of the prohibition of all local grants in aid which would of course require legislation. I may add that the number of secondary schools which, taking last year's figures, are subject to full popular control and presumably have no denominational disqualification for teachers or pupils, is, I believe, not more than eighty schools out of the total of some 500 State-aided secondary schools, as far as England (apart from Wales) is concerned, and, so long as this is the case, any Minister responsible for the secondary education of this country must deliberate very seriously before adopting the policy to which, but for these difficulties, he might unhesitatingly adhere.

  Customs Chemical Assistants.
  MR. HOUSTON: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that on the imposition of the sugar duties in 1901 a number of men who do not hold certificates from the Civil Service Commissioners were introduced temporarily into the Customs Branch of the Government Laboratory and have since been employed on duties directly connected with the assessment of revenue; whether these temporary chemical assistants are officers of Customs within the meaning
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  of the Customs Consolidated Act and regulations of the Department; and whether he is prepared to state if and when their services can be dispensed with.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) On the imposition of the sugar duties in 1901 the Treasury, in order to meet the extreme pressure of analytical work, sanctioned the employment in the Customs Branch of the Government Laboratory of a number of non-pensionable chemical assistants. These assistants have not been employed on the duties of Customs officers under The Customs Consolidation Act, 1876, but have worked under the supervision of a superior established officer of the Government Laboratory, who has been responsible for the assessment of the duty. Though not holding certificates from the Civil Service Commissioners some of these non-pensionable chemical assistants are in possession of University degrees in science, and all are fully competent for the duties they are called upon to discharge. Six of them are now employed, and the number is in course of gradual reduction.

  Testing Work at the National Physical Laboratory.
  Mr. W. PEAECE: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether commercial tests, chemical or physical, are being undertaken at the National Physical Laboratory, or are included in the circular of charges of the laboratory; and, if so, whether such competition with private practitioners will be stopped, as being contrary to the recommendations of the Treasury Committee in 1898 and to the declared objects of the laboratory.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) Except for Government work and for some few special cases which come individually before the Committee, chemical analyses are only undertaken by the National Physical Laboratory when required to elucidate some physical or mechanical question under investigation. The average number of chemical tests of all kinds during the past three years has been thirty-nine. The number of physical tests made and of instruments tested has averaged nearly 30,000. Physical tests, including tests on instruments, are

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  undertaken in accordance with the recommendation of the Treasury Committee of 1898 establishing the laboratory as a public institution "for standardising and verifying instruments, for testing materials, and for the determination of physical constants." The members of the Treasury Committee with one exception became original members of the Executive Committee, and they have been careful to keep their work within the terms of the Report. The Committee are fully prepared to consider any complaints which may be made as to the nature of the testing work done and their rates of charges.

  House of Commons Procedure.
  MR. BLAKE: To ask the right hon. Member for East Wolverhampton, as Chairman of the Select Committee on Procedure, whether he can now state how soon he expects to circulate the proposed suggestions for consideration, and when he proposes to convene the Committee for the resumption of work.
  (Answered by Sir Henry Fowler.) The proposed suggestions for consideration have already been circulated, and a meeting of the Committee convened for Thursday the 10th instant.

  Pay of Labourer Employed, by Post Office at Bolton.
  MR. GILL: To ask the Postmaster-General if he is aware that a labourer, twenty-six years of age, is employed in the postal telegraphs construction department at Bolton at a wage of 18s. per week of fifty-four hours; and whether he is prepared to issue instructions that the minimum wage for adult workers shall be not less than the amount hitherto paid by the department, viz., 24s.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I regret that I am not in a position to answer the hon. Member's Question to-day, as the inquiries which are being made are not yet completed. I will, however, communicate the reply shortly.

  Married Women's Liability
  SIR SAMUEL SCOTT: To ask Mr. Attorney-General whether his attention has been drawn to the decision of the House of Lords
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  on March 26th in the case of Paquin v. Beauclerk (formerly Holden); and whether, in view of the importance of the decision to the trading community and the necessity shown for amending the law with regard to married women's liability, legislation will be introduced for the purpose of compelling a married woman, when purchasing goods, to disclose whether she is acting as principal or agent.
  (Answered by Sir Lawson Walton.) It is not likely that time can be found this session for dealing with such a question, but there is a Bill now in the House of Lords for the amendment of the Married Women's Property Act, and there will be opportunity when that Bill reaches this House for the hon. Member to take such steps as he thinks fit.

  Crown and Quit Rents in Ireland.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the exact terms under which the Crown and quit rents were levied in Ireland, and to what purpose the money was to be applied; whether he can state the total amount so realised and how it has been expended
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) The quit, etc., rents payable to the Crown in Ireland are reserved in the ancient grants of lands made by the Crown. They are collected by the Commissioners of His Majesty's Woods under the Crown Lands Acts. The purchase moneys for quit, etc., rents sold have been merged in the capital of the Crown Land Revenues of the United Kingdom, and the surplus income has been annually paid into the Imperial Exchequer. The last Return, made to the House of Lords, of purchase moneys received was for eight years up to March 31st, 1905, and the amount was £118,725 12s. 3d. The accounts for the subsequent year are not yet complete. The quit, etc., rents now payable to the Crown amount to about £32,700 per annum.

  Sale of Mrs. G.C. P. Mahon s Estate at Strokestown.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will call the attention

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  of the Estates Commissioners to the manner in which the Land Purchase Act of 1903 is tried to be administered in the sale of Mrs. Grace C. P. Mahon's estate, Strokestown, in getting her direct tenants to sign purchase agreements for houses and plots of land in the occupation of sub-tenants, thereby depriving the tenants in occupation of reductions given to direct tenants since May 1st, 1905, in not providing sub-tenants with turbary and plots of land in or convenient to the town, and in allowing landlords, large graziers, and eleven months men to sign purchase agreements for the land convenient to the town, which should have been divided and given to the householders of the town; and whether he will request the Estates Commissioners to put in operation Section 15 of the Land Act, 1903, and not to accept the middle owners' payments as interest or otherwise in respect of such purchase agreements.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I am informed by the Estates Commissioners that 172 agreements to purchase holdings on this estate were lodged with them on April 25th. The question of the rights of sub-tenants will be dealt with by the Commissioners after the report of the inspector has been received, and with due regard to Section 15. The method in which the landlord has dealt with untenanted land, and the question of making advances applied for by newly created tenants, will also be duly considered. Until these cases have been ruled on, the Commissioners consider that the interest payable under the agreements lodged must be collected.

  Application of Thomas Doona for Reinstatement.
  MR. BOLAND: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the application for reinstatement by Thomas Doona, on the Blennerhassett estate, near Killorglin, has been received by the Estates Commissioners; and whether they will take early steps to have it carried into effect.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Estates Commissioners inform me that they have not received the application in question. If such an application should be made to them, they will consider it in due course.

  Sale of Faulkner's Estate, Springhill, Queen's County.
  MR. HAMMOND: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, is he aware that in respect of the Faulkner's estate, Spring-hill, Queen's County, the landlord, the legatees of Fisher, and the tenant came to an agreement in February, 1905, as to terms of sale and purchase of this property, and that the tenants were informed by Mr. Wilson, representing the Estates Commissioners, that he himself and the landlord were quite satisfied with that agreement; and, as no progress has been made in this matter, will he state what has been the cause of this delay and when the condition of sale will be definitely settled.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I am informed by the Estates Commissioners that the estate in question is for sale in the Land Judge's Court, and that they issued a request under Section 7 of the Act of 1903 in regard to it. The Commissioners have had the estate inspected, but owing to certain legal difficulties they have not yet been able to make an offer for purchase. The Commissioners expect to be in a position shortly to make an offer.

  System of Alloting First Commissions in the Royal Field Artillery and the Royal Engineers.
  MR. BRODIE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will state on what grounds are first commissions in the Royal Field Artillery allotted according to a different system from that in force in allotting first commissions in the Royal Engineers, or vice versa.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) The commissions in the Royal Engineers are allotted to cadets in the order in which they pass out of the academy, assuming that the highest on the list elect for the Royal Engineers. The remainder of the cadets get Royal Artillery commissions, the selection for Field Artillery being made according to the marks obtained in the subjects of Field Artillery drill; riding, and horsemastership. This system is the result of very careful consideration, and would appear to provide the most suitable officers for the Field Artillery.

  Promotion to Warrant Rank in the Royal Artillery.
  CAPTAIN FABER: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the method of promotion to warrant rank in the Royal Horse Artillery and the Royal Field Artillery could be amended by making the seniority list for promotion date from day of promotion to sergeant instead of to staff-sergeant; and whether he is aware that, at present, amongst corporals in different brigades promoted to the rank of sergeant on the same day (January 1st, 1898), one became staff-sergeant on January 1st, 1903, and another on January 1st, 1906, their characters being equal.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) Promotion to warrant rank is made from the rolls of staff-sergeants in order of seniority to battery staff-sergeant. Until January 1st, 1906, promotion to battery staff-sergeant was carried out in brigades, and necessarily the rate of promotion fluctuated. On the above date the system was changed, and promotion was made from one roll of sergeants in the United Kingdom, one in South Africa, and one in India. This will make the rate of promotion more uniform in future, and will practically make promotion to staff-sergeants date from promotion to sergeant. As regards the last part of the Question, the facts are as stated, and under the old system these occurrences were unavoidable.

  History of the Boer War.
  MR. FIELD: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can state the amount of money granted for the compilation of an authentic history of the Boer War; and whether he can state how far the work has progressed, and when it is expected it will be published.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) It is estimated that the cost of the official History of the South African War will have amounted from first to last to at least £.27,000; of this sum the amount expended up to March 31st, 1906, was about £22,000. Against this sum there will be profits from its sale which have not been and cannot be estimated. The first volume will probably be out by midsummer, the second and third
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  volumes about the end of the year, and the concluding volume in 1907.

  Cost of Fixing Fog Signal on Isle of Rona.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will state the estimated cost of establishing a light and fog signal on the island of Rona, 39 miles north east of the Butt of Lewis.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) I am informed by the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses that they estimate the cost of establishing a light and fog signal on the island of North Rona at £20,000 roughly.

  Foreign Crew of Steamer "Blythville "
  MR. HAVELOCK WILSON: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the steamer "Blythville" is almost entirely manned by a crew composed of Spaniards as sailors and firemen, and whether he is aware that those Spaniards are unable to speak and understand the English language; whether he will make inquiries with regard to this matter on the arrival of the "Blythville" at Dunston, New-castle-on-Tyne, at which port the vessel is expected to arrive on Tuesday 8th May; and will he state what action he proposes to take.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) Inquiries are being made in the case to which the hon. Member refers. When I come in possession of all the facts I will consider what, if any, action should be taken.

  Train Arrangements at Castleblayney.
  MR. MCKEAN: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if, having regard to the inconvenience caused to traders and other persons from Culleville attending markets and fairs in Castleblayney, which is the nearest town, as also having regard to the loss occasioned to Castleblayney by reason of the present defective train service, he will make representations to the Great Northern Railway Company of Ireland as will induce them to stop at least on Wednesdays the train that passes Culleville soon after three o'clock, as under existing arrangements people from the last-mentioned town attending

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  markets and fairs in Castleblayney have barely an hour for transacting their business.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) The Board of Trade have no statutory powers in this matter, but I am sending a copy of the hon. Member's Question to the railway company for any observations they may wish to offer thereon, and I will cause the hon. Member to be communicated with on receipt of the company's reply.

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  German Naval Expenditure.
  MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the official figures published by the Admiralty of German naval expenditure include pensions; and whether he will state the increase or decrease of the gross Estimates for the two countries since 1903–4, excluding the non-effective Vote for pensions in each case.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON,): The figures given for the German naval expenditure in Parliamentary Papers 155 and 299, of session 1905, to which it is assumed the hon. Member refers, do not include pensions. The increase or decrease of the gross Estimates for the two countries since 1903–4, excluding the non-effective Votes for pensions in each case, is as follows:—;

  Germany.

  £

  1904–5

  Decrease

  298,434

  (actual).

  1905–6

  Increase

  1,322,110

  (estimated).

  1906–7

  Increase

  975,183

  do.

  Great Britain.

  £

  1904–5

  Increase

  997,959

  (actual).

  1905–6

  Decrease

  3,467,844

  (estimated).

  1906–7

  Decrease

  1,321,438

  do.

  The figures given for Great Britain are exclusive of outlay under the Naval Works Loan, but include the annuities for repayment of loan expenditure.

  Royal Naval College, Osborne.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state how many cadets have been selected for training at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, since the college was established; in how many instances parents or guardians have been required to withdraw cadets on account of the inability of such youths to show satisfactory progress in such training; and, having regard to the fact that such cadets were originally examined and passed by a Board of Admiralty, will he state in what way parents or guardians have been compensated for their expenditure on. uniform and training.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: 588 cadets have been appointed for training, at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, since the college was opened in September, 1903, of which number forty-three have been withdrawn on account of unsatisfactory progress. Parents enter their sons under the condition that if satisfactory progress is not made they are to be withdrawn.

  Accountant-General's Department (Admiralty)—;Second Division Clerks.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, having regard to the fact that the clerks on the second division of the Accountant-General's Department of the Admiralty have been reduced from 120 to sixty-four, will he state whether any of these clerks have been drafted to other offices; and, if any, how many;. and, seeing that this Vote shows a new charge of £13,442 for salaries of 151 accountant clerks (hired), will he state from what source these hired clerks have been obtained; how many have been selected who have not passed a Civil Service examination; and why the examination rule has been departed from.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The authorised reduction of second division clerks is from 148 in the Estimates for 1905–6 to ninety in the Estimates for 1906–7. Of those thus rendered redundant eight have, up to the present, been transferred to other offices. The hired accountant clerks now serving have been obtained from various sources. None have passed a Civil Service examination for entry into this particular grade,

  1157
  but a certain number passed the examination for boy clerk. As the new class is not on the establishment, no examination is considered necessary.

  H.M.S. "Actæon"—;Pollution of the Medway.
  MR. MORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether, in view of the fact that H.M.S. "Actæon," with about 300 men on board, has been for some months past moored near Stangate Creek, in the river Medway, and is being used as a torpedo school, he will say if the Lords of the Admiralty have received representations from various sanitary authorities and other bodies pointing out the danger to public health involved by the discharged of sewage from this vessel for so long a period; and, having regard to the close proximity of oyster layings, what steps the Lords of the Admiralty intend to take to obviate or minimise such danger.
  MR. EDMUND KOBERTSON: The Admiralty have received representations on this subject, and after careful consideration have decided that the removal of the vessel from her present station is unnecessary. Instructions have, however, been issued that the discharge of sewage is to be so regulated as to obviate the danger referred to.

  Admiralty—;Printing and Stationery Vote
  MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury to what causes he attributes the increase in the Vote for stationery and printing for the Admiralty, in Class 7, Vote 1, from £73,299 in 1901–2 to £117,774 in 1904–5; whether he can give the expenditure under this heading for 1905–6; and whether this matter is one which will be dealt with by the Committee on Stationery.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Mr. MCKENNA): The chief causes of this large increase appear to be the reorganisation of the fleet, involving the re-casting of a great quantity of forms, an expansion in the number of manuals and intelligence publications generally, a large addition to the number of Admiralty committees, and the substitution of the supply of stationery in kind for the system of allowances in lieu which has
  1158
  previously obtained. The expenditure for 1905–6 was about £110,000. The subject is not within the terms of reference to the Select Committee on Government Publications, but it is occupying the attention of the Boards both of the Treasury and of the Admiralty who hope to be able to effect economies.

  Military Manœuvres.
  MAJOR RENTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if lie can state, with reference to the coming military exercises in Sussex, what public and private bodies, if any, objected to their being held there, and on what grounds they objected; and the names of the private individuals, if any, that objected, and the grounds of their objections.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE,): Objections were received from the East Sussex Farmers' Club and the Parish Councils at Patcham, Alfreston, and Bennington, but no grounds were stated. A petition from a number of owners, lessees, and occupiers was forwarded by the Earl of Chichester, setting forth the grounds of objection, the chief of which were that the Manœuvres Act was not intended to provide for training for three months, and that the land selected was unsuitable for such manœuvres owing to the sheep and to special agricultural conditions. I subsequently received a deputation on the subject, and I am glad to say, in order to meet the views set before me, was able to reduce the period for the manœuvres from three months to one month, this to be selected by the local authorities.

  Rights of Natives in South Africa.
  MR. MYER: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether our fellow subjects, natives of India and also the natives of Natal, are precluded from holding lands or properties, and from the pursuit of various trading industries, and also from possessing civil rights; and, if so, whether he proposes to take any steps to secure their being placed on the same footing as British residents.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. CHURCHILL,): The hon. Member has omitted to specify to

  1159
  what part of the world his Question is intended to apply; and if I am to assume that it is South Africa that he has in view, I am still left in doubt concerning which State or States he seeks information. The laws which impose disqualifications of different characters on natives of India and upon South African aboriginals vary considerably in the Cape Colony, Natal, the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies, Rhodesia, and Zululand, and it would be idle for me to attempt to satisfy the hon. Gentleman until I know more definitely what his wishes are.
  MR. MYER: It is a case of "terminological inexactitude."

  Maori Land Settlement Act.
  MR. ASHLEY: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether his attention has been drawn to the provisions of the Maori Land Settlement Act passed by the New Zealand Legislature in 1905; and whether, in view of the provisions of the Treaty of Waitangi, concluded in 1840 between the Crown and the Maori chiefs of New Zealand, he proposes to advise the Crown to exercise its right of veto.
  MR. CHURCHILL: The right hon. Gentleman has asked me to reply to this Question. The Secretary of State has carefully considered the Act and has seen no reason to advise His Majesty to exercise his powers of disallowance with respect to it. It appears to involve no infraction of the Treaty of Waitangi. It passed the Second and Third Readings without a division in the House of Representatives, which contains four Maori members. The only Maori member who spoke on the Third Reading supported the Bill.
  MR. ASHLEY: Is it not the fact that when New Zealand was granted a Constitution in 1852 power over these Maori lands was expressly reserved to the Crown?
  MR. CHURCHILL: I can only say that in the opinion of the advisers of the Secretary of State the Bill which passed through the New Zealand Legislature involves no infraction of the Treaty. It gave no dissatisfaction whatever to the Maoris. The Maori members in the
  1160
  House of Representatives supported it, and the only one who spoke complained, that it did not go far enough.
  MR. ASHLEY: Will the hon. Gentleman look further into the Question?
  MR. CHURCHILL: If any further Question is put the matter shall be further investigated.

  Bagdad Railway—;Turkish Customs Duties.
  MR. REES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, since one reason for the late Government's refusal in 1903 to co-operate officially in the construction of the so-called Bagdad Railway was the desire of the Turkish Government to increase the Customs duties from 8 per cent. to 11 per cent., and to pledge such increase as a guarantee of interest on the requisite capital, His Majesty's Government has consented to this increase of the Turkish duties; whether this increase is to be used as a kilometric guarantee, in whole or in part, towards the construction of the Bagdad Railway as already constructed or projected; whether His Majesty's Government is obtaining any substantial concession from the Turkish Government in return for consenting to this increase in the Customs duties; and whether the Turkish or German Governments, or any financial group, has requested His Majesty's Government to reconsider the refusal to co-operate in the construction of the Bagdad Railway or to provide a terminus upon the Persian Gulf; and, if so, whether the results may, if no sufficient objection exists, be communicated to the House.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir EDWARD GREY,): His Majesty's Government have not, as yet, consented to the proposed increase in the Turkish Customs duties. As to the conditions on which they are prepared to do so, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I am giving to a Question from the hon. Member for the Ripon Division of Yorkshire on this subject.†The question of the Bagdad Railway has not recently been brought before His Majesty's Government officially from any quarter.
  †See next Question and Answer.
  MR. LYNCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any negotiations are at present pending or contemplated between His Majesty's Government and the Porte for an increase in the Customs duties on British goods imported into Turkey as fixed by treaty; and whether, in view of the fact that the great preponderance of the import trade into Turkey is in British and Indian hands, he will ascertain the views of the representatives of that trade before sanctioning any such increase.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: Negotiations with regard to the conditions on which His Majesty's Government can assent to an increase in the Turkish Customs duties have been in progress for some time. Throughout these negotiations the preponderating importance of British trade with Turkey and the views of representatives of that trade have been fully borne in mind. We have been in consultation with the Board of Trade, and the Embassy at Constantinople is fully informed of the special points to which importance is attached.

  Ottoman Railway to Mekka.
  MR. LYNCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give the House any information as to the progress of the Ottoman railway from Syria to Mekka; whether a branch line is in process of construction from that railway to Akabah; and, if so, from what point; whether he has any official information showing that from 4,000 to 5,000 Turkish troops are concentrated at Medauara, about 100 miles south-east of Akabah; and whether instructions have been issued by the Turkish authorities that no British subject is to be employed in any capacity on the railway, German surveyors and officials being already so employed.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: We understand that the line has been completed as far south as Medauara, and that the next section to Thabouk, 120 kilometres, is expected to be in working order in the course of this year. The branch from Medauara to Akabah has been surveyed, but the construction is believed to have been temporarily suspended. We have no official information as to the concen-
  1162
  tration of Turkish troops in the neigbourhood of Medauara. We are not aware that any instructions have been issued by the Turkish authorities in the sense suggested.

  El Arish—;Removal of Boundary Pillars.
  MR. ASHLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can state what report was brought back from El Arish by His Majesty's Ship "Minerva" with reference to the alleged removal of boundary pillars by Turkish troops; and whether he can make any statement as to the general progress of the negotiations between the Turkish and Egyptian Governments.
  SIR EDWARD GREY: The Captain of His Majesty's Ship "Minerva" reported that the boundary pillars had been removed, and some Egyptian telegraph poles in Egyptian territory had been replaced by others.

  Prison Officials' Pay.
  MR. LEA: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has received a petition from the officers employed in His Majesty's local prisons, complaining of the difference between the rates of pay existing in the subordinate ranks of the convict and local prisons; whether he is aware that assistant warders in these prisons are obliged to commence their duties at a wage of 23s. a week, with an annual increment of 4½d. a week to a maximum of 26s., and in the case of warders a minimum of 27s. advancing to a maximum of 30s.; and whether, considering the hours and the character of the duties of these men, he will consider the advisability of giving them increased remuneration.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,): I must refer the hon. Member to the Answer I gave yesterday to the hon. Member for Sunderland†, which was to the effect that this Question will receive my most careful consideration.

  Metropolitan Police.
  MR. LEA: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department
  †See Col. 979.

  1163
  whether he has received an appeal on behalf of the Metropolitan Police asking that they should be allowed at least one day's rest in every week; and whether, in view of the duties this body of public servants have to discharge in the Metropolis, he is prepared to concede this claim.
  Mr. GLADSTONE: I fear I can only refer the hon. Member to the Answer I gave yesterday to the hon. Member for Brixton†, to the effect that this privilege cannot be granted, as it would involve an additional expenditure of about £150,000 a year.
  MR. LEA: Cannot they be given a fortnight's holiday yearly, instead of ten days?
  MR. GLADSTONE: I must have time to consider that.

  Mount Pleasant Factory—;Conditions of Employment.
  MR. O'GRADY: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the fact that the conditions of employment in the wood working factory at Mount Pleasant, W.C., debar trade unionists from seeking or accepting employment there, he will consider whether, under all circumstances, it would be more economical to accept the union rules embodying rates of wages and hours as the conditions of employment for cabinet makers and joiners at Mount Pleasant?
  THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON,): The hon. Member refers, no doubt, to the piecework system. This system has been in force over twenty years; the men work forty-eight hours and earn very substantial wages in addition to other benefits.
  MR. O'GRADY: Is it to continue simply because it has been in force ten years?
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: Not at all.

  Religious Tests for Teachers.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I wish to put a Question, of which I have given private notice, to the Minister for Education which may help us to raise a
  †See Col. 979.
  1164
  clear issue in the course of the education debate now proceeding. It is whether the words in Clause 7, Section 2, which says that a teacher employed in a public elementary school "shall not be required as a condition of his employment to subscribe to any religious creed," exclude or are intended to exclude inquiries as to the fitness of the teacher to give the religious instruction contemplated under the Bill, or whether they are merely intended to prevent such subscriptions to dogmatic formularies as used to be required in the case of University Fellowships, but which have never been required in the case of elementary teachers.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. BIRRELL,): So far as intention is concerned, the Answer must be in the negative. No restraint is intended to be placed on the local education authority in satisfying itself that teachers who undertake to give religious teaching are not unqualified to give it.

  The Yarmouth Election.
  MR. DALZIEL: I beg to ask the Solicitor-General, in the absence of the Attorney-General, a Question of which I have given private notice—;whether his attention has been drawn to the numerous cases of admitted bribery, fifteen in all, that occurred during the recent Parliamentary election at Yarmouth; what steps, if any, he proposes to take in connection with such admissions; and whether, having regard to the result of the election petition that has just been presented, he will consider the advisability of introducing a Bill to amend the Corrupt Practices Act.
  THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL (SIR W. ROBSON,): The attention of the law officers has been drawn to the evidence as to cases of bribery at Yarmouth during last election. Most of those cases are covered by certificates exempting the bribed persons from prosecution owing to the fact that they have made a full disclosure in evidence of their misconduct, but in any case where there is no certificate the papers shall be laid before the Director of Public Prosecutions. On the second part of the Question the evidence at election petitions will of course be carefully considered with a view to seeing if it discloses

  1165
  any reason to believe that the existing law as to corrupt practices is not adequate for its purpose.
  MR. DALZIEL: I hope that special attention will be given to the point whether there ought not to be three Judges instead of two for the trial of election petitions.

  Exports of Horses to the Continent.
  SIR G. KEKEWICH: I beg to ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether his attention has been called to the conditions of the traffic in broken down old horses carried on between English ports and the continent; and, if so, whether he will take steps to put a stop to the cruelties involved; and will he say whether such horses are exported for human food.
  SIR EDWARD STRACHEY: The traffic in question is subject to the provisions of the Exportation of Horses Order, 1898, and the conditions under which it is carried on are under the constant supervision of the Inspectors of the Board. I will supply my hon. friend with a copy of the Order. Some of the horses exported are used for human food.

  Arinacrinachd and Camersterrach Public Schools.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that Dr. Young, the medical officer of health for the western district of Ross-shire, reports that the health of the children attending the public schools at Arinacrinachd and Camersterrach is imperilled through collections of stagnant water at the entrance to the schools; and will the Local Government Board for Scotland communicate with the local authority on the subject with a view to the nuisance being removed.
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR,): The Local Government Board are aware of the statements in the Report referred to, and have already communicated with the local authority with a view to the removal of any nuisance found to exist.

  Island of Lewis—;Health Administration.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether the expediency of taking over the public health administration of the island of Lewis has yet been considered, especially having regard to the recommendations contained in Dr. Dittmar's Report on the sanitary condition of the island, which was placed in the hands of the Local Government Board for Scotland more than a year ago; and to the fact that the local authorities, in endeavouring to give effect to the Public Health (Scotland) Acts, have already imposed the maximum rate fixed by statute, and are powerless to enforce the provisions of the Acts.
  MR. SINCLAIR: This subject is under consideration; and I am not yet able to add anything to what has already been said in reply to the hon. Member.

  Scottish Education Reports.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, in view of the fact that the Education (Scotland) Reports for the Southern and Western Divisions have been issued, will he state when the Education (Scotland) Report, Northern Division, will be in the hands of Members.
  MR. SINCLAIR: It is expected that the Report in question will be in the hands of Members in the course of the next few days.

  Irish Evicted Tenants.
  MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the smallness of the amount of untenanted land so far acquired by the Estates Commissioners, and the consequent want of progress in the restoration of evicted tenants, while untenanted land suitable for them is being divided and sold direct to graziers, in fraud of the law; and whether, seeing that this is due in part to the absence of a scale for remunerating persons negotiating sales of such land to the Estates Commissioners in accordance with sub-sections (9), (10), and (11), of Section 23 of the Land Act of 1903, he will have this obstacle removed by the preparation and publication of a graduated

  1167
  scale, especially in relation to untenanted land.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (MR. BRYCE,): I am informed by the Estates Commissioners that the extent of untenanted land actually purchased by them is 20,910 acres, and that they are engaged in purchasing, or are negotiating for the purchase of, 63,340 acres in addition. I have already informed the hon. Member that the Commissioners are not aware of the occurrence of any such case of fraud as is alluded to. The scale of fees for negotiators mentioned in Section 23, subsection (11), of the Act of 1903, has not yet been settled, upon the ground that a sufficient number of cases has not yet arisen to form the basis of such scale, claims made by negotiators under this sub-section are dealt with by the Commissioners and the Treasury on the merits of each particular case. The Commissioners have no knowledge that the absence of a scale of fees for negotiators has prevented purchase.
  MR. REDDY: How can they say they have no knowledge when one of their own members holds 100 acres of grazing land in county Galway?

  Irish School Teachers.
  MR. MURPHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that some teachers in Ireland are barred from promotion to the higher grades by circumstances over which they have no control, such as averages, standard numbers, school premises, &c.; and if he proposes to take any stops to remove this disability.
  MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the Commissioners of National Education that teachers are not eligible for promotion to the several higher grades unless the average attendance reaches the figure which is specified in each case by Rule 104. No teachers have yet been refused promotion by the operation of this rule. The condition of neatness and good order in which school premises are kept, but not the structural condition of premises, is an element in the consideration of promotion. The Commissioners have no present intention of altering the rules in this regard.

  Irish Department of Agriculture—; veterinary Branch
  MR THOMAS O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, seeing the importance to the public of the proper staffing and working of the veterinary branch of the Department of Agriculture, and the impossibility of having this branch thoroughly inquired into without examining some of the officers already employed, he will give instructions to enable these men to lay their views before the Committee of inquiry.
  MR. BRYCE: I have nothing to add to my reply to the similar Question of the hon. Member for South Down on Wednesday last,† to which I have already referred the hon. Member

  Irish Teachers Salaries.
  MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received from the Irish National Teachers' Organisation a resolution, unanimously adopted at the recent congress of teachers held in Waterford, demanding, in the interests of education, that assistant teachers of ten years' efficient service be awarded the salary of second grade teachers, and be eligible for the increments of the grade; whether the National Board have approved of this demand; whether he will state the amount that would be annually required to carry it out; and when will he place on the Estimates this sum.
  MR. BRYCE: I have received from the National Teachers' Organisation a number of resolutions including that referred to in the Question. I have already informed the hon. Member that the Commissioners of National Education cannot state what amount would be required to make the change suggested without the preparation of a return involving considerable labour. The Commissioners, however, estimate that if all the demands made in the resolutions were conceded, the Vote would be increased from its present amount of less than £1,400,000 to considerably over £3,000,000. The Commissioners do not approve of the demand referred to in the
  † See Col. 572.

  1169
  Question. As I have stated on several occasions, the whole question of the teachers' salaries will receive consideration, but I am not yet prepared to make any detailed statement on the subject.
  MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: Does the right hon. Gentleman say it would cost over £3,000,000, to grant the claims of these assistant teachers?
  MR. BRYCE: No—;the figures refer to the claims made for the whole body of teachers.
  MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: What would it cost to meet the demands of this particular section—;to give the increase to second grade teachers?
  MR. BRYCE: If a further Question is put I will send it to the Commissioners.

  Kerry Evicted Tenants.
  MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will send an inspector to the county Kerry to inquire into and report on the cases of all evicted tenants who have sent in applications for reinstatement; whether, in case the landlord is unwilling to sell the whole of his estate, the inspector will inquire from him if he will sell the evicted tenants' portion; and whether, in cases where the evicted tenant's holding is in the occupation of another, the inspector will inquire what he paid for it when entering, and will report what compensation would be sufficient for his leaving it.
  MR. BRYCE: I have already informed the hon. Member that the additional inspectors who have been appointed to inquire into the claims of evicted tenants will enter upon their work without delay. The nature of the inquiries to be made is indicated in Part IV. of the Instructions to Inspectors, dated March 9th last, which were laid on the Table. The Estates Commissioners inform me that in cases in which the holding of an evicted tenant is in the occupation of a person who is willing to surrender it, they will inquire as to the amount of compensation which the present occupier would require.
  MR. FLAVIN: Have the Commissioners any definite instructions directly to approach landlords and agents with the object of opening up negotiations for the reinstatements of evicted tenants?
  MR. BRYCE: If the hon. Member will look at the Act he will see how far their instructions justify them in doing so.

  Shirley Estate.
  MR. MCKEAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how many applications to fix fair rents on holdings on the Shirley estate have been heard by Messrs. Edge, Smith, and Kyle, or any two of them sitting as a Sub-Commission; in how many of these applications the first term rent was raised or confirmed; what was the average reduction obtained as a result of such applications; what was the average reduction secured on first term rents at second term hearing throughout Ireland; whether the aforementioned Sub-Commissioners are still on the staff of the Land Commission, and, if so, in what capacity; whether any date has been fixed by the Chief Commission for the hearing of the numerous appeals which have been lodged as a result of the decisions of the abovementioned Sub-Commission; and whether arrangements will be made for the hearing of these appeals in Carrickmacross.
  MR. BRYCE: The Land Commission inform me that they do not consider it right that they should discuss the results of the decisions of Sub-Commission Courts for the purpose of replies to Parliamentary Questions. In the particular cases referred to, a considerable number of appeals have been lodged, and the cases are sub judice. These appeals will be taken up, the Commissioners inform me, at the earliest opportunity, having regard to the prior rights of other outstanding appeal cases. They have not told me whether appeals would be heard at Carrickmacross, and there has not been time to repeat this Question to them; but as it is a central place I should think they would, and if the hon. Member wishes, I will convey the suggestion.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman say how many of these Sub-Commissioners are still on the staff of the Land Commission?
  MR. BRYCE: The Commissioners have given me no information on that point.
  MR. MCKEAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman press for it?
  MR. BRYCE: I have no power over the Commissioners. I have endeavoured to state what I believe to be their reasons for not giving certain information which the hon. Member asks for.

  Post Office Savings Bank—;Irish Business.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he has considered the advisability of moving all the Irish business of the Post Office Savings Bank to headquarters in Dublin; and, if so, when he proposes to give effect to this proposal.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The question of the advisability of transferring the Irish business of the Post Office. Savings Bank to headquarters in Dublin has been considered on several occasions. It is more convenient and economical to keep the Savings Bank accounts at one central institution, and greater facilities are thereby afforded for making or withdrawing deposits at any office in the United Kingdom, than would be possible if the Irish accounts were kept in Dublin.

  Bangor (County Down) Post Office.
  MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether any decision has yet been arrived at with regard to the site for the new post office Bangor, county Down; whether, in view of the local discontent with reference to the site originally proposed, he can now state definitely that that site has been abandoned; and whether his attention has been called to the fact that the memorial now being signed in favour of it is being promoted by the chairman of the urban council, who is also the vendor of the site.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I have given most careful consideration to the question of the site of the new post office at Bangor, and, after the representations of the hon. Member, I instructed the Secretary in Dublin to make a special report on the subject. After careful inquiry he reports that, taking everything into consideration, the site in Main Street
  1172
  is the most suitable of the three sites originally available, and I do not, therefore, see my way to alter the decision originally come to. But in order to meet the convenience of the other part of the town, I propose to open a sub-office in or near Ballymagee Street. As regards the memorial to which the hon. Member refers, I have no information as to who promoted the memorial, but I find it was signed by the parish priest, by the rector, and by the other ministers, and by a large number of prominent citizens in each of the five wards. But in any case, the memorial had no effect on the result, as it was not received until after the Secretary at Dublin had considered his report.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Then is it the case that in order to settle this dispute the right hon. Gentleman has had practically to provide two offices.
  MR. MACVEAGH: Can the right hon. Gentleman name any town of like size and population in the whole of the United Kingdom which has both post office and a sub-office.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I will inquire into that.
  MR. MACVEAGH: It's a conundrum for you.

  Housing of the Working Classes.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether he will bring on the Motion for the appointment of a Select Committee on the Housing of the Working Classes Acts Amendment Bill at a reasonable hour to-night, so that it may be properly discussed.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN,): The Motion can be brought on only after eleven o'clock, as the remainder of the sitting has already been allotted to the Education Bill.
  MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid the Motion conveyed an imputation on the Members with whom he was associated, and if it could be put down for a reasonable hour it might not be necessary to move the suspension of the eleven o'clock rule.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I am afraid we cannot come to any arrangement. There is no imputation made upon any one, but obviously it was inconvenient yesterday in this way to absorb a great part of the time which the House expected to be devoted to the Education Bill.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURasked if it was to be understood that in the event of the debate on the Education Bill being stopped some few minutes before eleven, no attempt would be made to take business other than that referred to in the Motion.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: That is so, no other business will be taken.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: Cannot the Government give us one or two hours before eleven o'clock in order to discuss this matter?
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No, Sir. An arrangement has been come to conclude this debate on Thursday, and we are bound to give the House the whole of the time up till then for the purposes of the discussion.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES ACTS AMENDMENT BILL).
Ordered, that the Proceedings on the nomination of the Select Committee on the Housing of the Working Classes Acts Amendment Bill be not interrupted this evening under the Standing Order (Sittings of the House), and may be entered upon and proceeded with at any hour, though opposed.—;(Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman.)

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES.)
Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDON reported from the Committee of Selection, That they had discharged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures—;Mr. Bright; and had appointed in substitution, Mr. Robinson.
Report to lie upon the Table.

NEW BILLS.
  FATAL ACCIDENTS AND SUDDEN DEATHS INQUIRY (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  "To amend The Fatal Accidents Inquiry (Scotland) Act, 1895, and to make further provision for Inquiry into Sudden and Suspicious Deaths in Scotland," presented by the Lord-Advocate; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 198.]

EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question [7th May], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
Which Amendment was—;
"To leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—;(Mr. Wyndham)
Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE,): Before I proceed to an examination of the main principles upon which the Bill is founded, I should like to say a few words about a clause in which I am specially concerned, and which has been severely criticised in the course of this debate and by the Leader of the Opposition in the speech which he made last week in the Albert Hall. I mean the clause which establishes a central education authority for Wales. These criticisms are based on a total misapprehension of the real meaning of the clause. Whether that is the fault of the clause or the fault of the critics will appear when we come to discuss the clause. At any rate, it carries out the intention of the Government. I should not refer to this matter of detail wore it not clear that it is to be made to play a great part in the attempt to create prejudice against the Bill. What is the origin of the clause? The Leader of the Opposition seems to assume that it is simply a conspiracy on the part of the Nonconformists of Wales to secure the control of education, to be independent altogether of the Imperial Parliament, and to trample upon the rights of Churchmen. The real fact is

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that this clause was the result of a conference on education that was summoned by the Tory corporation of Cardiff. The lord mayor, a strong Churchman and a Conservative candidate, was in the chair. His Motion was a purely educational one. The conference was summoned for the purpose of deciding whether or not there should be an appeal to the Government to set up a national council in Wales for the administration of education—;primary, secondary, and university. To that conference men of all Parties and creeds in Wales were summoned. The four Anglican Bishops were summoned, and three attended. The two Catholic Bishops were summoned, and both were present. Every Conservative candidate for a Welsh seat was summoned, and most of them attended. At this conference, so representative, a Resolution was unanimously passed in favour of asking the Government to set up this central council for the control and direction of education in Wales. Wales is too quiet a country and too loyal a country to attract that public attention which would otherwise be given to its movements. The result is that any one may say anything he likes about Wales, knowing that he is appealing to an audience which is ignorant about the elementary facts of the country. I think it is most unfair that a statesman in the position of the Leader of the Opposition, who ought to know better, who should have a certain sense of responsibility in such a grave matter, should have endeavoured to mislead the country about a thing as to which the simplest inquiries would have shown him that his statements were unfounded. You would imagine from the speech of the Leader of the Opposition that this was an attempt to set up an independent Parliament in Wales.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: So far as education is concerned.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: The right hon. Gentleman is still under that impression. I do not think the Leader of the Opposition has a right to criticise a proposal, at least, until he has read it. The right hon. Gentleman cannot have read the first line if he is still under that misapprehension. There is not the smallest power to legislate on the smallest detail to be vested in this council. The statement of the right hon. Gentleman was grossly unfair and misleading to the
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country. Welsh opinion is on the whole unanimously in favour of this Welsh council. There may be differences of detail about it, and I do not mean among the Welsh Members. For instance, with, regard to the question of the unfairness of handing over to a Welsh council the administration of trusts relating to voluntary schools, if there is an Amendment of that sort moved, if the Opposition consider that the guarantees in the clause are not satisfactory in that respect, we shall have no hesitation at all in accepting such an amendment. We realise that it would not be fair after the bitter controversy in Wales to hand over to a body representing the Welsh county councils things that are in controversy at the present moment. If guarantees are required we do not demand that the matter should be left to an Order in Council, but we will accept any Amendment in Committee in order to ensure that nothing of the sort shall occur. The opposition to this clause, however, does not come from Welsh Conservatives or Welsh Churchmen; it comes from the noble Lord who represents Maidstone. [AN HON. MEMBER: At present.] There was not a single Welsh candidate who got up to protest against it; on the contrary, they voted for it. I sincerly trust that the Opposition will not take advantage of the fact that Wales is small, and the number of its members not large, in order to thwart a scheme which all parties in Wales are anxious for in the interests of Welsh education. All we ask for is that we should be able to co-ordinate all branches of education. We have complete control of secondary education, and also of higher education, but primary education is controlled from Whitehall, so far as administration is concerned. It is most important to us that they should all fit in, and for this adequate reason, that Wales is a country where four-fifths of the children in the secondary schools come straight from the primary schools. To talk of the disruption of the Empire because of this proposal is simply part of that gross and futile exaggeration which has gone on about the whole of this Bill. Such talk is an illustration of the barren and stupid leadership which has left the Tory Party without a single representative in Wales. I was very much struck by an observation made by the hon. Member for North Camberwell last night. He said

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that the problem was insoluble. Well, I too think it is almost insoluble. The right hon. Gentleman, in his speech at Cambridge, claimed that we should have a logical settlement. How long has he been an advocate of a logical settlement? Was there much logic in the settlement of 1902? It is much easier to be logical in criticism than in action. From no point of view was the settlement of 1902 logical. In one parish you had a State school to which every child was driven, Nonconformist as well as Church child, and the whole management was in the hands of one creed. Everybody contributed, yet Nonconformity was as much a disqualification for the position of teacher as if it was an offence against law or morals. That is not defended now. I have read a good many letters which have been written on this Bill. Most of the writers admit that the solution of 1902, was an unfair one in such parishes. I wish they had spoken out at the time. They were perfectly willing to take advantage of the unfairness, perfectly ready to profit by it. They made no attempt to help us to remove the injustice; the only denominational gentlemen who did so wore the members from Ireland. The hon. Member for East Mayo at the time, at any rate, did recognise the grievance, but from the majority of the supporters of the Bill of 1902, we had not even an admission until now.
MR A. J. BALFOUR: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman. I can only say that over and over again I stated ad nauseam in the course of the prolonged debates on the Bill of 1902, that it was not a complete settlement of the question, and that it was a hardship in single-school areas. I did not deny it for a moment, but I said over and over again that there was a corresponding hardship in urban areas. It never occurred to me for one moment to suggest to the House that the single-school area condition was a satisfactory one, and I did provide something in the nature of a remedy when I allowed local authorities to build schools of their own, which they were not allowed to do under the Act of 1870.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Then the offence of the right hon. Gentleman is worse than I characterised it. He now says that he recognised and admitted the
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grievance, but, knowing it, he legislated without making any active provision to meet it. That is an aggravation of the offence. The right hon. Gentleman says that there was a corresponding grievance of Churchmen in urban areas. That grievance was that the Churchman has to support what he calls undenominational religion of which he does not approve. Therefore, because one set of Churchman were getting more than their due in one parish, it was to be met by another set of Churchmen getting less than their due in another. And that is a logical solution. Was the Kenyon-Slaney arrangement a logical one? That is putting two men on a denominational foundation, and of course it is always assumed that the local authorities will select atheists of the rankest kind. What for? To settle the syllabus of religious instruction in the school; and yet in that very school where atheists can settle the syllabus the most religious Nonconformist in the land could not teach the syllabus. And you call that a logical settlement. So much for the logic of that settlement. I do not think the Leader of the Opposition is proud of it. Thereare, I think, four logical settlements. There is, first, the purely secular system. That is a logical settlement. The second is the frankly denominational all round. That, too, is logical. Thirdly, there is the common religious syllabus, which also is logical. But there is a fourth settlement. You may frankly say you cannot have any common religious syllabus between Protestant and Catholic, and that is the settlement you have in Germany, in Quebec, in Holland. It is a recognition that there are fundamental differences you cannot solve—;which are absolutely insoluble. Whether it is just or not, that also would be logical.
If the House will bear with me I will state how the Government have come to the conclusion that the proposal in the Bill is the only solution we can propound under the circumstances, having regard not merely to the logic but, what is stronger than logic, the facts of the situation. Now, take the secular solution. Does any one in this House believe that it would be possible, for any Government to propose a secular system for this country? [A voice, "Yes."] I am perfectly certain the; could not. Even my hon. friends

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who believe in secular instruction know perfectly well it could not be carried. Why, take even Birmingham which was the very centre of the agitation for secular instruction in 1870. What happened there? The secularists were beaten there, the right hon. Gentleman was beaten in his own city. If the religion of Mahomet is unacceptable in Mecca, how can you expect it to be received in places where the shrine has fallen into disrepute? You cannot carry the secular system, and I do not argue it. Let us take the frankly denominational system. I admit that here is a suggestion which you have to examine carefully; but it is not altogether the Act of 1902. It is a very different thing. Hon. Members opposite are too fond of assuming that they are defending a logical and just educational denominational system. ["No, no."] Very well, I will not press the point. But it is not the system of 1902. Under the frankly denominational system you are going to set up a denominational system in this country, and it is to be a national system, a denominational system all round. They seem to think that it will mean denominational privileges for Roman Catholics, Jews, Anglicans, and Wesleyans, but not for anybody else. ["No, no."] I am glad to hear that disclaimer. We have had, however, a new doctrine set up about religious instruction—;the doctrine of the right of the parent. It is a perfectly new doctrine, as far as the general controversy is concerned. When was it discovered? Was it discovered before 1902? If so, where is it in the Act of that year?
MR. WYNDHAM: In Clause 9.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: That is a different thing; that is not the right of the parent, but the right of the sect. I am now discussing the right of the parent, the inalienable right of a parent to demand of the State that it shall bring up his child in his own faith. What happened in 1902? I recollect one or two very useful discussions on the Act of 1902, one initiated by the hon. Member for East Mayo, and the hon. Member for Morley. Both hon. Members wanted the parents' right to be recognised in the denominational schools. The House must not forget that the whole basis of the claim for denominational instruction is not
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the right of the denomination, but the right of the parent. How are the denominational syllabuses settled at the present moment? Four foundation managers settle the syllabus for the religious instruction which every child shall receive in the school. Who are the managers? The clergyman, ex officio, the great landlord, probably two great landlords, and the others are probably men of position and substance, who contribute largely to the funds of the school and the parish, but not one of them in all probability sending his child to the school. Observing this, my hon. friend the Member for Morley asked, "What about the right of the parent to choose the religious instruction?" He thereupon moved that the parent should have one representative—;only one—;out of the six on the board that was to choose the religious teaching for his child. What did the right hon. Gentleman, what did the champions of the rights of the parents say? "Not one." They would not have a single representative, although they wanted to know what was the particular brand of theology the parent wanted to be given to his child. In a voice choked with emotion they said, "This is an interference with the inalienable right of the parent." Where, then, was the parent in 1902? I remember the hon. Member for East Mayo, representing sincere denominationalism, saying that in rural districts where there is no choice for the parent he should have, at any rate, some voice in settling the kind of religious teaching his child should receive. The law drives the child to these schools, no matter what the religious instruction is; but when my hon. friend claimed a voice for the parent these present champions of the parent went solidly into the lobby, wiping him out and treating the parent as one of those lay figures who are always introduced when they want to perpetrate a job for their own class.
MR. DILLON: The whole Radical Party voted for the parent then.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I agree.
MR. DILLON: I do not mention this by way of reproach, but as a compliment.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: The hon. Member is a keen debater, and I am

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coming to that point by-and-by. But the attitude of the present champions of the parent among the Opposition simply came to this. Do you want to do something for the landlord? Not at all; it is the poor farmer. For the brewer? Not at all; it is the poor suffering publican. Is it a Bill for the clergy? Not at all; it is the poor parent. These excuses are always trotted out on these occasions for the purpose of controversy; but when you apply to them a genuine test what becomes of them? They disappear. The right hon. Gentleman did not talk much about the parent then. He will do so now because it suits his purpose. The right hon. Member for Dover cries "Clause 9." But that is a clause saying that if thirty parents make a demand they can have schools set up. He forgets the whole of the clause, however, for the words are added, "subject to educational efficiency and economy." Rates first, the conscience of the parent comes last. Clause 9, indeed, is our case. We say that educational efficiency and economy forbid the possibility of experimenting wholesale in denominational instruction in this country. I recollect an application made under the late. Government by Churchmen in Merioneth. Their application was rightly refused, for they were told that if they took thirty children from the village school they would destroy the efficiency of the school. You cannot go on keeping two schools in a little village whore there are only 100 children altogether, and, therefore, it was right for the Department to say that educational efficiency and economy must come first. The late Government recognised that the thing was absolutely unworkable. If you have a frankly denominational system you must give the same right to every denomination. But the assumption is made that no one holds dogmas except the Church of England and the Roman Catholics. You have to assume, however, that the Nonconformists have dogmas and that they differ one from the other, though it is also assumed that you can lump their dogmas together. But Nonconformists have their sects and dogmas which divide them.
LORD R. CECIL: Has the right hon. Gentleman never heard of the Free Church Cathechism?
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: That is a catechism which I believe members of the Church of England are glad to teach in many cases where there is a Church majority on the council schools, in Liverpool for instance. But there, again, the inference from the interruption of the noble Lord is that, although we pretend to have dogmas that divide us, after all, what does it matter? It is only the difference between you and us that matters. The real chasm is between Dives and Lazarus, which you cannot bridge over; it is between the Church and Nonconformity. That is an assumption with a touch of arrogance in it. The Nonconformist sects have given the best pledge in the world as to the sincerity of their belief in their own individual dogmas. There is as great a sectarian patriotism among them as there is in the Church of England. What have they done? It is not easy to be a Nonconformist and to stand to your dogma in the rural villages. What is the state of the rural villages in England? All the people upon whom your living depends go to the village church. Two or three big members of the community may, and often do, make life intolerable for you. That is not a matter for amusement, but a pretty serious fact. Who, as a rule, are those who attend Nonconformist places of worship? They are generally artisans and labourers. [Cries of "And farmers."] Yes, in Wales the farmers. At any rate the powerful people of these villages as a rule are members of the Church of England, and the others know very well, when they pass the village church to their own little chapel, that they are offending people who can ruin their prosperity. I can give cases in Wales where they have done so. I am speaking of what I know, but I do not wish to enter upon that. No man goes to a Nonconformist place of worship unless he really has a great attachment to the organisation and the doctrines that are taught there. Well, now, what right has anyone to assume that the dogmas of the powerful Chuch matter everything in the world and that the dogmas of the poor despised chapel do not count? "What does it matter?" you say. "Lump them into a Free Church Catechism." I contend that if you give a right to any one denomination you must give it to all
EARL PERCY: Why not?
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Because of Clause 9, and economy and efficiency to begin with. Has the noble Lord ever studied the educational problem in a little rural district? Suppose you have three or four sects there, as in the case of a parish in Merioneth, with a population of 500, that came up for investigation. There were two schools there, one denominational and the other undenominational, the larger having only thirty-two children in it. There you have the expense doubled. You have two headmasters; two separate equipments; and instead of getting one fairly good man, you get two underpaid men. Yet it is only by lumping all the Nonconformists together that you get no more than two schools. Suppose that each Nonconformist sect had a separate school
EARL PERCY: Why should they have separate schools?
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Why should a Nonconformist have a right to anything, except to pay the rates and make the rents? It is their business to obey the law, and it is the business of the Anglican to make it and profit by it. Why should not the Methodists and the Congregationalists have their own schools as well as the Anglicans? From a sectarian point of view it would be an advantage to them. They are a poor community, and it would be a great thing for them to have a trained and educated man with leisure to look after the Sunday school, to be church secretary, to play the organ, and to organise the evening meetings. It is only because they are sufficiently patriotic—;[Cries of "Oh."] Yes; Merioneth has rated itself for education a great deal higher than any other county in the kingdom. It has built more schools and spent more money; and its secondary schools, which it was not bound to rate itself for, are in greater proportion than in any other county. The Nonconformists saw that if each sect claimed a school of its own educational efficiency would be destroyed It is bad enough to divide a little community of children, who will have to work together when they grow up, into two antagonistic camps. The case is not like that of Holland, where practically you have two
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great sects—;the Calvinists and the Catholics—;or like parts of Germany, where you have Lutherans and Catholics side by side. It is not like Quebec. There the problem would be easy. But here there is only one way, and that is having some sort of common school for all sects; for above all the business of the State is not to bring up sectarians, but to train up good citizens, and the only way to do that is by having good schools.
We say that the best solution is a common syllabus. I recognise the Catholic difficulty. But first of all as to the objections of the Church of England, or of certain sections of the Church, to a common syllabus. They say that Cowper-Temple religion is Nonconformist religion. To say that is simply to ignore the whole history of the Cowper-Temple clause. Who forced the Cowper-Temple clause into an Act of Parliament? Churchmen, against the protests of all the Nonconformist leaders who wanted secular education. I think that Churchmen were right, and that this action is to their credit and glory. Who forced Bible teaching into practically every board school election in England and Wales? The Anglican Church; and again I think the Church was right, and that the Nonconformists were wrong. But, at any rate, it was the Church that did it. Take Birmingham. They beat the Nonconformist leaders there, and forced Bible instruction on the schools. In London, Liverpool, Manchester, and gradually even in Wales they got Bible-teaching introduced. They have beaten secularism. They have fought tenaciously for religious instruction, for Cowper-Temple teaching in the schools. They cannot turn round now—;and the majority of Churchmen do not—;and say, "This is Nonconformity. This is not our religion. The Bible! That is not our Book." [Cries of "Oh!"] Well, they cannot have it both ways, It is they who have forced it into the syllabus of our schools. Nearly every syllabus in England has been drafted by Churchmen. I do not believe you can produce 20 per cent. of the syllabuses that were not prepared by Churchmen. They have prepared them in London and most of the great school boards; and in Wales there is hardly a case where the parish clergyman has not sat upon the committee and agreed with the Nonconformists in the

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preparation of the syllabus. Who teaches the syllabus? Two-thirds of the teachers are Churchmen. I ask hon. Gentlemen, who challenge these syllabuses as if they were Nonconformist catechisms, can they point out a single syllabus in England or Wales where there is a line that is repugnant to the conscience of Churchmen? Can they point to a single syllabus in which anything is taught that is contrary to any dogma of the Church of England? That is more than they can say for the catechism, which is a denominational book. But there is this to be said about the Cowper-Temple religion as it is called. It is Protestant. I was struck very much by the speech of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, who read a striking document stating the position of Catholics towards religion, and their views of the Bible and the Protestant doctrine of freedom of judgment. But is that the attitude of Churchmen towards the Bible and freedom of judgment? The Bishop of Birmingham treats the Bible as a sort of creation of the Church. But that is not the attitude of Anglicans generally. The vast majority take the Protestant view; but you have a position which seems almost irreconcilable. If the Anglican Communion would frankly take its place at the head of Protestantism in England there would be no difficulty to be solved. There is not a part of the Empire or of the world where it does not, except here. What happens in Canada? There you frankly divide the community into Protestant and Catholic. The Anglican registers himself as a Protestant invariably, together with the Wesleyan, the Presbyterian, the Baptist, and the Congregationalist. The whole trouble comes from the fact that there are many Churchmen who repudiate this Protestant association; and there is a touch of meanness in it; for it makes the position of the Catholic, whose position is irreconcilable with Cowper-Templeism, exceedingly difficult. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to imagine that this Bill was a monstrous attack upon the Church because we cannot recognise that each sect should be established. It seems to me that sectarian differences are largely artificial in Protestant churches. It is perfectly true that there was a time when these dogmas did represent the real differences, but the fences have become decayed and
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there is a good deal more intercourse now in the matter of doctrine than in the old days, and the real difference in the Protestant Church is not a difference between one sect and another but a difference between the advanced theologian and the one who sticks by the old ideas. The difference is really the same as you get in politics; it is the difference you get in politics between the Liberal and the Conservative—;the difference between the man who progresses and—
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Which is the man who progresses?
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: The right hon. Gentleman is asking me to embark upon a subject which I really dare not. He can pick theologians from half-a-dozen denominations and say that those represent one class of thought, not because they belong to one sect, but because they represent the views of one class of theology—;call it advanced theology, or revolutionary theology, if you like, but at all events, it represents the difference between Liberal and Conservative schools of thought. I will take three men who differ absolutely about this Bill, namely, the Bishop of Birmingham, Canon Hen-son, and Dr. Clifford. If you set these three theologians to write a manual for a school for the religious training of the children you would probably find that there is very little difference between them. I have no doubt that when my statement comes to their knowledge they will all repudiate it. Therefore, there is no real division upon this question between denominations, because the fences have been broken down. There would be no difficulty in the matter if you had a clearly defined issue between the sects upon matters of doctrine and dogma, but you have not got it. What the right hon. Gentleman sees in England is only part of a general movement which occurs in every democratic country in the world. There are three great democratic countries, namely, America, France, and England. What do you see in France? It is a great Catholic country, and what have they done with the schools? What have they done with the established Catholic religion? [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: The Freemasons have done it.] They had an election fought there substantially upon the same issue—;the issue of clericalism. What happened there?

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Exactly the same thing as in a Protestant country. Go to America. That is a country to which Catholics flee from the tyranny of denominational countries like Germany and this country. They go to America for liberty. What do they get there in denominational instruction? They would not get a four-fifths clause. America would not look at it.
AN HON. MEMBER: They have separate schools for that.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: Not quite. They read the Bible in the schools there and there was an increasing demand for it. There is the same thing here. It is part of a great movement. Democracy has come to the conclusion that clericalism is its enemy. It is no use saying that this is hatred towards an individual Church. It is the instinct of three great democratic peoples moving in the same direction towards what they believed to be real liberty of conscience and the only guarantee for continuity of liberty of conscience. I am not minimising the issue. There is a great issue between us which we cannot, I fear, bridge over. What is it? There are things we agree upon. We agree that education is not merely the training of the intellect and the cramming of the mind with knowledge. We agree that it is the business of the State also to train and discipline the conscience. There is a great common ground for agreement. I think there is agreement that this can be done on the basis of Christian morality. But where we differ is this: We differ on the question of whether it is necessary in order to teach Christian ethics to a child to inculcate the doctrine of any sect. That is the difference. It is the position taken by the people of this country. I think it is a definite and clear stand they have taken, fully realising what they are doing. It is wonderful how the instinct of the people has been guided between the two extremes through the whole of this controversy for thirty years. First of all, the secular solution. They rejected it. Then came the other extreme, the right hon. Gentleman's Bill—;extreme sectarianism. They rejected that. But the people have made up their minds to take their stand and to rally round the Bible. They are anxious that it should be placed in the hands of their children, believing
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that acquaintance with its contents will make those children better men and better women. Not only that, but that its principles will help to bring about a better condition of things for them to live in than their parents ever knew. The true parental demand is this: that no ecclesiastic or politician should be allowed to stand between the child and the light of the great Book which saved England from darkness, and which will continue to illumine the gloom that oppresses human life, after the last sect shall have vanished from the scene.
SIR WILLIAM ANSON: The right hon. Gentleman has told the House generally what he considers is the solution of the educational problem of the present day. I had hoped to have heard from him a somewhat detailed defence of a Bill which, if one might judge from the debate of last night, needs a good deal of defence not only from the attacks of the Opposition, but also from the nominal supporters of the Government. The Bill no doubt offers many points of attack, and I think the attack of yesterday was hardly adequately met by the very general and very interesting discussion on the state of theological opinion in this country, in Europe and in America, which we have heard from the President of the Board of Trade. This Bill, unlike the measure of 1902, can hardly be said to be an Education Bill. The Bill of 1902 was an Education Bill. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh, oh"] It was a great scheme for bringing education of every type and kind under the control of the local authority in every area. To put it in two or three words, it was a Bill for municipalising education. The House occupied many months in discussing not the great features of the Bill, but the terms under which the voluntary schools were to come into this system. I am happy to think that the great structure created by the Act of 1902 will be left intact, although modifications will no I doubt be made in this Bill before it becomes law as to the terms under which the voluntary schools are to exist. The Act of 1902 was attacked last night and to-day. It was attacked last night because it conferred privileges. I deny that the Act of 1902 conferred any I privileges whatever. It is said that it conferred privileges on the Church of England by making certain requirements

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on the teachers. The Act of 1902 imposed no tests on the teacher, and imposed no requirements of any such character on the teacher. It imposed no sectarian disabilities. What disabilities were imposed on the teacher were the result of trust deeds which the Act of 1902 did much to relax. The trust deeds in many of the schools required that all the teachers should be members of the Church of England. The Act of 1902 left it to the managers to employ the teachers of other denominations, except in the case of the head teacher and always subject to the interests of the child. It was said last night that the Act of 1902 conferred privileges on the training colleges. The Act of 1902 did nothing for the training colleges in the way of privilege. Training colleges built by the denominations continued to receive after 1902 the grants they received before then, and there was absolutely no obligation laid upon any local authority to give rate aid to any denominational college. We have heard yesterday and to-day questions as to how far the Act of 1902 dealt satisfactorily with the single school areas in regard to the rights of parents in those areas. I think my right hon. friend the Member for the City will admit that the single school area presented difficulties which were not adequately solved by the Act of 1902. But what was the proposed solution of the then Opposition? It was that one or two parents should be chosen for the board of management by the parents of all the other children attending school in the area. The objection to that was, that in the first instance it created the difficulty of a shifting constituency and of discovering who were the parents entitled to vote. In the next place there is always great difficulty in getting a constituency of this sort to vote when its votes are required. In the school board elections there were seldom 50 per cent. and sometimes barely 25 per cent. of the voters who went to the poll. It was very difficult also to get people to manage these rural schools, and when the right hon. Gentleman gave a description of the inadequate management of a rural school in which the clergyman was an ex officio manager under the trust deed, and the great landowner acted with him, I could not help thinking that he must be very little familiar with the process of managing the rural schools, at any rate in a great part of England. The
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Act of 1902 was an Education Act. This is an Omnibus Act. It is the work evidently of many hands and of many influences. I see in one part the work of the Free Church Council; in another part the National Union of Teachers; and in another again the Welsh Party, Here and there, no doubt, education furtively creeps in, and the President of the Board of Education may be observed as having had some influence in the composition of the Bill. But I maintain that this is an Omnibus Bill and not an Education Bill. It deals with education here and there as affected by various political influences thoughout the country.
Then we are told that the Bill is the result of a mandate. If anything was before the electors of this country it was I suppose a mandate to secure complete popular control of the schools, and the abolition of tests for teachers. I am not aware from the answers given to my right hon. friend to-day that any tests for teachers which were in existence before are abolished by this Bill, but when we are told of a mandate, surely it is not so very long ago that the Government invited us here to assent to a proposition that the issue before the country at the general election was the issue of free trade. Nothing then was said, of any other topic such as this topic of elementary education. I am bound to say that, although I have no doubt that political Nonconformists and the Teachers' Union did in places exercise their influence and did endeavour to secure the return of Members who would vote for the two issues described, if the Education Act of 1902 had any serious influence on the election that influence was due not to what is called its sectarian character, but owing to the increase in the rate which it involved thoughout the country.
Let me deal with one or two of the salient features of the Bill. Before I pass to the matter which is more pertinent to the Bill, I will say that the right hon. Gentleman has told us something about the Welsh council. What he tolls us is that the council is entirely subject to Parliament. I suppose there is no institution in the United Kingdom or the Empire which is not subject to the Imperial Parliament, and I do not think that anyone of us supposed that the Crown, Lords, and Commons could not take

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up, recast, abolish, or alter in any way the proposed council for Wales. What I do want to know is who is to be responsible for the action of this council? The powers and duties of the Board of Education and of the Board of Agriculture are to be handed over to it.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: The council takes over the education powers of the Board of Agriculture.
SIR WILLIAM ANSON: I never supposed that the council would deal with agriculture except in regard to education. I really think that the right hon. Gentleman might have understood my remark, because it was obvious what the meaning was. All those powers are to be handed over to the council. The money which the Board of Education receives for educational purposes in Wales is to be handed over to the council, and what I want to know is this. Supposing this Welsh council does some act which may be considered an injustice, or is guilty of some neglect of duty, or any of the local authorities subject to it commits some breach of duty, or any educational vagary occurs which may disturb persons interested in education in this House, to whom are we to refer? Are we to refer to the President of the Board of Trade? The one person to whom we should not refer is the President of the Board of Education; he will have done his duty when he has handed over the money. He cannot take it back or control its use. He can smile in the presence of inquiry if the taxpayer wonders how the money has gone, or if it is an educationist who wants to know something of the education which is being given. Where is the responsibility for the action of this council? I may say in passing that, fully as I recognise the importance of what is called co-ordination of all branches of education in Wales, I believe there is nothing that can be done by this council which could not have been done under the Act of 1902 by means of a joint Committee of the various local authorities.
Another small point is the abolition of the register. The abolition of the register involves great hardship which I think is hardly recog-
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nised by this House. Students have for the last four years been qualifying for this register at some cost of time and money, and they have deferred the commencement of their professional career in order to qualify for it. I understand from an Answer given by the President of the Board of Education before Easter that the conditions of the register are offensive to the elementary teacher. The elementary teacher is to be considered because of the political influence of the Teachers Union, but the students, many of whom are women, are comparatively insignificant. We know that some of these young students will suffer if the register is to go. The President of the Board of Education was good enough to tell me the other day, when I asked what compensation was to be given to the poor teachers who had given their time and money in vain, that the knowledge and experience which they had acquired ought to be compensation. Suppose that the right hon. Gentleman's constituency at Bristol were disfranchised, would it be any consolation to him to be told that the political experience he had acquired contesting the seat and the advantages which he had enjoyed in informing himself on educational subjects during the time he had been in this House ought to be compensation? I think that this goes beyond a reasonable use of the saying that virtue is, or ought to be, its own reward.
I pass over the question of trusts in Part II. because that was dealt with by my right hon. friend the Member for Dover. I will only say that it is a matter which will have to be looked into very carefully in the Committee stage, because there is an element in the Bill which excites suspicion as to the mode in which denominational endowments may be treated. The constitution of the Commission in Section 8 of the Bill and the conditions under which it is to work make us naturally anxious as to how trusts are to be dealt with under the Bill. The action of this Commission is of immense importance to all the voluntary schools, or the greater part of them The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said yesterday that the voluntary schools would be certain to get denominational facilities, for that was provided under the Bill.

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That is not provided under the Bill. There is nothing compulsory in the clauses which deal with denominational facilities except this, that those facilities are not to be given for more than two days in the week, and that they are not to be given by the recognised teachers employed in the schools. As to that portion of the Bill, I really wonder that any Government should have put such a disability on the teacher in a Bill brought forward on a serious occasion such as this. Here are teachers qualified to teach the children and willing to teach, and because they are the recognised teachers of the school they are to be kept clear of denominational teaching. Really I call that a piece of meanness, I might almost say spite, and I shall look forward with a melancholy interest to see how it is to be defended by the President of the Board when that portion of the Bill comes on for discussion. But these facilities are the result of an arrangement, and the local authority may make an arrangement by agreement and can alone initiate such an arrangement, and you must remember that many thousands of the voluntary schools are held under trust, and that many of those trusts are trusts for educational purposes coupled with the proviso that the education is to be given in accordance with the principles of the Church of England. The whole chance of an arrangement to carry out the purposes of the trust must depend on the action of the Commission. What are the powers of the Commission? Their exercise depends on the initiative of the local education authority, which is anxious to make an arrangement convenient to itself. What are the powers of the Board of Education as regards these schemes, apart from the Commission? If a scheme were framed under the Charitable Trusts Acts, there would be an appeal to the Chancery Division and thence to the House of Lords; and if a scheme were framed under the Endowed Schools Acts there would be an appeal to the Privy Council and to Parliament; if under the Education Act of 1870, enlarged as it was by the Endowed Schools Act, there was no appeal, but then the Board could only act on the initiative of the persons interested in the endowment. This Commission has to act on the initiative of the local authority, and there is to be no appeal whatever. Now, what may happen,
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supposing the Commission choose to construe a trust as providing that education was to be given in accordance with the principles of the Church of England; that the Bill made it impossible to do so; but that they were bound to give elementary education; they could then take the school on their own terms. Does the Government seriously propose, first of all, by the artificial process of the enactments in the Bill, to cheapen the article they want to procure and then to take it on their own terms? There is a very broad hint in the Bill that that is the course that they could take. If that is to be the construction of these trust deeds by this Commission, then I say good-bye to facilities in thousands of cases? At the best, supposing such facilities are given, the Bill is tainted with inequality. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade described the various difficult ecclesiastical, social, and economic questions which were involved in any solution of this question; and to judge from his speeches here and elsewhere it would seem that the difficulty was insoluble. But the Bill now before the House proposed to solve it by indicating one sort of teaching and one sort only to be paid for out of the rates. I ask what sort, and is it provided in the Bill? It is most curious that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said that Cowper-Temple teaching was provided in the Bill and the President of the Board of Education said that the Cowper-Temple Clause provided for the teaching of the common principles of Christianity. I want to know whether there is any security that anything of that sort will be taught under the provisions of this Bill. As regards the teaching, the Bill proposes to solve the question by endowing one sort of teaching only out of the rates. I ask what sort of teaching, if any? We know perfectly well that in many parts of Wales no religion of any sort is given, and 1 believe that it is in an increasing number of schools, and more particularly in South Wales.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: It is decreasing.
SIR WILLIAM ANSON: I am glad to hear it; but where no religious teaching is given the parent is helpless and I could take the right hon. Gentleman to

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a parish in South Wales, where there are two schools and no religious teaching is given in the county council school, while religious teaching is given in the voluntary school, and the Nonconformist parents send their children past the county council school to the voluntary school rather than that they should have no religious instruction whatever. That means that the working classes of this country are averse to secular education; but in the rural districts they are to be left absolutely helpless if the local authorities choose to forbid the use of the Bible teaching. But supposing we have this Cowper-Temple teaching under the Bill, what does it come to? It is an absolute negation. If you look at the Cowper-Temple clause you will see that no religious formularies are to be used; but subject to this that any doctrine may be taught so long as it is not based on a catechism or formulary. Teaching in regard to the sacrament may be given which would satisfy the highest Catholic doctrine, or the Gospel story may be treated from the point of view of a Unitarian or an Agnostic. No doubt, there are good syllabuses of instruction, but we cannot rely on every local authority to provide good syllabuses. The existence of the admirable syllabus in Hampshire was no excuse for the absence of any religious teaching in the county of Carmarthen. Then we must consider that there are very potent influences on the side of the supporters of the Bill who desire that Bible teaching should be limited to Bible reading. Dr. Clifford, for instance, has maintained from time to time that the Bible should be read and that the teaching of the Bible should be given in a non-credal—;non-dogmatic form. That puts the Bible teaching on a lower footing than every other kind of teaching. Every other kind of teaching given to the child is dogmatic. The rules of grammar and of spelling are not matters of private judgment, nor is the multiplication table allowed to be regarded as a series of interesting probabilities. In Bible teaching alone everything is to be regarded as an open question. And that then we must remember that this sort of teaching is to be given in the voluntary schools which were built for the purpose that religious instruction should be given in accordance with the principles of a certain religious society—;Anglican, Roman Catholic, or what not; and these buildings
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are to be taken and diverted from those purposes for which they were founded, and devoted to a purpose which the hon. Member for Liverpool regards as absolutely hostile to the intentions of the founders, and which the hon. Member for Leicester regards as perfectly useless. Now, I say that the only mode of dealing with this question is to arrange for absolute equality among all denominations as provided for by the Act of 1902. There is no doubt that that is not the equality provided for by this Bill. I do not suppose that the warmest supporters of this Bill will deny that it violates the principle of equality, inasmuch as it takes the religious teaching which is satisfactory to a portion of the community and imposes it upon all. Clause 4 is anything but satisfactory to those who wish for really definite denominational religious instruction. It is precarious in its operation and depends upon the will of the local authority. The right may be taken away by a shifting population which elects the local authority who appoints the teacher. I admit that the teacher is given absolute freedom to decline to give religious teaching. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] An hon. Member says "Hear, hear," but if you employ a man to do a thing and he declines to do it while retaining his employment, I want to know whether the Bill consecrates a violation of contract? Then Clause 4 is not satisfactory to the hon. Member for Leicester and for a very good reason, Clause 4 does away with the one merit of the Cowper-Temple clause. The one merit of that clause was that it preserved the local authorities from internal dissensions as to the type of religious instruction which they should provide in their schools. Anyone who has served upon a county council when the question of a subscription to a voluntary school under construction comes up for discussion must know that the local authorities may spend hours of time and waste temper on the question whether they will grant this privilege to the four-fifths or not, and the subject will furnish material for irritating controversy at municipal elections. Then it is not satisfactory to the hon. Member for Louth, and so little is it satisfactory to him that he threatened the Government with a recrudescence of that form of martyrdom known as "passive resistance." I should

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be sorry to contemplate in the future any breach of the law by that very respectable body which the hon. Member for Louth represents, but I have no doubt I that if the law is broken the Government will take care to enforce it. I shall rejoice to see the President of the Board of Trade and his colleagues enforcing the law under the circumstances. I shall be inclined to remind him of a line which I remember from my classic studies—;
"Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes."
On the other hand, so satisfactory is this clause to some hon. Members that the hon. Member for North Camberwell wished to amend it and make it a necessary part of the duty of the local authority to carry out the clause, that is to say, the hon. Member for North Camberwell wished to put the friends of the hon. Member for Louth to the necessity of becoming "passive resisters," by enforcing the clause upon the different local authorities. I cannot think that Clause 4 redresses the real grievance created by the Bill, and I cannot think it will be a satisfactory topic of discussion among the local authorities of the country. I wish the Government joy of the result of their efforts to get rid of the useful and wholesome provisions of the Act of 1902.
I asked just now whether the local authority could call upon the teachers to give the teaching which is required with reference to the special circumstances of Clause 4, and I want to know what is the real meaning of the tests to be applied to teachers. I mentioned just now the provision of the trust deeds, which no doubt impose a disability upon head teachers in regard to appointments under them. Frankly, I am opposed to that limitation. All my life long I have been opposed to subscriptions or tests of any sort for holding office, but what we contested when we were discussing the Bill of 1902 was this, that the managers of the local authority were entitled to ask the teacher whether he or she could conscientiously give the religious teaching which was engaged to be given in the school. I am glad to know that that right will not now be withdrawn from the employer, but then I should like to know what is to become of the clause which is supposed to be the teacher's Magna Carta freeing him from all religious tests?
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But to turn to another side of this question, if the teacher need not teach, and if the parent need not send his child, during the hours for religious instruction, it is clear that religious instruction is to be placed very much in the background. The President of the Board of Education has said that, for the purposes of the law, school attendance is marked at the beginning of the time fixed for secular instruction. That is not so. School attendance begins at the time fixed for the opening of the school by the local authority. What the President was thinking of, perhaps, was that the Parliamentary grant is only given for secular instruction, and that secular instruction always begins after a reasonable time has been given for religious instruction, and the Board of Education will not sanction a by-law which does not leave time for religious instruction before or after secular instruction. Therefore I cannot understand what is meant by the clause which allows the parent to keep his child away. The President has said it was sanctioned by a by-law that was passed some years ago. That is not so. The parent is bound to send his child during the whole time that the school is open. But if the local authority or the managers are satisfied by the parent in writing that he intends to withdraw his child from religious instruction, then the child need only attend during the time for secular instruction. But this permission is only given where the parent desires the child to receive religious instruction elsewhere. As the law now stands it provides that the child shall be in school during all the school hours. Some years ago a local authority framed a by-law which defined no time for religious education, and only defined a time for secular education. I had some correspondence on the matter, and then I submitted it to Lord Londonderry, who decided that we could not allow a by-law to be passed which left no time for religious instruction. That is not merely a matter of passing interest, because we on this side shall absolutely insist that religious instruction shall be given during the regular school hours. It seems to me that the clause taking religious instruction out of the time of school hours is one of the worst features of the Bill. Something has been said as to the rights of the parents, and the hon. Member for

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Leicester said that the parent had no right in regard to the religious instruction of his child, and that the child had a right to demand the protection of the State if the parent imposed or required religious instruction of which the child disapproved. My impression is that if a child went to its parent with that view and expressed it, the matter would be settled otherwise than by argument. Dr. Clifford objects to the parent's having any voice in the matter as regards the religious education of his children under the four-fifths clause. He said the parent would be in the position of a plural voter. He would have a vote in the election of the local education authority, and then he wanted a further vote in regard to the religious education to be given in the school and that this would give him an undue privilege. That means, if it means anything, that the parent ought to have no rights whatever in regard to the religious instruction of his child. By-laws which have prevailed since the Act of 1870, approved by the Board of Education, give the parent the right to insist that religious instruction shall be given during the school hours, and to withdraw his child from religious instruction if the religious instruction given is not of the kind which he approves. We claim that he should have the opportunity of obtaining for his child the religious teaching which he desires. That will be insisted upon by the Opposition again and again during the progress of the Bill. I oppose the Bill, because it is a wanton interference with a settlement which is working well throughout the country, except where political efforts are made to disturb it, because it imposes injustices on denominations, and because it violates the right of the parent to decide as to the religious instruction of his child. The President of the Board of Education has said that minorities must suffer. I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for putting the matter so frankly. I understand then that the motto of the Nonconformist party is "the spoils to the victor." The right hon. Gentleman has given the Opposition an excellent weapon for improving their position in the country, and of ceasing to be a minority perhaps earlier than would have been the case if the Bill had not been introduced. But, minority or not, the struggle must go on. There is no peace in the Bill. The Opposition
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will endeavour to bring into every home in England the knowledge of the injustice and tyranny which the Bill proposes to inflict, and, though we may be beaten in this House or even in this Parliament, the struggle will not then be over. Few as we now are in the House I believe we shall win in the end, for our cause is the cause of liberty, justice, and right.
MR. ALFRED HUTTON: In opposing this Bill, the right hon. Baronet used very strong language. He spoke of the injustice and tyranny which he was going to combat. But I am not sure that the right hon Baronet, or any one else, will ever devise any Bill dealing with the religious difficulty that will not impose some injustice and tyranny on some denomination. The right hon. Baronet began his speech by trying to escape the charge made by my hon. friend the Member for North Camberwell that the Act of 1902 did work considerable injustice as between different denominations. All the injustices, whether they existed before 1902 or not, were magnified under the Act of that year by their being paid for out of the rates without full public control being given, and the right hon. Baronet tried to avoid the charge that when the late Government provided the expenses of these injustices, they ought to have provided for full control. Before I allude to the question of the religious difficulty, I should like to say that I am very sorry the Bill has not dealt more widely with the question of secondary education. The only thing it has done for secondary education is to remove the limit of twopence on the rates. We have, after all, had some experience of the movement of local authorities in the direction of secondary education, and I think a small extension might have been given, first of all by the removal of some of the conditions imposed by the Act of 1902, and secondly by enabling the local authority to obtain more control over the provided schools.
Another matter which I am sorry has not been more adequately dealt with in this Bill is the matter of administrative reform. Everyone who knows anything of the working of the county councils is aware of the difficulty of administering the Act of 1902. We are told that by that

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Act we have municipalised education. At all events, we have officialised it. Teachers are now subject to bombardment by circulars which are so frequent that it is impossible for them to keep up with the instructions they receive, and they are visited by inspectors so numerous that it is almost impossible for them to remember the instructions It is important that some new authority should be established which should have the management of the schools, and which should be able to take some amount of responsibility for the administration of education over the area. There is the further omission, that I must mention, to deal with teachers' training colleges. The Minister for Education is probably aware that during the course of the debates on the Bill of 1902, those of us who were attacking the Government at the time came near to defeating the then Government on the question of the training colleges and the abolition of tests in the training colleges. We received on that occasion most generous treatment from the House, and at that time the House was willing to take a considerable step in that direction. I think it is right that with regard to that, something should be done in this Bill. It is most desirable that in some way the question of the training and the probation of teachers should be brought within the four corners of this Bill, that we should have some opportunity of discussing it, that we should not merely be told that the county council will do all that is necessary and that we are to leave it to them, with the certain knowledge that nothing will be done.
The proposals of this Bill have been attacked in two directions. They have been attacked in the first place because they establish a new religion. I am surprised that that attack should have come from hon. Gentlemen opposite. They say it is a tyranny to establish a new religion. But if it is a tyranny to establish a new religion, I do not see that it is not tyranny to continue to maintain an old religion. In the second place, they attack the Bill because of what they call the confiscation of property. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover, who opened the attack upon the Bill, demanded two things. He demanded, in the first place, that the State should be
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neutral towards all denominations in the interests of religious liberty, and, in the second place, that all denominations should have equal treatment and should above all be provided with some amount of State support. I say the State cannot be neutral towards all denominations where it is providing the opportunity and the means by which each denomination is to carry on its religious teaching. The only way in which it can be neutral is to have nothing whatever to do with any denomination, but to let each go its own way and provide its own means to carry on its religious teaching. The second demand is from all the supporters of the Act of 1902, and the argument is that we shall move further in the direction of concurrent endowments. It must be obvious to everybody who has made a study of religious endowments that concurrent endowment is by no means the same thing as religious liberty. In endowing each religion you are bound to do some injustice, and directly you work injustice you are establishing grievances and hardships; you are preserving not the interests of religion but the interests of denominations and sects. I believe if this House were to take any further stop in the direction of concurrent endowments we should meet with the same result as the late Government in their Act of 1902. When the extreme view of concurrent endowments was put before the people, it was condemned by the country at large. Obviously, unless the principle of concurrent endowments is carried to its logical conclusion, it is bound to end in injustice, and as we cannot carry that principle to its logical conclusion, the President of the Board of Education has endeavoured to find another solution. He proposes to divide the country into Protestants and Catholics. I do not think he will succeed. The four-fifths clause does not carry that out now, and by his own proposals the right hon. Gentleman does not draw the line of demarcation between the Protestants and Catholics, which he admits would be the logical conclusion, but says that if one section of the Catholics of England choose to say that they do not accept what is called simple Bible teaching, that it is offensive to their consciences, then it is a matter of justice on the part of the State not to press it. But the only alternative is that the State shall hold its hand in the case of all denominational teaching. It is

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very extraordinary to me that the right hon. Gentleman should have changed his mind. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that if the Nonconformists who stood in 1870 for secular education had stood out we should never have heard of the Act of 1902, and we should never have been in the position in which we are to-day. The right hon. Baronet spoke of there being no peace in this Bill. I do not myself believe there is peace in it, and I do not know that any Bill which insists upon denominational teaching in the schools will ever bring peace to the Government and the administration. Only one result can come from all these controversies, and that is that the State shall say that secular education shall hold the day. I may, I know, in saying this, be accused of religious indifference. Lord Hugh Cecil made many appeals to the Nonconformists to fight the religious indifference of the day, but I venture to say that the question will not be fought out by Churchmen and Nonconformists standing together to fight it out in the schools. If religious indifference exists to-day it exists largely because the parent can throw his responsibility very largely on the shoulders of the State official in the schools. If parents had been made to feel their responsibilities in this matter from 1870 onward we should not have to fight this question today. The hon. Member for North Camber-well, replying last night to the hon. Member for Leicester, said that if we had secular education the result would be that thousands of children would go without religious teaching. They might for a short time. But is not that the opportunity of the Church? I believe the throwing by the parents of their responsibility in this matter upon the State and the local authorities to be the cause of the religious indifference of to-day. No; we are going to fight it, as the President of the Board of Trade says, by a great rally round the Bible. We are to have this rally round the Bible, and we are to have this Bible teaching in all the schools. Clause 4 will be a big price to give. When I heard my right hon. friend on the First Reading I thought that Clause 4 would be a clause that could be accepted by us with the intention of enabling the Government to get over a very difficult situation. But what kind of reception has it received? I am bound to say that the reception it has
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received at the hands of those for whom it was made has changed the view of a very great many Nonconformists, and many who were favourable at first have had their opinions very considerably changed. I know, in regard to the teacher, at any rate, many would make a very determined fight in order to remove the test which is bound to be imposed on the teacher in order that the intention of Clause 4 should be carried through. If it were to bring peace even for ten years I would accept the clause as it stands, but if the clause is to become mandatory it would change my view and that of many of my friends, and I cannot conceive that any Government would add to their difficulties, as they necessarily would, by making Clause 4 not optional but obligatory. Many Nonconformists who would take every opportunity of meeting legitimate claims, if they were allowed to do it at their own free will, would never accept such a clause as this if made obligatory. All these claims are based upon what? We are asked to accept now the indefeasable and inalienable right of the parent to have his children taught in his own religion—;yes, but at the public expense. When did this right become a natural right? In the first place, it is not a historic right of the Church of England. It is certainly not a historic right of the Roman Catholic Church. Neither of these two churches have ever taught that. It has certainly not been a historic doctrine of either church that the parents had a right to bring their children to be taught religion at the expense of the State. We admit the right of the parent to teach his children religion at his own expense, but there is no such natural right to have them taught religion at the expense of the State. We have only had free education since about the year 1890, and it was not until then thought that it was the natural right of the parent to have instruction at the entire expense of the State, and certainly that did not include religious education. If this claim is to be insisted upon we must have some justification for it. I have often heard the claim made, but I have never heard an argument in its favour. I have said that I do not think this Bill if it becomes an Act is likely to be a permanent settlement, but I do think it is a great and valuable step towards the final settlement

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of this question, and I can only conclude by expressing my firm conviction that the difficulty can never be finally settled so long as secular education is allowed to be mixed up with religious teaching. Ultimately that settlement will have to come. In the meantime I think this Bill will make a very considerable step forward.
MR. BLAKE: I may excuse myself for addressing the House by saying that I happen to have had a somewhat prolonged experience upon this subject. For forty sessions in three Legislatures in different countries I have witnessed and taken some part in the discussion of problems which arise in their concrete form by the association of a Protestant majority with a Roman Catholic minority. Long ago I found and took my ground upon general principles, and having adhered to that ground I was rather pained when I heard from the lips of the Minister of Education the other day a statement with reference to the rights of minorities which I am afraid was susceptible of another, and what seemed to me in the connection in which he used it the natural and obvious interpretation. Speaking of the question between Roman Catholics and Jews, it might be, and the various Protestant denominations, he said—;
"All minorities must suffer. It is the badge of their tribe."
Well, Sir, some suffering may sometimes be inevitable in the carrying out of some measure of great public policy which the majority of the nation believes to be essential to its progress or its existence. That suffering ought as far as possible to be avoided, but for my part my belief is as I expressed it twenty years ago in a Protestant community, somewhat different from the tone and the sentiment of the right hon. Gentleman. I may venture to quote it because it represents the ground I took long before, which I have maintained ever since, and which I hold to-day—;
"Being strong we ought to be what the strong should always be, generous to the weak; measure full, heaped up and running over, is the measure to be given by the strong to the weak; and by so acting we will exemplify true Christian principles; we will exemplify true Liberal principles; we will do our best for the promotion or true Christianity, and for the spread of the Gospel."
Those are the general views with which I approach all questions of this descrip-
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tion. This is an English Bill and we are concerned here mainly for Irish Catholics who have brought with them, from the country from which they sprang, sad traditions of those evil days to which I have referred, and who are naturally jealous to the last degree of their religious rights, and suspicious of any interference with them. I say that is a natural jealousy; it is a natural suspicion; it is a jealousy and a suspicion which you ought to respect, and as far as possible avert in the course of your legislation. They know what interference brought them in the past, and this feeling is in their blood and you must not quarrel with them; you must not be impatient with them; you must rather be anxious in the future to give them no excuse or pretence for imputing evil motives about what you do to-day. Do your part and do it in such a form that you may help to obliterate those sad memories, and create in them a confidence that you will respect their convictions. Those in the country of the Irish race, for whom we speak, are mainly of the poor and lowly. They are of the toilers whose share of this world's goods is small, and perhaps for that reason they look to joys that are to come. Now I will make no attempt to deal extensively with them, or to touch at all upon some of the topics which are to be debated on this Bill. I would say with regard to an observation made by the hon. Member who preceded me, that he seemed to have somewhat forgotten, in his declamation against parental rights to have some voice in the education of their children, that that education has been made compulsory by the State, and he seemed to have forgotten that after all a parent is a member of the State—;that he contributes to the taxes of the State, that he contributes to the rates and that it is out of his taxes and his rates that the State is maintaining the system of education, whatever it may be, which is made compulsory upon that parent. He does not call for a subsidy, but claims that he shall be assisted to perform the duty which the State has made compulsory and which the State has undertaken to perform according to its own fashion. In the debate of 1902 my hon. friend the Member for East Mayo made a courageous and memorable speech. He then pointed out that as an inevitable consequence of that measure a share of the public control would be demanded

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and would be obtained as the result of the system of public and compulsory education propounded in the Bill. The hon. Member for East Mayo proposed an Amendment in that direction, but his voice was not listened to by those in whose interests the Bill of 1902 was passed; but, nevertheless, his voice spoke the truth, for we are now face to face with the position which has been rendered inevitable by concrete facts. A situation was created by the Bill of 1902 which has to be met and dealt with to-day, and, therefore, the hon. Member for East Mayo's view has so far been verified. It is, however, not so much that simple proposition, but the extent and the character and the methods of interference and the inadequacy of the safeguards in respect of which we believe the Bill is fundamentally vicious and will trench unwarrantably on the rights of the minority for whom we speak. I am going to confine my remarks to some of the aspects of Clause 4 and the alteration to a compulsory form which the right hon. Gentleman deprecated most emphatically while at the same time he averred that he did not believe it would make a difference in a single school, which meant that in every school area the clause would be put into operation. If it would be put into operation voluntarily what object is there in making that clear and plain which is going to happen everywhere? That is what Parliament shall be—;the law. We are strongly of opinion that it is essential to the security of that minority, which in various parts of the country will have to fight these battles under the protection of this clause, that that protection should be made absolutely operative. We believe this to be no loss important to the whole community. We believe that to leave the question whether that clause should come into force or not to the judgment of each council or local authority, which under this clause is to exercise judgment upon the question, would be to throw into the hands of the bigots and zealots, and those who delight in religious controversy, a firebrand ready to hand to be used for local purposes in local elections, and this would create difficulties of all descriptions. Nothing could be more injurious to the peace of those communities than to leave this as a wholly permissive clause. In my own country of Canada, after struggles of the most desperate character, involving
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the greatest extremity of bitterness between religious denominations, and disturbing the general peace and progress of the country and all political combinations, I rejoice that an agreement was made between those two provinces under which the overwhelming Catholic majority of one province agreed to respect the rights and dissensions of the majority by making equal laws for each. It was agreed that that should be made a fundamental element of the constitution. I agree that there are not the same elements of finality here as in Canada; but such elements of finality as you have you had better use, and the first of those elements is to determine the initial question, and to say that in cases in which you determine that there ought to be the right given in certain circumstances it shall be given. There is the suggested objection that there may be on some of the local committees cranks who will object, but whatever strength there is in that argument is infinitesimal compared with the evil of sending it as a firebrand to the country, and the bitter struggles which what you have proposed will create. Do what you think is right, and if you think this is not a right clause then reject it; but if you think it is right and just to the Roman Catholic minority that there should be such a provision, then use all your power to enact it. The view which the President of the Board of Education expressed in introducing this Bill rather added to than relieved my disquietude when the clause was read first, because he said—;
"I admit it is asking these minorities to trust in the generosity, the equitableness and the fair-mindedness of the local authority."
I daresay in many cases that will be justified, but I know not how far those other complications to which I have referred may arise. The right hon. Gentleman said—;
"Public opinion would resent any obstructive withholding of the permissive privilege."
What public opinion? The public opinion of the locality? If so, then the difficulty would not arise. Does he mean the public opinion of the country at large to be made operative by discussion in this House and another Act of Parliament? We know the difficulty of jessing an Act of Parliament to protect a Catholic minority against a Protestant majority, and it would not be very

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readily operative. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say—;
"But they might truly say that it is left to their judgment even in the case of a four-fifths majority, whether or no; and therefore in canvassing, in election, in discussion, each rural area has this question in its own hands."
The right hon. Gentleman also pointed out that although he believed in justice and generosity, that the question was really in their own hands, and that it was for them in their own individual cases and with reference to their own community to judge and to decide. Those difficulties that I felt and which I now entertain have been assuaged in one sense by the right hon. Gentleman's speech to the Jewish deputation, in which he said—;
"Assuming the provisions of Clause 4, with reference to non-provided schools, to be illusory (and of course if they were illusory they would be a fraud) the Jewish body would benefit more largely than any other body; but it was pointed out that it was not a complete protection because it was not obligatory on the local authority to ascertain the facts."
So far the right hon. Gentleman is accurate. The right hon. Gentleman has imposed the duty upon the local authorities to make local inquiry for the purpose of ascertaining the facts, namely, the percentage of persons of one persuasion as compared with another.
"If four-fifths of the parents of the children desire facilities it was an obligation upon the local authorities,"
These are ambiguous words; I do not know what obligation the right hon. Gentleman means.
"Of course, the local authority, if so minded might disregard the fair intention and the nature, and obstinately hold aloof from doing anything further."
Now, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman acknowledges that may happen. He has described his interpretation of the statute. If it is the fair intention of the statute that in any case in which the conditions prescribed by Clause 4 are found to exist the local authority shall agree, then what is the difficulty in saying that they shall agree?
"He would take care that their view that a statutory obligation should be imposed upon the local authority to do its duty was put before his colleagues."
And he went on to point out that there was some difficulty in dealing with local authorities and that he did not know what the remedy would be, and so on. If the right hon. Gentlemen, with all the
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authority he has and all the authority with which he may ask Parliament to invest him—;if this Imperial Parliament is unable to deal with the local authorities, how does he expect the poor Roman Catholics to deal with the Protestant majority in the locality affected? Then the right hon. Gentleman said—;
"It was hard to believe that any great local authority could be so bigoted as to disregard this statutory duty, he would not say obligation, imposed upon them for the education of the country."
Well, if it is a statutory duty, let us make it plain it is a statutory duty; that is all we ask. Make it clear that it is what the right hon. Gentleman describes it to be. If it is a statutory duty then they have to perform it. The right hon. Gentleman at present leaves it to their free decision whether they should perform it or not.
"He was sanguine enough," he said, "to believe that no local authority would refuse to Jews, Roman Catholics or Churchmen the full advantages of the parliamentary grant which Parliament intended them to receive. At the same time there was considerable substance in this point, and he would give it careful consideration."
I am sure that consideration has been given to this point, and I hope that the communication which the right hon. Gentleman said he would make to his colleagues has been made, and we will be greater relieved if we learn that the clause is to be made mandatory instead of permissive. The light hon. Gentleman then went on to deal with the question of the teachers. I am not at this moment dealing with that point. I am now dealing with the question whether Clause 4 should be mandatory or permissive, and I submit to the House that in the interest of the local authorities, in the interest of the Roman Catholic community, in the interest of the peace of the country, it is desirable not to throw this bone of contention into every place to which the clause may be applicable, but, if Parliament has decided that it is the duty of the local authorities on certain conditions to use the clause, to make that plain and clear by stating it in the enactment.
I now come to the percentage limit; the number in each school is not shown, and we have only general results of which we can produce the average. The only true thing to be said of the average is that it does not properly represent any one actual

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case. We cannot tell in how many of the schools there may be a question above or below four-fifths, and the same observation may be made of the population limit of 5,000. These are considerations that require careful study before they can be exhaustively discussed. I only mention this as a consideration which it is necessary to take into account before we can realise the real importance either of the percentage limit or the population limit suggested. To my mind, and I say it at once, the percentage limit appears to be too high. Again, as to the exclusion of rural areas, I see no reason for the exclusion. There exists a provision for the necessity of establishing a convenient possibility of interest in another school as an element for the application of the fourth clause and that convenience is bound to be ascertained by the local authority. If that convenience is not available in the rural area it will exclude the rural area just as it excludes the urban, but if it is available in the rural area then I see no reason why the rural area should be specially excluded from the operation of the clause. It seems an invidious exclusion as well as useless. It seems a restraint without any reason at all for it. I, at all events, see no reason for it. Then I hold that there is of necessity an element of considerable importance in the question of the census proportion. It is known that the working population of the country, and what includes perhaps more than their proportion of the population—;the Irish population—;is from the necessity of the case migratory. It is one of the hardships of their lot that they cannot conceive a home of; their own. They may be divorced from their surroundings and obliged to find new homes, following the course of industry from time to time. We have therefore to deal with a migratory population, and that migration may result in the proportion's being slightly disturbed one way or another at short intervals. Do you propose to unsettle things by having every year or every few months a fresh census or a fresh inquiry, and if you find it is one below the four-fifths are you to disturb everything and upset everything, or do you propose that once established the right shall remain for a reasonable period? I think that the argument of convenience and practicability points to a considerable element of permanence, in the settlement of the
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question once it is settled, and that disturbance should only be at reasonable and long interval. I come now to the other point on which the local authority is to decide, and that is the question of convenient attendance for those who may be excluded by the school's keeping the original character which it has and which it is intended to retain. Therefore, you get a concrete question. You have one question the effect of which I have already alluded to, namely, the existence of the proportion of the children belonging to the several schools. You come next to the question whether there is convenient attendance, and even if there exists that proportion, even if a school is so constituted as to be practically almost a homogenous school as in the case of a Roman Catholic, a Jewish, or a Church of England school—;even so, the general minority, though here in the individual case the overwhelming majority of the local population, is to suffer unless it turns out that convenient school places can be obtained elsewhere at a convenient distance for the small minority. On that subject there is to my mind a difficulty in the Bill in that it does not provide for an appeal to the central authority from the judgment of the local authority on the question of convenience of access. It affords a more convenient loophole than the question of the application or non-application of the clause when the percentage of the school population has been ascertained. This question of convenience is one point on which it is very easy to differ, and I think that more careful and more unbiassed consideration—;a consideration better calculated to do justice—;would be ensured if the determination of the local authority on this question of convenience were not final but made subject to an appeal to the central authority.
Now, I come to the finally excluded schools. If my suggestions as to the reduction of the proportion of scholars and as to the reduction of the population of the area be adopted—;vague and general as I have made them, for I am dealing with principles and not with details which are more appropriate for the Committee stage—;if these suggestions are adopted the number of excluded schools might be much reduced; but whatever the number might be it is considerable at present, and I hold that in conformity with those principles to which I alluded in my opening remarks

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it is fitting that those finally excluded schools, if they prefer to retain what those who built them believed to be vital in their character as Roman Catholic schools, shall continue to retain that character. If they prefer that they shall not come under the Act and be acquired by the local authority, I hold that they have not forfeited their right at any rate as parents to their share of the rates, or their rights as parents even to what I would call a generous capitation grant. Therefore, I hold that they ought not to be left absolutely destitute as the Bill at present proposes to leave them.
I leave now all the questions connected with this branch of Clause 4 and I turn to what, after all, is more vital still—;more vital than the question of "shall" for "may." I turn to the question of the appointment of teachers, because that is the root of the whole matter. What is wanted is that a school shall retain its existing character as a Church of England school, as a Jewish school, or as a Roman Catholic school. What must be acknowledged is that it cannot substantially and effectively retain that character unless the teachers are such as to give confidence to those who send their children to the school, and that being so, it must be acknowledged it is plain that there ought to be more security for the parents' right to have the teachers such as will keep the school of the character which it now is and which it is intended by the provisions of the Act to retain. I think the importance of this question cannot be exaggerated. I think that there ought to be a provision for a parents' committee with a negative or an affirmative voice in the choice of the teachers. Remember that you are hoping to make provision for what will last, if not in perpetuity, for a considerable time. It is a provision by which the local authority will perform merely the displeasing duty of displacing teachers from year to year, from month to month, or from week to week; and there will be, in numerous areas, cases in which there will be places to be filled up because of teachers becoming ill or dying or from other causes. Now, there ought to be some provision with reference to the choice of the teachers to fill these vacancies, and I have suggested such a provision. I am glad to know, quoting once again from the valuable speech of
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the Minister of Education to the Jewish deputation, that the right hon. Gentleman's view is that as regards the intention of the statute with regard to the Jewish teachers, the words in Clause 4 will require strengthening. He said—;
"With regard to the Jewish teachers the words of Clause 4 might require strengthening; but the intention was that the schools should be carried on just as they were now—;that was to say not merely for a long time, but for so long as the arrangement lasted. He agreed that there was a loophole for any amount of pig-headed obstinacy, and denouncing bigotry, and jealousy, and unfairness, but it was certainly the intention of the clause that the teachers should remain the same as they were, those who were alone qualified to give the particular religious instruction which hitherto had been given in the school."
I only demand that these words should be made good. I only demand practical security with reference to the future that these words shall be made good. As to methods that is a matter for Committee; but I think it can only be by the parents having a voice in the choice of the teachers. There is a lack also, I think, in the provision for taking over new schools in the event of population increasing in districts. Besides the natural growth of places by industrial enterprise there are other changes and shiftings of population, and while some towns have fallen away others have grown, and in dealing any way worthily with this question you must consider the rise of a new population which would require the same rights and protection as is given to existing schools by this clause. I venture to suggest, therefore, that the clause is entirely defective in point of security, and leaves the Bill in a condition in which it is obviously not adequate, the object being, as I hope it is, by a reasonable measure to settle this question for a reasonable time, and so relieve this House from such discussions as the one we are now engaged in. I earnestly hope that the difficulties to which I have alluded and others which I have deliberately abstained from presenting to the House upon this occasion may be met at some further stage by the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. For us these defects are at present insuperable. They are defects particularly as to the choice of teachers, which affect the rights and consciences of those for whom we speak; they are defects which it is impossible for us to overlook; they are defects, therefore, which render

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it impossible for me, at any rate at this stage, to vote for the Second Reading. But, I hope that, by continuing the discussion in the tone adopted by the hon. Member for the Scotland Division, in a temper moderate and firm, the day may come at some later stage of the Bill that we may enter a different verdict upon the Bill.
MR. MACLEAN: I am bound to say that, judging from what we have heard, the speeches of hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House have been based on the assumption that no general election took place in January last, and that the question of education has never been brought before the electorate. I had a great deal to do with that election in the West of England, and I am sure that had it not been for the education question we should not have had such a large majority in that part of the country. One would imagine that we were approaching the day of the tyranny of minorities rather than that of the tyranny of majorities. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have evidently refused to accept the logic of a stricken field. What did the last election decide? It decided definitely and clearly that there must be popular control of public schools, and that there should be one class of school; that there should be no religious tests, and no denominational teaching at the public expense. After all, the Bill is contained in Clause 1, from which follow the three points which were, as I have said, decided at the last election. After all, what has been declared by some hon. Members to be impossible, is a thing which has happened. "The impossible has clothed itself in fact, and gone through the hollow mockery of being done." There is not the least doubt that Bible teaching in the schools has been a success for thirty-six years. One would think that it had been suggested for the first time that there should be simple Bible teaching. With regard to the opposition which comes from the Irish Nationalists, I have been deeply impressed with the eloquence and sincerity of the appeals made from time to time from the Irish benches to the Liberal benches—;that the Liberal Party should trust them. In what way are they prepared to trust the democracy of this country with regard to the education question? I venture to say that the basis on the Ministerial side
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of the House is that of the citizen. We do not want unfair or unjust religious privileges for any sect or religious denomination. The position we take up is that of citizenship, and I appeal to our Nationalist friends opposite to join with us in granting to the democracy of England that trust which they have asked the democracy of England to grant to them. I venture to think that this Bill is conceived on broad lines and in a spirit of liberal compromise. I am quite prepared in the interests of peace to settle this question and to further any reasonable suggestion which may be made. Suppose, after all, these attempts at agreement fail as the Bill stands, there is a possibility of the matter being effectively and economically dealt with by the provision of schools of the State in place of schools belonging to denominations. By one clause a million of money is provided. By Clause 28 the time for repayment of the borrowed money is extended to sixty years and the money can be borrowed at 3¼ per cent. I have made a calculation and I find that within that period by using that million we can provide fully £25,000,000, which will be quite sufficient to simply adequate schools throughout the land which will be at the disposal of the people at all times. Such schools will be a magnificent national asset, and will be open to the people at all times, including Saturdays and Sundays. We on this side earnestly desire a settlement of this great question. We want to learn on which side of the question the most truth lies and to arrive at a proper and just solution. I give hon. Members on the other side credit for a similar feeling. I believe in the sense of the House on this question. But there is something greater than that. The spirit of the House has been handed down for hundreds of years; it broods and hovers over the House in the desire to find out what is best for the nation at large. When we descend from the heights of a Second Reading debate into the valley of hand grips in Committee we shall, I hope, proceed in a spirit of compromise. We have been sent here, not as delegates in the interests of any particular section, but to look after the good of the community as a whole.
MR. EVELYN CECIL: I wish to address some remarks to the House as I happened to be for five years on

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the London School Board, and to have fought two School Board elections upon a question closely associated with this Bill. We were promised that by this Bill we might get into the calm sea of a final settlement, but it we have been before in the choppy waves of the Channel, the Bill promises to bring us into Atlantic rollers. I had some confidence, and I have some confidence still, in the fairness of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Education, and I cannot bring myself to believe that he is mainly responsible for the more contentious clauses of this Bill: I think they are rather to be attributed to the President of the Board of Trade and some of his colleague;. At any rate, much as I deplore having to fight this Bill, we cannot let judgment go by default. There is one thing upon which I may congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Education, and that is that this Bill does at any rate attempt to make some provision for religious teaching. We have heard speeches in favour of purely secular education, but I look with greatest apprehension of any proposal of that kind, and I think many of us on both sides of the House would agree in opposing it. I cannot believe that writers who assert, as I saw stated in a socialistic organ the other day, that socialistic reforms are far more important than religion, have really gauged where their opinions will lead them to. It is much too serious a matter for a country to be without religious teaching or religion altogether to believe that this House would assent to it for a moment. Lock at the state of things in France, where, I believe, even the fables of La Fontaine are forbidden wherever they mention the name of God. We do not know what will happen to future generations, let alone to the nation itself, if we allow the people to grow up without any adequate sense of national, moral, and religious responsibility, and without religious teaching. What are we offered by this Bill? The Bill will set up an undenominational religion which is to be made the standard religion of the country, and which is to be patented, as it wore, by the Government. If you are going to force down the throats of many of His Majesty's subjects a religion of which they disapprove, it seems to me to be on a level largely with the intolerance of the Middle Ages.
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Consider the case of a poor man who believes in definite religious teaching. A rich man can afford to send his son to a school where that definite religious teaching is given, but the poor man has no other choice than to accept for his son teaching with which he is dissatisfied, or else under the conscience clause to withdraw his son altogether from religious teaching. This, I repeat, is an attempt to force clown the throats of our fellow-subjects one form of religious teaching. Such a course was not approved by so great an authority as Mr. Gladstone, who, writing to Bishop Hamilton, said he was not friendly to the idea of constraining by law either the total or the partial suppression of conscientious differences in religion, with a view to fusion of different sects, whether in church or school, and that he believed that the free development of conviction was on the whole the system most in favour both of truth and of charity. That is a definite statement, and it seems entirely opposed to the principles of this Bill. What, after all, is this undenominational teaching? It is to vary with the whim of every local authority. ("No."] Yes, the local education authority has the power to impose a syllabus or not just as it pleases. We do not know whether this undenominational teaching includes the Apostles Creed, and this kind of undenominational teaching is to be given only at the mercy of the local education authority. Of course, you may have a good local education authority. The President of the Board of Education quoted the Hampshire County Council as a model under the present law. That is so; it does its utmost to carry out the existing law to the best effect.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. BIRRELL,): There are many others just as good as the Hampshire County Council, but I only quoted that one.
MR. EVELYN CECIL: Quite so, but there are many county councils who do not go so far as the Hampshire County Council, and I have taken the trouble to obtain its regulations. I should like to know whether a large number of the local education authorities would make any regulation that the schools shall begin each morning with prayer, including the Lord's Prayer.

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Subject to the Conscience Clause, religious teaching is compulsory in the schools. Is every local authority likely to agree to that? In the second place, there is a regulation which provides that no teacher shall be called upon to give religious instruction if he has a conscientious objection, and if there is no teacher available for that purpose a teachershall be called in from outside to give religious instruction. I should like again to know whether all educational authorities will acquiesce in that? Will they allow outside teachers to be engaged to give religious instruction where a teacher in the school has a conscienious objection to giving it? Is a third regulation of the Hampshire County Council, requiring an annual inspection in religious instruction one to which all local educational authorities are likely to agree? I shall be glad to hear it is, but I venture to say there are many educational authorities that will not go so far as the Hampshire County Council. That being so, I am afraid we cannot guarantee that the denominational teaching which is to be given by this Bill will be a fixed quantity. It will be a variable quantity dependent upon the views of the educational authority. There are some local authorities which will not have any religious teaching at all. At the time I was fighting a very acute school board election in London in 1897—
DR. MACNAMARA: And got very badly treated.
MR. EVELYN CECIL: I beg the hon. Member's pardon, I came out second on the poll.
DR. MACNAMARA: I was referring to your Party.
MR. EVELYN CECIL: The interruption is quite irrelevant. At the time that election was going on official figures were quoted which showed that there were 320 school boards in Wales. Of those, sixty-two forbade religious teaching altogether, and 118 only allowed the Bible to be read without hint, note, or comment. That, I suppose, is to be the kind of arrangement to be permitted by this Bill. It may be that under this Bill the local education
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authority will refuse to make any terms with the managers of the non-provided schools and will refuse to give religious teaching in any school it builds itself. The position is very unfair. It is a position we must fight to the bitter end, and I regret to think that it is even contemplated in this Bill. I do not think hon. Gentlemen opposite fully realise how deeply we feel upon this subject. I am not speaking as what is called, an extreme High Churchman. I am not that. But I do think that definite religious instruction is a fundamental portion of education, and it is not a thing you can sell or barter for maintenance of fabrics or for handsome rentals out of public funds. It is far more important. We claim that it is an alienable right which belongs to parents just as much as the right hon. Gentleman will admit free education is. Something has been said already, and I should like to say something more upon the fact that no teacher need show the slightest competence to teach religion. He need not even believe! What other country ever had such a notion as that? In secular education we are insistent that the teacher who teaches history, geography, or any other subject, shall qualify himself by the most stringent examination. In religious teaching, on the other hand, teachers need not necessarily believe. They are not to be asked if they believe. The other day I was told of a case where a boy asked his teacher with regard to some religious dogma in which he had been instructed, "Sir, is that true?" and he was told, "You may believe it if you like, but I don't." Such an answer as that was enough to shatter the religious convictions of every boy in the class. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education said the other day that he had been struck by the secular atmosphere of the voluntary schools. Does he suppose that teaching such as this is likely to lessen the secular atmosphere in any degree? I like denominational teaching because it secures in many cases the continuity of the atmosphere of home and school life. Imagine a family where at home a child is imbued with the idea that he ought to go to church on Sunday and when he goes to school

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he finds the idea of going to a place of worship is altogether discredited! I do not say that is always the case, but it is sometimes the case. Does any hon. Gentleman think that such an answer as I just now mentioned, "You can believe it if you like, but I don't," is likely to encourage that idea?
With regard to the Bill itself I want to observe in the first place that it is rather remarkable that it does not touch the secular clauses of the Act of 1902. I am glad that it does not, because it shows the Government pay a great tribute to the secular clauses of that Act. I suspect that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Education hardly realised when he distributed Liberal leaflets throughout the country at the time of the election how good an Act the Act of 1902 really was, With regard to the finances of the Bill, we are to pay £1,000,000 of money under Clause 12. Who is going to benefit by that? Who gets his value for his money? I cannot see that anybody is going to benefit except the Nonconformists. We do not want to spend all this money in this way. We would much prefer to leave the law as it is. We would welcome what we believe to be the remedy for the one grievance of the Nonconformists—;I have said so before in this House—;to provide for them whatever religious teaching they desire in all the schools in the country. But if that is to be done, let us spend the £1,000,000 in doing it. Why spend it, not in educational efficiency in any sense, but merely to give value for their money to some of the Party opposite, and a large proportion of the ratepayers and the taxpayers—;I would say the large majority, are people who object to this undenominational teaching. Some speakers have criticised our attack on the clause interfering with the trust deeds. In this country trust deeds are generally considered binding. Hon. Members were surprised at the use of such terms as "filching away" and "confiscation," but I do not think they can appreciate our standpoint. We have been encouraged by the State to maintain these schools. Let hon. Gentlemen opposite put themselves in the position of a donor to a hospital—;or take myself. I give a handsome donation to a
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particular hospital, and continue to do so for a number of years to encourage the management of that hospital. I have no right whatever at the end of, say, twenty years arbitrarily to transfer that management into entirely different hands. I gave those subscriptions to encourage the management of the hospital in the manner in which it had been carried on, and when people have given donations to voluntary schools they have done so on the same conditions. It is not suggested that when Parliamentary grants were given to voluntary schools they were not given to encourage the management of the schools in the old way, and no one would have supposed that the State in supporting those schools was going to say that the education must be given in a different way. But now the right hon. Gentleman comes forward to set aside all provisions and trust deeds if the local education authority see fit, and to give the schools over to purposes which they were expressly founded to avoid.
Then upon the question of facilities. There are to be no facilities in Council schools. Why not? Is there any reason for setting up two sets of schools? In one set you are not to have any facilities under any circumstances. In the other, the existing denominational schools, you may have these facilities under certain circumstances. I believe facilities are practicable everywhere. The hope has been expressed by the hon. Member for South Longford and other hon. Members that the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to make Clause 4 mandatory. That is the only way to deal with it. If Clause 4 is to be dropped, as I think one or two hon. Members have suggested, I can only promise them that that will ensure that this Bill will not be a final settlement at all, but a most complete declaration of war on the part of the Government against denominational teaching. If it is the desire of the Government to make some endeavour to effect a final settlement, I would urge them not to listen to any such suggestion as dropping Clause 4. I do not think that the figure four-fifths has any special virtue, and I would refer the right hon. Gentleman to Clause 27 of the ill-fated Government Bill of 1896 in which he will find that the words are not "four-fifths" but a "reasonable number." I hope the

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right hon. Gentleman will accept the substitution of "a reasonable number" for "four-fifths." I object still more emphatically to the clause which provides that this denominational teaching shall not be given in school hours. That is one of the provisions of the Bill to which I have the most resolute and strenuous objection. What is to happen if you put this teaching out of school hours? Would it ever be likely to be looked upon as a matter of great consequence at all? My experience when a child was that directly a subject was taught as an extra it was disliked. If you are to put religious teaching on that basis you pave the way most effectually to secularism out and out. Again, I used to hear on the London School Board, when this system of facilities was urged, that one of the greatest objections to it was that possibly you would have outside teachers, and that consequently discipline would suffer. It was then suggested that religious instruction under any system of extended facilities ought to be given by the teachers with whom the children are familiar so as to maintain discipline. Here we are going to run riot and encourage—;if that contention be true—;want of discipline; and besides, where is the freedom of the teachers, so strongly advocated as a rule by their National Union? Many teachers consider that definite religious teaching is essential. Why are you taking away their freedom by enforcing undenominational teaching? I should have thought that if the National Union of Teachers carried out its views logically, and urged, as it generally does on most other matters that there should be absolute freedom for the teaching profession, it would have opposed any proposals such as this Bill contains to restrict the freedom of the teachers in such important particulars. I will not refer in my criticism to the Commission which the right hon. Gentleman has proposed, more than to say that it seems to me that some of its features recall the Star Chamber, and that I cannot help thinking it must be an excrescence on his original draft.
I do not think I ought to sit down without mentioning what I consider the best system as a remedy. The Minister for Education knows perfectly well that the Industrial Schools Act of 1860, Clause 20, provides
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for definite religious instruction in all industrial schools, and the parents or guardians of the children may insist on getting that definite religious instruction in which they believe. Is not that a method which the right hon. Gentleman might have followed? We have heard nothing up to now about the Industrial Schools Act. I suppose it is thought wise to keep it in the dark, but it has worked extremely well, and I cannot imagine why the Government should not have made some effort to introduce that system for all day schools. I plead that the right hon. Gentleman will still consider whether he cannot introduce a similar system into all the elementary schools of the country. It does not seem to me to offer any very great difficulty. In Germany and Austria religious teaching is carried on in that way and is given at the expense of the State, and there is no difficulty about it. In Western Australia there is a similar system of delegating teachers to enter the State schools, and it is so simply arranged that many denominations—;Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists—;combine in submitting the same lists of delegates to the State authority so that the system should be worked more easily. Why cannot that be done in this country? It is of paramount importance that parents of all religious denominations should be allowed to obtain for their children that definite religious teaching in which they believe, for it is the want of definite religious teaching which is the most serious outlook in the future. Some of us know the East End of London well. I have been there from time to time, and what I have noticed is that the great mass of people there belong to no Church and believe in no creed. I think it is absolutely essential that from their youth, boys and girls should be brought up to believe in something definite, otherwise they are apt to drift as they grow older into crime, irreligion, and a dulled sense of right, which whispers that morality is either useless or futile. We want to stop all that. There is a fine passage in one of Ruskin's works which says that crime can only truly be hindered by taking away the will to commit

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sin, and not by mere punishment of its commission. It can be stayed by education, but not education of the intellect only, which is wasted on some men and for others is mischievous, but by education of the heart; and it is the education of the heart which we denominationalists want. Oh, that we could avoid making this so controversial a question! Cannot we try to join in accepting each other's convictions, as Mr. Gladstone advised, allowing each denomination to give its own teaching, and by that means showing greater toleration to each other, trying to work more together for that closer unity of all Christian churches which I believe at bottom we all desire, and so ensuring that the future of this country will see a generation growing up which has regard to religion and morality, and for the national greatness and welfare which all that noble foundation involves?
MR. ADKINS: I hope in the few words which I shall venture to address to the House to have that indulgence already given to many who, like myself have, in this session, addressed the House for the first time. I do not propose to follow the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, in a detailed criticism; but I hope that if I cannot advance this question, at least I may do nothing to embitter it. The hon. Member for Aston Manor asked what benefit the £1,000,000 voted under this Bill for the hiring of existing schools, or the building of new ones, would be. He said that it would be no benefit to Churchmen who are contented with things as they are, and suggested it was merely an endowment for Nonconformity. I would like respectfully to suggest that this Bill cannot properly be judged if it is judged merely from the point of view of Churchmen, or of Nonconformists. That £1,000,000 properly spent by local authorities will be for the benefit of citizens and for the benefit of education, and I would point out why this Bill may commend itself to Members in all parts of the House on grounds not so closely connected with the religious controversy. I venture to speak as one who has been trying for some years to administer various Education Acts which the wisdom of Parlia-
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ment has seen fit to pass, and I say, without hesitation, that so long as you have the dual system, and so long as you have tests for teachers, the educational system of this country cannot be as efficient and as thorough as it should be. In the county of Northampton, where you have to deal with a large area and a scattered population, it is no exaggeration to say that half the time of the Education Committee and of its sub-Committees has been occupied with matters arising directly from the dual system, and from the want of sub-ordinate authorities—;time which might otherwise have been spent on the direct educational work which is waiting to be done. Therefore, on the mere ground of administration I think it highly desirable to get rid of the dual system. I agree with an hon. Member who spoke earlier that the first clause of the Bill is the Bill in a very true sense. By getting rid of the dual system we are taking a step which must be taken before we can advance towards the other educational requirements. There must be many Members who know how much time is taken up in apportioning the cost of coal or of gas, or of settling the endless conundrum as to how many different authorities the so-called voluntary schools belong to in the course of twenty-four hours, and I should think all will agree in wishing to remedy that state of things. I understand the Leader of the Opposition to say that the school buildings remain the property of the denomination, but if the cost of all repairs and of all duties connected with the schools are placed on the local authorities there will be a unification of administration which I hope the right hon. Gentlemen will approve. In doing this is there involved any violation of those rights of conscience which are as dear to us as to those on the Opposition side?
Under the Bill in many of the schools religious instruction will be given as it was before—;at any rate in the provided schools. I believe that in the non-provided schools nine-tenths of them will remain as they are to-day. In the diocese of Peterborough I find that specific denominational instruction is given on only one day in the week, and only for half the year. I ask the House to consider whether a system which

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combines administrative unity with the power of giving nine-tenths of that religious teaching, and the time in which the other one-tenth can be given by those who believe profoundly in it—;whether it is fair to describe a Bill calculated to bring that about as a measure which will violate the rights of conscience. I agree with the principle laid down by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover that the State should be neutral in these disputes. I recollect the way in which the hon. Member for North Camberwell pointed out how neutrality was set at naught in the Act of 1902. The doctrine of neutrality is a very novel one to come from the Opposition, because it is unknown in English legislature up to the present time. The hon. Member for Marylebone knows the political policy of the Church of England from the days of the Act of Uniformity to the days of the Act of the right hon. Gentleman. The very principle on which the State acted was that national education should be handed over to the Church and be her special privilege and preserve. We all recollect what occurred in the reign of George IV., when episcopal interest prevented the beginning of national education apart from episcopal control. Some of us have read in the administration of Sir Robert Peel, how Sir James Graham brought in provisions in connection with the Factory Acts which would have still more closely riveted education as the privilege of one religious body, and on that ground they had to be dropped. While I would be the last person to impute to the Opposition the predispositions of their political ancestors, I say that this sound doctrine of political neutrality is one contrary to the traditions which they embody, and one the very novelty of which is an additional reason why so many of us are anxious to support this Bill.
With regard to the provisions of the Bill, I will not intrude any remarks upon Clause 4, but if I understand the Bill aright it is an attempt to give greater public control and to put more and more of the interest of education upon citizens of all creeds rather than upon citizens grouped in hostile creeds. If that is so, I say the success of the Bill, alike in passing
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through the House, and in being carried out in the country, will depend upon the thoroughness with which that sound civic principle is carried out in all its clauses. I hope the Government do not hold the doctrine of verbal inspiration in respect to some of the clauses of the Bill. Under Clause 3 the local authority has put upon it a very difficult and complicated duty with regard to the taking over of schools. The local authority as at present constituted is the town or county council, but it has to act through a committee largely composed of persons who are not representative or who represent the very interests involved in the proposed action of the local authority. I hope the Government will see their way to say that in all these transactions and bargains between the local authority and private owners those members of the education committee who are not elected by the people shall on these issues have no vote; because if you leave the local authority affected by the decisions of the committee, some of whom are interested in the other side of the bargain, you are cogging the dice against public control, and you are unintentionally placing them in the position of that fortunate defendant who had his principal witnesses upon the jury.
With regard to Clause 26, for which I thank the Government, I hope it may be looked upon merely as a skeleton to be clothed in the conduct of this Bill through Committee and to be made more general. I hope that not only the Government but the House will approve of authorising every county council to prepare some scheme of general devolution which, while retaining its own supreme authority, will bring home at once to small localities their duties, rights, and privileges in regard to educational administration. I most cordially support the Second Reading of the Bill, and I look forward to the discussions in Committee to improve it in many particulars. As so much has been said, and properly said, with regard to the religious question and undenominational teaching, I would like to say, in conclusion, that I do not agree with the contention that we have heard from the Opposition that denominational teaching and undenominational teaching can be fairly compared in the sense that if you allow one you must allow

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the other. Denominational teaching involves an advantage to a part of the community whilst undenominational teaching does not advance the sectional cause or advantage of any part of the community. While we all admit at once the logical rigour and the extreme unattractiveness of the secular solution of this question, I hope the Government will adhere to the principle of the Bill and make one more experiment to see whether Englishmen generally cannot unite in the inculcation of simply Christianity which they can supplement and modify in their other relations, and by passing this Bill at once assist good educational administration and remove existing obstacles from educational progress, and so forward the cause of education in this country that neither the conscientious sacerdotal pretentions on one side nor secular theorists on the other may for many a long day break down the fabric which may be created by my right hon. friend's scheme and by his persuasiveness in this House.
MR. BUTCHER: After listening to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, with its language of passionate violence and militant sectarianism, I have no longer any difficulty in seeing why it is that there has hitherto been no solution arrived at in England of those denominational differences which have been adjusted in other parts of the civilised world. In Germany and Canada, as in Scotland and Ireland the denominations have been able to compose their differences, but in England up to the present this has not been the case. As a person much more concerned about education than with theological controversy, in which I am wholly unpractised, I will do my beat in what I have to say to avoid any bitterness of speech. The main feature of this Bill is the abolition of the dual system; what is henceforth aimed at is a uniform type of school and a uniform system of religious education, which is called undenominationalism. What is undenominaalism? The debates of yesterday and to-day are sufficient to show that it is an exceedingly difficult thing even for the most honest inquirer to find out what it means. If undenomina-
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tionalism means the teaching of the foundation truths of Christianity, I, for one, cannot join in some of the harsh things that have been said about it. I frankly admit that it often has meant a simple but thorough instruction in those central truths; and an appeal has been made to the experience of the last thirty-five years. It was made yesterday in several impressive speeches, and it has been made also to-day; Bishops and Archbishops of the Church of England have been quoted to show how excellent in many cases has been the religious education given by the London School Board and other school boards. I do not question that at all. No doubt undenominational teaching may be of such a kind; but must it be so? and, above all, must it be so under the greatly changed conditions which the Bill would introduce? Have we—;I will not say any guarantee, but any reasonable assurance that it will be so? If the experience of the last thirty years has proved anything, it is that undenominationalism is something fluid, shifting, intangible, sometimes differing very little from the teaching of the Church of England, sometimes shading off into pure secularism. I will cite two witnesses, both representative men The late Bishop Creighton said that undenominationalism so far from being a simple religion had turned out to be highly complex—;
"Its complexity would baffle the mind of the most experienced theologian."
Dr. Joseph Parker declared—;
"It needs a body of police to watch it and college of divines to define it."
Hitherto we have had two chief safeguards; first the fact that alongside of the undenominational schools the Church schools have existed; they have created a friendly rivalry; and have set up a standard. Secondly, a very considerable proportion of the teachers even in the board schools have been trained in the training colleges of the Church of England. Now, the voluntary schools are to be swept away, and already there is an outcry on the other side of the House and from that Party outside the House that the denominational training colleges, the last remaining safeguard, should go also. Indeed I do not feel sure whether under the Bill as it stands denominational

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training colleges may not be abolished. We shall be glad to hear of that later from the Minister of Education. Then there is a third point marking a great difference between the prospects of the near future and the experience of the last thirty years. Under the Bill the status of religion in the schools will be altered. Religion is no longer to be a subject which is necessarily taught by the teacher; it is placed outside school hours; it is, in fact, reduced to a secondary and subordinate place: and surely that fact must affect seriously the character of the teaching. Let me mention another point. In the course of the last thirty years everyone is aware that there has been a very marked growth of secularist opinion; and the paramount question for us now is, what form of religious education will best stem the tide of advancing materialism and agnosticism? Can you wonder that the bare residuum of Christian truth which is to be taught in the schools in future seems to us insufficient for that purpose—;that highly attenuated form of religion which is accepted, but avowedly only for the moment, as common ground by the two sections of the Nonconformist party, the secularist and the undenominational Nonconformists? The truth is that you cannot here argue from the past to the future with any degree of confidence. The conditions are absolutely changed. Nor can one blind oneself to the fact that there has been a growing divergence between the ideals of the Church and of Dissent, and that this divergence is now the more sharply marked when secularists and undenominationalists have agreed to combine their forces.
But it has been said that much as we may dislike undenominational education, it is the only thing we can get from public funds—;that State money cannot go to,—;denominational teaching. Well, is it not a poor and ignoble conception of citizenship to say, "I refuse to contribute to any definite form of religious instruction which does not exactly harmonise with that which I desire for myself." Why should not each person pay his share by rates or taxes or both—;I see nothing inviolable in the rates—;to build up the religious life of others? This seems to me to be
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a debt which one fellow-citizen owes to another, a reciprocal duty arising out of the sense of a large organic life. The other and opposing idea I believe to be a survival of the old and obsolete notion that the State is a mere policeman, the protector of life and property, concerned only with the material welfare of the community. We have all of us outgrown that idea, and we recognise that the State is concerned with the whole organic life of society, with all the higher activities and energies of its members. I believe there is hardly a man in this House who could not say with Burke: "The State is a partnership in all science, in all art, in every virtue, and in all perfection." And if so, is not all that goes to the discipline and training of character including, pre-eminently, the moulding and penetrating force of early religious training—;is not all this within the province of the State? We are told that the State is undenominational. But this only means that the State is neutral or impartial towards all denominations, and it can show its neutrality in one or two ways, either by ignoring all denominations or by supporting all. The objection made this afternoon by the President of the Board of Trade to the second alternative was this, that it is impossible for the State to concern itself with so many rival sects. That might be a practical difficulty if it were not that in this country there is a natural grouping of denominations which reduces them to a limited and manageable compass, and makes the endowment or recognition of all denominations no impossible task. Let me not be told that this is a doctrinaire idea: not a bit of it. We have attempted to carry it out, though not with entire success, in England; we have carried it out successfully and consistently both in Ireland and Scotland. When I hear hon. Members on the other side of the House speaking as if it were a first principle or axiom of politics that we cannot give State money for denominational teaching, I ask, do they know what is going on across the Channel in Ireland and what is going on in Scotland? In Ireland education is entirely denominational, and every penny is paid

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out of taxes. Even the sacred doctrine of public control does not exist there in the most elementary form. In Scotland the board schools are denominational; the education is for the most part based on the Westminster Confession of Faith, and these schools are supported both out of rates and taxes. Both in Ireland and Scotland, moreover, there is no religious minority so small that the State does not recognise its voluntary schools and aid them with public money. Why, in the name of religious equality and of common sense, are these principles to be set aside for England?
Most persons, however, will admit that the State has some religious function. If so, on what basis can it be exercised? On no equitable basis except the right of the parent; the right not merely to withdraw a child and keep its mind a blank, not merely the right to say "He shall not learn that," but the right to say "He shall learn this other thing." It has been asked how parental rights can be respected in the case of a single Presbyterian child. I admit that you cannot in every instance carry out the principle absolutely. None the less the principle remains the right thing to aim at; and what I complain of in the Bill is that what ought to be the rare exception is made the guiding principle of the Bill, and what ought to be the principle becomes the rare exception. I think it was the late Bishop of London who said that hitherto it had seemed as if the parent existed only that he might be prosecuted when his child did not go to school. Something similar might be said of the speech delivered yesterday by the hon. Member for Leicester. Parents, he declared, had no rights. The parent, according to him existed, it would seem, in order that the child might appeal against him to the State, which was its true guardian. Both in the Bill and in the debate in the House far too much contempt has been thrown on parental rights. Some say, parents are indifferent, they do not care whether religious teaching is of one kindor another. Well, find out whether they care; put it to the vote in each locality; give them an opportunity of expressing their opinions; but already
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throughout the country parents are showing whether they care or not. Then, when they do express their opinions do not say, as has been too often said in the last few weeks, "It is all an organised hypocrisy." The only clause in which there is an approach to any full recognition of parental rights is Clause 4. But it is the recognition of urban parents only, and of comparatively few of these. The rights of conscience become an affair of localities and of large fractions. I will not attempt to expose the inequalities in Clause 4—;it has been done already—;or the entirely irrational nature of that novel fraction which is to find a place for the first time in the Statute Book. It is distasteful even in the eyes of its own supporters; but to many of them it has one supreme merit, that it will in the main debar the Anglican Church parent from the exercise of his rights. Now if the Church of England had given a teaching so rigidly, so exclusively denominational that it could not have been accepted by the children of other communions; if she had not attempted to discharge her duty to the Church of the nation, and shown herself large-minded towards all who desired to share her instruction, then she would have come within the privileges of the "four-fifths" clause. As it is, she is to be penalised for her comprehensiveness, and that in the name of religious freedom!
The parents' rights, then, are one of the two cardinal questions on which the Bill turns. It is a question which closely touches the principles of civil as well as of religious liberty. The other cardinal question is the fitness of the teacher, and this goes to the very heart of the educational problem. What is the teacher? What does he know and what does he believe? That is even more important than, What is the syllabus? The competence of the teacher to give religious instruction depends on three things—;first, his knowledge, secondly, his training, and thirdly, his convictions. Now, as to knowledge and training, neither of these are required under the Bill, for religious teaching is entirely outside the sphere of his duty: it will not appear in the Code; and there is to be no test of his capacity under that head. Some eminent Nonconformists have even expressed the view that the Bible is so I simple a book that it needs no training to teach it. The simplest, indeed, but

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also the most difficult of books, especially to teach to a child! That wonderful and composite volume of prose and poetry, of history, biography, oratory, letters, drama, lyric, idylls—;unique in its diversity as well as in its unity! Such it is viewed on its purely literary side. But then the teacher has not only to teach the facts of Bible history and literature; he has also to teach the truths of religion, and here again we ask, Who is the teacher? What are his convictions? We are told his beliefs must not be "tested." It is assumed that for denominational teaching, tests are necessary, for undenominational teaching no such test is necessary. And yet we are told in the same breath that the teacher is to teach the fundamental truths of Christianity; in other words, he must teach dogma. Dogma then must be taught, but no questions may be asked to ensure that the teacher believes what he teaches. As for "testing" in the proper sense they do not now exist; we may put them aside. Now I would ask any Member of this House if he has ever attempted to teach a subject in which—;in whose truth, in whose value—;he had no belief. I have seen it done in secular learning, and there the result has been disastrous failure. In religion it would be a failure not merely disastrous but impious. And a child is very quick to detect the ring of insincerity. Every one is agreed that this early lesson in insincerity must at all costs be avoided. How can the danger be escaped? There are two possible ways. The local authority may make private inquiries; what kind of man is the teacher? where was he trained? is he a man of religious life? Thus they find out the Church he belongs to. Might they not as well ask him the question directly? Is the test by indirect inquiry less offensive than that by direct question?
The other method is provided by the clause which gives the teacher the statutory right to decline giving religious teaching. Assuming that the teacher takes advantage of that right, just consider how far-reaching will be the effect. In any given school it will lie absolutely with the teachers to decide whether any religions education shall be given; because there is no provision in the Bill for appointing others in their place, if they decline. I will put a case which I am quite sure is not fanciful or im-
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possible. The National Union of Teachers may resolve that indirect inquiries into religious opinions are against the spirit of the legislature after "the abolition of tests." They may feel, too, that religious teaching is a difficult acquirement, and that they are not trained to give it. Above all, they may hold that an inquiry into the fitness of teachers establishes an invidious difference between teachers. And so they may well come to the conclusion that they should, as a body—;I will not say strike—;but decline to teach religion at all. If they do so, then the ultimate decision as to the teaching of religion in the country, though nominally at the discretion of the local education authorities, resides in effect, not with them but with the teachers. Is it for this that Parliament is asked to shirk the decision whether religion is to be taught? I say that all these considerations when put together seem to carry us perilously far towards secularism. Let us sum up the case. If we put aside the privileged position offered chiefly to Roman Catholics and Jews, what will be the form of religion that will prevail through the length and breadth of England? It will be that local variety of the Christian religion which is drawn up under local option, embodied in the syllabus of a local authority, taught by teachers whose religious knowledge, and therefore whose professional fitness, is untested; whose religious or irreligious belief seem to be placed above all inquiry; teachers who are not bound to teach instructing children who are not bound to learn: this instruction supplemented in certain instances by a more distinctive religious teaching given not as of right according to the wishes of the parent, but on sufferance at the discretion of the local authority; outside of school hours and of school discipline, by teachers who for the most part will be amateurs; an instruction in which the trained and qualified members of the school staff are forbidden to take part, and even this grudging and precarious supplement to a colourless creed is by statute to be disallowed in all the existing county schools of the land.
In 1870 Mr. Forster in a memorandum to his colleagues said—;
"We are, and mean to remain, a Christian, people."

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The same words would, I believe, express the mind of the Minister of Education But can this shifting and nebulous religion, without law or standard, be an effectual barrier against the inroad of secularism? Look at the United States. They began with an undenominational system, with simple Bible reading, without comment, the Lord's Prayer, and a hymn. The question was raised whether the reading of the Bible without comment was sectarian teaching. It was taken to the High Court of Winsconsin in 1890, and it was decided that it was sectarian, and could not, therefore, be given out of public money under the State constitution. That judgment, as far as I can make out, has affected other States. The reading of the Bible is being dropped in most of the States. [MINISTERIAL Cries of "No, no."] Well, allow me to read you a passage from an article by President Murray Butler of Columbia University. He is speaking not of the moral and religious loss which has been sustained in America—;and I do not wish to measure that; indeed it is difficult to measure the loss which you sustain by not reading the Bible or the gain you obtain by reading it—;he is referring to the effect: on literary training arising from the disuse of Bible reading—;
"To the average student the first Book of Paradise Lost is an enigma. The epithets, the allusions, even many of the proper names are unfamiliar. This is due to ignorance of the Bible."
To the English-speaking race, moreover, the loss of the Bible in the schools means far more than it would mean to any other civilised people. The Bible is wrought into the very texture of their thought and speech; it colours all their literature; above all, it is the chief source from which they draw their spiritual life. I merely wish to point out the far-reaching consequences of such a change, and my point is that our common religion and our common culture are bound up closely together. Secularism appears to me to be the goal and not the remote goal of this Bill. What is happening in America, would happen with us; and it is to be observed that any people that has gone the way of secularism has never been able to retrace its steps. If we desire, as I believe we all desire, to save religions education in England, we must make provision for it in a
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larger and more tolerant spirit than that of this Bill. It must rest on another and more national basis than the Dissidence of Dissent. We must not blindly ignore the actual facts of religious life in England. We must give up all attempts to coerce consciences. Children must be brought up in the faith of their parents; parents must be allowed to exercise their rights, whether they live in town or country; teachers must be sought who by knowledge and conviction are competent to teach the subjects they profess; and religion itself must not be treated as an unimportant extra in a school course, for if it is made an accident of the school it will also surely become an accident of life.
MR. RENDALL: In add essing a few words to the House, on the very important Bill which is now under discussion, I should like to say one word with regard to the speech to which we have just listened with so much pleasure. I am bound to say that, speaking for myself, I do not think that hon. Members on this side of the House want to be lectured by hon. Members on the other side as to the value of the Bible. It seems to me that if anybody wants to be lectured upon the importance of the Bible, and upon the importance of its not being made the subject of political controversy, it is the late Prime Minister, who by his Act of 1902, threw the Bible into the cauldron of public controversy and dispute. I would like to say in reference to letters which have appeared in The Times from various bishops and members of the lesser clergy, that they have rated the Liberal Party rather soundly, because they have said that they have a mandate in regard to the question of education as produced in the Bill. With regard to that mandate, I will only say that I think every single hon. Member on this side for a long period dealt with that question. For myself, during a long candidature of three years, the one great and overwhelming subject of discussion was the education question. It was that question which, during the first years of the campaign against the late Government, aroused the interest of the electorate

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as it had not been aroused before for ten or twenty years. If you went into the village, you found the population there were determined to get rid of what they regarded to be the grossest tyranny. This determination was altogether independent of the Act of 1902, and before it was passed there was a strong feeling among the intelligent and independent electorate in the villages that there ought not to be one school only belonging to one sect which gave the religious instruction of that sect to the exclusion of all others. Hon. Members repr ach us as to what they describe as the setting aside of trust deeds, but may I say that it was their own proposal to allow all the children to go into the schools in violation of these trust deeds. Then hon. Members talk of confiscation, but may I remind the House that the Church of England lives and moves and has its being in confiscated churches. Which are its churches? They are confiscated churches. Which are its trusts? They are the trusts of another Church which was reformed. Therefore, when the Church of England talks about confiscation and breach of trusts it is putting itself in a lamentably weak position. In regard to the management of the village schools as carried out under the Act of 1902, I think all parties are agreed that the dual control must be got rid of, but I think it well that some argument should be produced in this House to show those who doubt the necessity of abolishing it why it should be abolished. There is the well-known example of Mildenhall where, in a body which contains the parson's brother-in-law and his sister, the appointment of the clergyman to the post of local correspondent was moved by himself, seconded by his sister, voted for by the latter and his brother-in-law and carried by the casting vote of the chairman who was the parson himself. Such things as this are constantly going on under the Act of 1902, and we are told that they show the glorious neutrality of the Act. The hon. Member for Cambridge University said we ought not to coerce consciences, and suggested that the Bill now under discussion coerced them, but I would ask what about the consciences which have been coerced for generations past and the unfair treat-
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ment that has been meted out under the Conscience Clause to hundreds and thousands of people during the last few years? We are told, as the parson said to the people, "You can always use the Conscience Clause and your children can never be proselytised." Yes, but how is this worked? There happens to be a mining village where the Nonconformists resolved to withdraw their children from the school during the time devoted to religious instruction. I expected loud cheers from the parson and an acknowledgment that the Nonconformists were going to work the Act of 1902 fairly. A few months after the withdrawal of the children the school treat came on in that locality, and then the managers of the church school announced that that treat would not be available to any children except those who attended religious instruction. This is the way that the Church treats little children whose parents withdraw them from school under the Conscience Clause. These are things which must be got rid of, and they will be got rid of by the abolition of the dual control. That the Liberal Party have a mandate in regard to the teachers has I think been shown by the elections all over the country and the approval of the teachers, as expressed at their annual meeting, of the course which is to be pursued. With regard to teachers who are denominational, who will be called upon to withdraw denominational teaching from the children, we regret that that is necessary, because we know that they enjoy giving it, but it must be done in the interest of all the teachers who are not denominational teachers, and in the interests of those who will come after them. Permission to teach will mean persuasion, and that persuasion will be all the more powerful because it will create a kind of persuasion which will lead to compulsion, and that compulsion will be illegal. But the compulsion will be there, and we know, especially those of us who represent country districts, that all over England there are education committees which have a large number of clergy and Churchmen upon them, and those committees would be able to find out what a person's religion was if the permisson were given. We say that that should not be allowed, and we also say that there should be some return to the

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ad hoc system which we regret was abolished.
And, it being a quarter-past Eight of the clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means under Standing Order No. 8, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.

LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE RAILWAY (SUPERANNUATION FUND) BILL [LORDS.] (BY ORDER.)
Read a second time, and committed.

EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
Postponed Proceeding on Amendment to Question [7th May]," That the Bill be now read a second time," resumed.
Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
MR. RENDALL,continuing his speech, said: Then it is urged by many speakers on the other side that Bible teaching is not sufficient for a large majority of the people of this country, but the evidence of the last thirty years has been that it is quite sufficient. The hon. Member for Cambridge University quoted Ruskin, and he spoke of Ruskin's strong testimony to the education of the heart; but education of the heart is best given by a teacher whose character we are sure of. Far more likely is it to be given by him than by such a one of whom we can say we know something of his doctrine. If we look at the education of the children of this country, I am assured that we shall be more sure of its value if we know full well that the characters of the teachers are perfect rather than if we know they profess one doctrine or another. The principle of all-round facilities has been very cleverly argued and many speeches have been made in order to demand some concession, but I would recall to the House the words used by Sir Joshua Fitch. In dealing with this matter some little time ago Sir Joshua Fitch said—;
"It would mean: (1) An inquiry into the religious beliefs and preferences of the parents
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—;a most difficult task in itself, one never attempted before, and sure to arouse widespread and just resentment; (2) a corresponding separation of the scholars into classes to receive the specific denominational instruction required; (3) an inquiry into the theological opinions of the staff of teachers, in order to determine their fitness to give denominational instruction; or (4) the employment of clerical or other experts from outside to supersede the ordinary staff, and thus to impair the legitimate authority of the head teacher; and (5) the inevitable introduction into schools of religious and sectarian differences, happily unrecognisable by the children at present, but certain to become mischievously apparent in the corporate life of the school; the more so, because the meaning and reason of the new departure will not only be unintelligible to the majority of the scholars, but are sure to be misunderstood."
For this reason it seems to me that the proposal to allow facilities in all schools is a most unsuitable proposal and would lead to a great deal of quarrelling.
I come lastly to this point whether the Members of this House are bound by their pledges to support the Government proposal as to the four-fifths clause and the facilities to be given in each school on two days a week. I think there is no moral or legal claim for either of those demands. I think in regard to the building of the schools enough money has come from the taxes and enough from persons willing to give in order to avoid paying taxes. These persons gave that money for no other purpose than to avoid paying the heavy rate that would have come upon them if they had not paid voluntarily. I do not like compromises in any form, but in this world we are obliged to compromise very often, and for the sake of peace, I think we ought to support the Government in regard to these two clauses. I think the proposal of the hon. Member for North Camberwell in regard to making this four-fifths clause mandatory is one requiring our careful consideration. What might be done as a matter of grace would not be so likely to be done as if the authorities were forced to do it. But upon that part of the Bill I should like to see the Bill passed as it is. On this occasion I regret that hon. Members representing Ireland are not able to act with us, but they have to safeguard the interests of their national religion, and they are doing so. What I want

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to urge is that while there may be a difficulty between the Protestants and the Catholics and in like manner between the Protestants and the Jews, still there is no such difficulty between the various Protestants of this country, and general undenominational teaching could be allowed in all the schools of the country. That is the general opinion of the laymen of this country, and though there are persons who hold high ecclesiastical views who are making a great fuss about the proposals in this Bill, I am inclined to think that that is due to the fact that it is a question of property; that if there was no property concerned in this matter they would make a great deal less fuss. I think a very small section of the laymen of England take that line, and that the advertisement which has been given to the section of the public holding these views is an advertisement given to a section which represents a very small portion of the opinion of the country. I believe Churchmen as a rule are inclined to think that undenominational teaching is good enough for them. For my own part, I can only say if this Bill is to be interfered with by the bishops the Bible is good enough for me, and I am prepared to fight an election or a bye-election on that point.
SIR FRANCIS POWELL: I hope the House will allow me to say a few words upon this Bill from the point of view of one who has given a great deal of time to the administration of education. I do not propose to occupy much time, but I may be permitted to express my sincere regret that the hon. Member for the Thorn by division has presented what may be called another bundle of stories without either a description of the place or the date or any indication whatever to enable us to verify the statements.
MR. RENDALL: I gave the place in three instances. I do not know the dates, one was Mildenhall, Suffolk,—;another was in Glamorganshire, and another was Pucklechurch.
SIR FRANCIS POWELL: But even supposing the incidents reported were accurate, they do not cover the whole ground. There are exceptions to every
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rule, and weak members of every society' and nothing can be more unfair than to bring forward stories of this kind even supposing they were absolutely true. They are rare exceptions to a general rule, and they by no means prove the real position of the case. I do not propose to discuss the clauses of the first part of the Bill, which has been fully entered into by previous speakers. I may, however, be permitted to make one remark. It appears to me, after a careful examination of the clauses on more than one occasion, that there are no real facilities; that there is no certainty with regard to facilities. The facilities proposed in the Bill are difficult to obtain, and it is almost impossible to render them permanent. I assent to the statement made by the hon. Member for North Camberwell last night that Clause 4 requires alteration, and that what is now permissive should be made compulsory. That remark also applies to many cases in the first portion of the Bill. There is no doubt that many Church of England schools have been transferred owing to want of courage on the part of those who were the owners or trustees. In many cases, with more time given to consideration, such action would have been cancelled. Still the fact remains that we have lost many schools owing to the weakness of those who betrayed their trusts, and I have no doubt whatever that if this clause of the Bill becomes law the same unhappy result will arise on future occasions. What I desire to see is permanence of trusts. Many of these schools have been built, as has been already stated, at a very great sacrifice of money, amounting in many cases to many thousands of pounds. And the construction of these schools has cost that which to many is more dear than pecuniary sacrifice; at the cost of great anxiety, suffering, and labour, extending over many years. As you go through the country you find in many cases that the school buildings adjoin the church, and the passer-by will see at once that the school is part of the parochial organisation, and it certainly seems to me to be almost an insult to those who have erected these schools to say that these schools, being a portion of the parochial organisation, shall be eliminated by such a Bill as this, and devoted to a purpose different from that on behalf of which

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they were erected. So much for the first clauses of the Bill.
Now I desire to make one observation which I am, I think, in one sense bound to make from my having taken an active part in educational deliberations. I must associate myself to-day, as I did during the debates which took place upon the Bill of 1902, with those who do not regard with any alarm the operation of the Cowper-Temple clause. I believe that most valuable instruction in Biblical, and therefore Christian knowledge, is given under the Cowper-Temple clause. I desire to go one step further, and to express my great regret that observations should have been made concerning the Cowper-Temple clause which has rendered even possible any misconstruction as to its aims and intentions. I am quite sure there has been no disposition to cast any slight upon Biblical teaching. My regret is that any word should have been spoken, even in a most incautious moment, which would disparage that form of instruction.
I desire chiefly on this occasion to pass from this part of the Bill to the second, which deals with endowments. I hope that the attention, not only of the Government, but also of the country, will be closely directed to those clauses. I myself have been intimately connected with some of our grammar schools. I have been a life governor of the Bradford Grammar School ever since the year 1870, and therefore I have a long and varied experience of the working of those trusts. The language used by my right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Duchy yesterday gave me the impression that he did not altogether appreciate the working of Part II. of the Bill. One of the most important considerations is the date at which any scheme under the Bill will operate. It does not affect the old endowments alone, it affects new institutions. It affects institutions of a few years standing—;such a school, for example, as that well-known and highly honoured school the Leys School in Cambridge, unless I be in error of a very limited character as to the date of that institution. My impression is that that school is brought under the compulsory operation of this Bill. Another institution of recent date
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which I feel almost certain will come under the operation of the Act is the Holloway School for Girls at Egham. I cannot myself believe that the Government really fully understand the position, and I hope the House will permit me to call attention to the real operation of these clauses. This is not a Party matter; it is not a political matter; it is not a denominational matter. Under the existing law, schemes for the most part cannot be altered except on the initiative of the governing body. These clauses propose that the initiative should be placed in the hands of the Education Board. I believe that to be a most dangerous movement in the direction of centralisation. I feel myself quite convinced that there is an inconsistency between the giving of these new powers and the great affection for local independence and local action of which we hear so much just commendation. I believe that those in the country who administer these institutions are more competent than the central authority can be to know what are the wants and, in legal language, the needs of the district, and I think it is a very great misfortune that so much power should be given to the central authority under this Bill. There is a great difference between action by the consent of the central authority and action by the initiative of the central authority. The power which initiates is eminently more powerful than that which simply gives consent, and I do hope that those who are entrusted with the great and responsible office of administering educational charities will carefully study the operation of these clauses and see that no injury is done to the institutions in which they take so laudable and patriotic an interest.
The next point to which I desire to call attention is the date of the operation of these schemes. Under the present law a scheme can only affect a charity of fifty years standing—;fifty years from the Act of 1869. But under the Bill as it now stands a scheme operates thirty years back, the period not running from the date of this Bill, if it becomes an Act, but from the date of the scheme. That is to say, whereas under the Act of 1869 you have a fixed date, under the operation of this Bill you have a date constantly varying from year to year as time passes.

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The effect of that would be to constantly bring in new institutions. I have had too much experience of legislation on these subjects not to know that many changes take place in the course of centuries, and in the evolution of public opinion, and that changes must be made in the administration of trusts accordingly. But this remark does not apply to more recent endowments. A policy which was wise thirty years ago is not foolish now, and there are many conditions which have been proved by experience to be salutary, but which it handled in a rough manne by those not fully conversant with the working of the system may prove most mischievous and injurious to the trusts. Another remark I would wish to make is as to the somewhat crude language used in the operative clause. If any hon. Member will examine the statute of 1868 and other statutes, he will find what care is taken in the language of clause after clause. I will mention one or two of the provisions wherein I think greater care ought to have been taken. There is the teaching of religion. Under the Act of 1869 and the subsequent Acts there is careful provision, not wholly satisfactory, I admit, with regard to what I may describe as religious securities; there is the security for safe-guarding religious teaching, there is the provision for the Conscience Clause, and provision of many kinds affecting students, teachers, and the rights of the parents. They are drawn with precision, accuracy, and care; but they are swept into this Bill by one comprehensive clause framed in the most drastic language and in the most sweeping form of words. There are in the old statute, provisions as to certain conditions of life and certain classes. Those were carefully investigated by a Committee of this House, of which I had the honour of being a Member, and the Committee were unanimous that those provisions required rather greater rigidity than greater elasticity. But under this clause they are all swept together and the clause has to be put into operation by the action of the central authority, without that careful investigation which was required by the Act of 1869.
There is one further subject to which I think some reference ought
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to be made, and that is the permanence of the new endowments. I feel anxious that these trusts should continue. Benevolent founders should be encouraged to continue their foundations, and they ought not to be alarmed in any way by the action of the legislature. Then there is the question of procedure. It may be that the procedure might be simplified. I do not say that it is not capable of improvement, but there is a revolutionary change in the procedure made by this Bill. Certain forms have to be complied with in framing a new scheme—;certain publications made, and certain inquiries instituted. At the present time the charity has power to carry out the whole scheme after inquiry and without loss of time. Under the new Act, where there is opposition, the scheme cannot become law without reference to Parliament. It will have to be brought here by Provisional Order, and in case of opposition it will have to be referred to a Select Committee, and the whole case will have to be investigated. If there is opposition it must be before a Committee according to Parliamentary usage and at the cost of the charity. This means that if the governors or trustees think that the central authority has acted wrongly they cannot protect their property without expending funds, which in many cases they can ill afford to do. Personally, I have for a good many years now been taking a great interest in educational work in the north of England. In my opinion this is a question which ought to be considered carefully by all those who have at heart the interests of the educational foundations of the country. I rejoice at having had this opportunity of submitting my views to the House, and I thank hon. Members for the kind consideration with which they have I listened to a somewhat technical explanation. I now desire to express my disapproval of the Bill as it now stands. How far it can be altered to meet the objections which have been raised will depend upon the temper with which the Government accept our suggestions. I hope that temper will be reasonable, and that this great opportunity of improving, our educational system will not be lost-

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It would be wrong of me if I did not express great alarm, and I must confess that my fears are greater than my hopes. I earnestly desire that this attempt at legislation may not be unsuccessful, and I hope that the effect of these proposals, as they pass through Parliament, may be of such a character as to improve the educational system of the country. I trust that the result will be real progress in education, and that this measure will produce peace, calmness, and goodwill in a region of our social life where they are so essential to success.
MR. SPICER: I am sure that we all have a great respect for the hon. Baronet the Member for Wigan, and if the spirit and temper he has displayed in dealing with this question is indicative of what we may expect on the other side of the House generally, then I think there are great hopes for the future of this Bill. I was especially glad to hear the hon. Baronet's testimony to the Bible teaching given under the Cowper-Temple Clause. It is the first time I have heard from the Opposition such emphatic testimony to the value of that teaching. It comes as a remarkable contrast to the general tenour of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Cambridge University, who seems to hold such pessimistic views, and who has such a poor appreciation of those who for over thirty years have been carrying on this Bible teaching in our various schools. It is to me rather strange that the hon. Member should raise doubts on this question, seeing that so large a percentage of the teachers in our board schools have been trained in Church of England training colleges. I desire to look at this question perhaps from a different point of view from some hon. Members. I had not the honour of a seat in the 1900 Parliament, and therefore I was able to take a more active part in connection with outside work. I sometimes feel that one of the disadvantages of Members of this House is that whilst they are earnestly engaged in the discussion of some great measure they are apt to get a little out of touch with the prevailing feeling of the country. I will give one illustration. I think the feeling outside this House during the discussion of the
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1902 Education Bill with regard to the abolition of our great school boards was much more intense than perhaps it was in this House. Probably comparatively few Members of this House have had the opportunity of serving upon school boards, because it is not often that one can occupy both positions. Although I am perfectly well aware of some of the weaknesses of our school board system, I believe that a great injury was done to the educational work of the country by the abolition at one blow of all our school boards, and the dismissal at one stroke of men of character and power who for the first time had come forward to serve the public in connection with these Boards. There is no doubt that what led to a reversal of the position of parties in this House was the strong feeling of the injustice of putting the voluntary schools on the rates. Not only this, but when these voluntary schools were put on the rates all Free Churchmen were debarred in those schools from taking the position of headmaster and headmistress. That was one of the main factors which led to a complete reversal of the political complexion of this House. With the Education Act of 1902 commenced the slump of the Tory Party. It commenced with the Education Act and was completed by the proposals made with regard to the fiscal question. At any rate, we on the Ministerial side of the House have comeback with a distinct mandate upon this subject. In many of the speeches to which I have listened in this debate this mandate seems to have been completely forgotten. I believe that only the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University has thrown any doubt upon that mandate. We all know that a very distinct mandate has been given to us in reference to popular control of all State supported schools and the abolition of all religious tests, and we dare not support any Bill which does not provide for the carrying out of those two principles. Hon. members on the Opposition side seem to think that they are now in the same position as they were in the 1900 Parliament, but may I remind them that the Church of England to-day in connection with this education question is not in the same position as it was a few years ago. Looking through the list of Members of this House, I have

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sometimes wondered whether the number of Free Churchmen in this House is not larger than the number of actual members of the Church of England. If that is so, then it surely alters the whole position, and it means that really hon. Members opposite have no right to assume the position of former years. At the present moment in this country Free Churchmen are doing a good half of the religious work of the nation without any help from the State. I think the leaders of the Church of England have spoken too hurriedly and too positively in regard to a great measure of this kind, and that they are running great risk of making the general community feel that they are anti-national with regard to the system of education, that they are anti-popular with regard to the management of that system, that they are anti-biblical, and that they are anxious to put the Creeds of the Church before the teaching of the Bible. What has led to this state of things? I say it is the deliberate action of the Church of England and of the Unionist party since 1870. Up to that time the elementary education of the country was mostly in the hands of the Church of England, and I give them full credit for the sacrifices they made up to that time. It was also helped by other Churches who were receiving grants from the State, but there was a huge deficiency in the supply of education. Mr. Forster brought in his Bill; that Bill recognised the work that was being done, and where there was a deficiency it gave power to the ratepayers to form school boards and supply that deficiency. The Church of England has never as a whole loyally accepted the new conditions. If they had only accepted the new conditions we should not be in the position we are in to-day. I hold that the Church then lost a great opportunity for good of the best kind. I speak as a Free Churchman. There are few parts of the country where I do not know intimately the position of the section of the Free Church to which I belong. I know our own difficulties and disadvantages. We are trying to get rid of these disadvantages from year to year, and we are succeeding. I was a little surprised that the hon. Member for the University of Cambridge should quote some fossil of Noncon-
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formity who expressed the opinion that the Bible was easy to teach. It was not worthy of one occupying the hon. Member's position. We have at any rate tried to set an example in educating our ministry, and, speaking as a Congregationalist, I say that we are sending out from Mansfield College on the average better educated men in our ministry than the Church of England at the present time. After the passing of the Act of 1870 the Church of England, if they had loyally accepted the position, might have led the education movement of the country, because they have such enormous advantages, social, educational, and financial; but instead of that they as a rule either opposed or did what they could to minimise it. The principle of the Act of 1870 was that they were to receive grants equal to the amount they raised in fees or subscriptions. It was practically sixpence to sixpence, but they were not content with that, and subsequent Governments, with the support of a Party majority, gave them not sixpence to sixpence, but something like tenpence to twopence. Having asked more State help, the Church was not entitled to so much power in the management. But although they received ten-pence for every twopence, they were still allowed the whole management of the schools. In 1902 the Church passed over their schools entirely, apart from the actual buildings, to the support of the State. Now that the schools are being supported entirely by the State they have no right to ask that they should also have the control of the education. The cry of confiscation which has been raised under the present Bill has fallen on deaf ears, because it is not in accordance with facts. It must be recollected that the Church of England is dependent on the State for the support of their schools, and the present Bill proposes to pay an adequate rent for the use of the buildings. That is not confiscation. Much has been said about parents' rights. Parents have the rights of citizens and no more. They have not the right to ask that, at the State's expense, they should have the special religious teaching they require. In his speech the hon. Member for Aston Manor gave an illustration which showed that

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it was practically impossible to have such a system. Undenominational teaching is not a Nonconformist proposal. It was not started by the Nonconformists. The mover of it in the London School Board was, I believe, Mr. W. H. Smith, and he was supported by Nonconformists and Agnostics. The State, I maintain, can only give in religious teaching that which is common to all. We have tested the so-called school board teaching. We have had thirty-five years of it, and it has proved satisfactory. I hold that the religious teaching of the children is the responsibility of the churches and the parents. Of course I know that the logical consequence in connection with this is secular education—;that the State should look after the secular and that the churches and the parents should look after the religious education. Let me say that in my recent contest I took up this position. I said that personally I wanted to see the Bible continued in the schools, but I admitted that strong denominationalists might say, "You may be content with that, but we are not." I said if they took up that position I was bound to take only one position, and say, "Very well, if you denominationalists claim that you will not have simple Bible teaching, upon you must rest the responsibility of the State taking the secular and the churches taking the religious teaching." [An HON. MEMBER: Why?] As a Christian man I do not dread that time. I was sorry to hear the hon. Member for North Camberwell say last night that if that was done he feared that it would mean that a number of children, especially in the slums, would go uncared for. Surely in this Parliament we are not going to legislate for the continuance of slums. I believe that the great danger under which we are living at the present time is that so many who ought to be taking part in the religious education of the children, not only in the churches and schools, but in the homes, are relying upon the work's being done by the official in the schools. You are asking why there is religious indifference. One reason is that so many who are taking an active part in looking after the religious education of children in the House of Commons, and elsewhere, are not taking an active part in the religious
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teaching of either the children at home or the children who surround them, but are leaving the work to the official teacher. I speak of this feelingly. I do not wish to make personal references, but I have tried for the last forty years to take my share of this work, and I say that, having done that, I do not look with fear even to the time when the State shall recognise the secular and the churches and homes shall recognise the Christian teaching. After all, this Bible teaching, at which some hon. Members sneer, is in harmony with the principles under which we are living day by day. There are the public schools. I do not claim that they are national, but any man who knows them must acknowledge that the teaching of the Bible in these schools is carried on in an undenominational spirit. In everyday life we try to recognise the good in every part. I was extremely sorry to hear the speech of the hon. Member for South Longford, because it showed that the chasm between Protestant and Roman Catholic is even deeper than some of us had thought. I confess that as I listened to that speech, although I recognised, as all hon. Members must have recognised, the spirit that is behind it, I asked myself whether it would not be better that the Roman Catholics of this country, where in sufficient numbers, should have separate treatment outside this Bill altogether. After all, the great majority of the people in this country are Protestants, and we ought to try and frame a policy of education suitable to all Protestants to whichever section they may belong. I feel keenly on this subject, and I support this Bill because I believe it is an honest attempt to deal with this question in a national and broad spirit.
SIR JOHN KENNAWAY: I am very glad that my hon. friend who has just sat down did justice to the earlier attempts and to the sacrifices made by the Church of England to care for the education of the children before the State took any interest or part in the matter, thereby earning the gratitude of the whole of the people of the country. I am one of the very few Members in the House who took a part in the passing of the Education Act in 1870, and I think that the hon. Member

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did scant justice to what the Church of England has done since that time. During the thirty years that elapsed between the passing of that Act and 1902, the Church of England set herself to work, and I am not going outside the mark when I say that she built 6,000 schools and spent several millions of money. The Church did not oppose the school boards, but she felt that they did not give the full teaching which she believed to be necessary, and therefore she set herself to do the best in her power to fill the gap, and to enlarge her system. So far from the Act of 1902 being a gain to the Church, it has thrown a very great additional expense on her on account of the additional demands made by the local authorities. I think I am within the mark in saying that the Church has spent more than a million in the last three years in supplying these deficiences. I do not think it is fair to call this an Education Bill or a Bill to make better provision for education. It will destroy a good deal of the best sort of education that the schools have been giving, and it will disturb education rather than make better provision for the children. It might be called a Church of England Disability Bill. It was introduced for the payment of election debts. There was a great deal done for the Government in the last election by the Nonconformists, and it is reasonable that they should expect their reward. I am not disposed to dispute the fact that as evinced in the elections there was a mandate from the country to the Government to deal with the question, and the Government had very little choice but to introduce the Bill as the first measure of importance in their programme. Had the Bill been fair and reasonable it would not have aroused strong opposition, but it goes so far beyond that and the necessities of the case that we feel bound to raise the most energetic protest against it, and to record our emphatic objection to its arbitrary provisions. There is a cynical disregard of the feelings of Churchmen especially, and also of our Roman Catholic brethren. I am not accustomed to the use of adjectives, which are very often unnecessary and hurtful; but I do not think I am going beyond
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what is fair and right when I say that I think that the Bill is extravagant, unjust, arbitrary, and calamitous. It is extravagant because, at a time when national finances are subjected to a great strain and when the Government have come in with great professions of economy, it adds one million a year to the public charge without any educational benefit, and uses that million to deprive Churchmen of rights and privileges which they value above money, and for which they have made great efforts and sacrifices. They were encouraged to make these by promises of various Governments that the school board system was introduced to supplement and not to supplant the then existing system. The Bill is unnecessary, because it will interfere with hundreds of schools which are working without a hitch, and without a complaint from the parents; in a given time they have done a great deal to improve the education of the country, and they are doing their work harmoniously and well. Now, everything will be turned topsy-turvy, and many of the best teachers, who value their position for the sake of the religious teaching they can give, will be lost to the service. It is calamitous, because it does deliberate dishonour to religious education and makes it for the first time an extra subject dependent on the option of the local authorities. The extended facilities are of little use. It is tyrannical, because it forbids many teachers giving religious instruction, which instruction is so important in the formation of character and also of morals. Then there is the question of the interference with trusts. The doctrine of trusts is that they are sacred and should not be subject to the caprice of any one. In dealing with the trusts there is power to ignore the wishes of their founders, and they are placed at the mercy of irresponsible, irremovable Commissioners, armed with most drastic powers, even the power of putting into force when they want to take possession of a school the Small Tenements Act. I hope and believe that this provision as to the Commissioners will entirely disappear from the Bill. I have said all this because I thought it was only right and fair to place before hon. Gentlemen opposite the grounds for what seems to them an unreasonable opposition.

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I am sure that hon. Members are not desirous of doing any injustice even to Churchmen, and that they have been greatly misled by the agitators who have spoken of the Bill of 1902 as imposing further disabilities upon Nonconformists, whereas on the contrary it introduced public management into the schools. [Laughter.] It is easy to laugh, but nobody can deny that these schools were under the Act placed under the county councils instead of being left to one man, one parson power as in the past. It is therefore absurd to say that no public management was introduced. But the control given was not sufficient for hon. Members opposite; they wanted the whole control, and hence the agitation, which has been fomented very largely by the kind of statement made yesterday by the hon. Member for the Louth Division of Lincolnshire, when he said that the bitterness of the agitation was caused by the fact that the Church of England was rapidly approaching in doctrine, creed, and ritual the Roman Catholic Church. I have had some opportunity of ascertaining how far that statement is true. I can, speaking with authority, give it an emphatic denial. I do not deny that there have been in some quarters something which might give colour to such a statement, but to speak of the Church of England as a whole, of a large majority in it, as approaching the doctrine, creed, and ritual of the Roman Catholic Church is grossly erroneous. We wish that our Nonconformist friends would do justice to us as we would desire to do justice to them, and not, in the course of removing the liability to pay a small amount of rates, to inflict a greater injustice upon us, and one which in the words of the hon. Member for Leicester would give ground for a more aggravated form of "passive resistance" by Churchmen than anything of that nature which has occurred before. I am prepared to admit that the necessary outcome of the Church's acceptance of rate aid and of the result of the last election are the points raised as to the abolition of tests and complete public control. We did accept those points in principle in 1902. We asked our friends to go a long way
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in doing so, and got very little credit for it. But we were able to induce them to accept those points because we took security for that which we valued so much, the continuance of religion. Now the Government threaten us that they will do away with that security, but I ask what are they going to put in its place? How are you going to ensure that our sacrifices and efforts have not been in vain? We want to consider fairly and fully what is possible under the circumstances, and we ask at all events that the question of denominational freedom under public control should be considered. Is that impossible? Such a system exists in various forms in Scotland, in Germany and, I believe, in Ireland. Is it impossible in England? I believe it might be so worked as to be thoroughly democratic, ideal, and yet preserve the teaching which we value. It is only in some such way as this that we can avoid that secular education which the hon. Member for North Camberwell said last night was abhorrent to the general feeling of the country. We might be driven to counsels of despair if we are not able to come to some agreement by which it can be avoided. The responsibility will be very heavy upon those on the other side of the House who, by obstinate refusal of concession, bring about that result. I am ready to accept Biblical teaching, in the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as laying the foundation upon which the ampler teaching of Christian faith can be secured, but it ought to be compulsory and in school hours, facilities being granted on one or two days a week for denominational teaching to all schools, provided and-non-provided schools alike. I would associate myself very closely also with what fell from the hon. Baronet the Member for Wigan in regard to Part II. of this Bill. The Bill was thought to apply only to elementary schools, but, as a matter of fact, Part II. applies to all endowments except those of the Universities, and of seven public schools. The provisions are very far-reaching. The Commissioners are entitled to make provision in regard to any trust of over thirty years standing and to disregard the wishes of the founders. This part of the Bill goes very much beyond the proposals of the Endowed

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Schools Commission, which only recommended interference where the charity was wholly or partially useless, mischievous, or obsolete. In thanking the House for listening to me, I will merely say that my desire has been simply to ask others to look at this matter as fairly as they would ask us to look at it if they were in opposition, and to express the earnest hope and belief that it may be possible by Amendment so to alter the Bill that our objections may be removed. I admit that there will be great difficulty, but I hope that this cruel sense of injustice under which we shall suffer if the Bill passes in its present form may be removed, otherwise we may refuse to consider it and seek to bring about its rejection by every means in our power. I am sure that none of us wish the prolongation of this controversy year after year. We want a settlement of it, and it is because the Bill in its present form does not offer that that I shall most unhesitatingly vote against it.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. LOUGH,): Those of us who, like myself, have been accustomed to listen to the right hon. Gentleman have always heard from him something which appealed to our commonsense rather than to our passions, and he will find on this side of the House a disposition to reciprocate the good wishes he expressed, that we may be able to arrive by conciliation at an adjustment of the very grave questions which are raised by this Bill. I do not intend to trouble the House at any length with the contentious points which have been raised in the debate. I will only say after an experience in three Parliaments, that my right hon. friend who introduced the Bill ought to be well satisfied with the progress it has made. I have never seen a large and contentious measure better received than this Bill has been. It has been met with approval by a large and solid majority in this House, and I am perfectly satisfied with its reception in the country. The clergy it is true have raised great objections to the Bill. I am not one to speak lightly of the clergy, but they are not all politicians, and many of
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them do not know the best means of realising the objects they have at heart. Putting aside the opposition of the clergy, the Government may feel that the Bill has been well received. Certain objections have been made, with which I have deep sympathy, by the Gentlemen who represent Ireland. I can only say that there has been a great disposition to meet many of the criticisms they and other minorities have levelled at the Bill. It may not be easy to bring the provisions they have criticised up to the standard they desire, but I appeal to them to have regard to the equilibrium of the Bill. It is exceedingly difficult to deal with this matter of education in a way acceptable to everybody. Many of the Amendments which are asked for would not tend to produce the result which hon. Members anticipate. The hon. Member for Louth asks us to strike Clause 4 out of the Bill altogether, but then the hon. Member for North Camberwell asks us to make the clause mandatory, and I ask many who desire to support the Government to consider the difficult position in which we are placed in trying to steer an even keel through all these difficulties, and I ask them to look at the Bill in as sympathetic a manner as possible. The Bill was not prepared in the interests of any church; it is a simple educational measure for the improvement of educational facilities for the children of the poor. It has been introduced in a spirit of moderation and conciliation, which will continue to guide to the end of our deliberations those who are responsible for it. I have been considering what is the best way in which I can assist the House in discussing this matter, and I have come to the conclusion that I can do so by answering the appeal addressed to the Government, by the hon. Member for Aston Manor, and by saying something in reference to the finances of the Bill. After all, have the whole of these difficulties arisen out of the question of how we are to finance the Church schools. The Church has complained of the intolerable strain, but this was not a strain upon any man's conscience; it was only as train upon the cash of the Church. Now the Church has got rid of that intolerable strain and thrown

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it on to the back of the nation. So far as I know, the country has never had an opportunity—;in this House certainly we had no opportunity in the closured debates of 1902—;of considering what this strain was. We are the representatives of the nation, and it becomes us to ask what is the strain to-day and what it is likely to become to-morrow. There was a movement in regard to this matter, to resist the payment of the rate, which swept like a storm over many parts of the country. I know that superior persons looked upon that passive resistance movement, and said that the demand was small and that resistance was unreasonable, but you can never measure the force of resistance of this kind by the mere size of the demand which is made. It is true that the demand was small. The demand for ship money was small, yet the resistance to it led to a revolution. And since the days of ship money I do not know that there has been such a feeling of indignation in this country as that which swept through it at the time of the late general election. Much of that indignation arose from the financial proposals in the Education Act of the late Government. It may be said that it is a mean thing for us to raise this question of finance in connection with such a sacred subject as education, but the more sacred the subject the more desirable it is that its financial basis should rest on something generally and willingly accepted by the people. Now, if the House will allow me, I will throw myself on its indulgence for a moment while I discuss this large question. Let us first consider what change the Education Act of 1902 made in the educational finance of the country. When my right hon. friend introduced this Bill, he said we were here to amend these Acts. Let us then consider their effect from the point of view of finance as well as everything else. Those who will carry their minds back to the year 1902 will remember that the step which the Government of the day then took was to ask the nation to accept the financial burden of 14,000 voluntary schools scattered over every part of the country, to allow that burden to be borne upon the rates, to leave the control of those schools in the hands of
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the private individuals and bodies of trustees who controlled them previously, to allow them to open other schools and to throw the financial burden of those schools also upon the back of the nation. That was the appeal that was made, but no estimate of the cost was given; yet when you take the cost of the 23,000 elementary schools of this country you find it costs on an average £1,000 a year to maintain each school. This was the burden lightly thrown upon the nation practically without any opportunity to discuss it. The nation was not asked to shoulder the whole burden. It was supposed that a contribution was made by the Church contributing the building. The position was made rather worse by that, because of the pecuniary conflict which immediately arose. If the whole thing had been taken over there would have been no strife as to money, and the managers of those schools would have been what we hope to make them by this Bill, the servants of the public authority. That was the arrangement made in 1902, an arrangement which in its nature was a bad one. What was the principle on which it rested? The principle was that education, our greatest national service, should be financed by a mixture of philanthropy and State aid. I object to philanthropy in such a connection. It does not lead to economy. The philanthropist too often exacts a larger share of the patronage and control than his contribution warrants. There has been a long and interesting financial connection between these schools and the State. Many of them received building grants. I do not wish to make light of those sacrifices to which the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down and others referred through which these schools were built. What, how ever, is the history of the schools? In early days many received a small grant from the State. Then for many years they received a larger annual grant. Then in 1891 another grant was given to them of 10s., and in 1897 a further additional grant of 5s. So that in 1902, when the late Government dealt with this matter, they were in receipt of 35s. per scholar in respect of every school in the country. If the trustees of these

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schools were so anxious to retain them, why did not they remain satisfied with the 35s. per head which they were receiving, instead of driving this very hard bargain? The fact is, whenever one demand was satisfied another arose, until at last in 1902 came the demand that the whole expenditure should be taken over by the State whatever it might be. Let us see what contribution the late Government gave when they saddled the nation with that mighty burden. Practically the whole financial aid in the Bill of 1902 was given under Section 10. It is called an aid grant. That grant took the place of the 5s. grant, and of the necessitous school grants that had been made previously. These together amounted to about £1,000,000 and the aid grant to £2,250,000, so that the total Exchequer fresh coutribution was £1,250,000. Let hon. Members remember the huge new expense to be incurred and contrast that with what it is proposed to do under this Bill. The most important feature of this arrangement was the abolition of the principle of dealing with necessitous schools in a special way. Within two years of the passing of the Act, the hon. Members for East and West Ham were thundering against the late Prime Minister for relief. They got nothing from the right hon. Gentleman except interesting speeches, and no step was taken to deal with the matter before the present Government came in. What the House has particularly to bear in mind with regard to this Act of 1902 is the capricious changes that it made in the laws of educational finance. The precise provisions of the Aid Grant are of the most extraordinary character. Those who know them are amused by them. Those who do not know them must be amazed when they hear them. The provisions were first 4s. per scholar and then 1½d. for every 2d. in which the produce of a penny rate falls under 10s. Why any one of these provisions was invented no man living could ever find out. All are involved in the deepest mystery. The effect has been to give a practically level grant of 9s. 6d. per scholar with one or two unjust exceptions, and this has proved very disappointing so far as necessi-
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tous schools are concerned, as well as from other standpoints. Another extraordinary provision of the Act was Cause 18 (c) which stated that three-fourths, or at least a half, of the cost of providing any school should be thrown on the country parishes which the school served. I cannot think how any Government that knew anything about a country parish in England could propose such a provision. Its object can only have been to prevent the building of schools by the local education authority. I have gathered a few examples of how this provision works in the county of Buckinghamshire, where there are many parishes in which a penny rate only provides £5 and several parishes in which it provides less than £12. The result is that there are parishes languishing under rates of 1s., 1s. 6d., and 2s. in the pound in excess of the county rate. That was not the only difficulty into which the country parishes were plunged. I happen to be a little familiar with the depopulated district of Romney, in Kent, where there was for the single school a 3d. voluntary rate. Then this Act came along and the rate was raised to 10d. with no change whatever in the school. It is no wonder that the country should revolt at such provisions. The case in the towns is no better. Only last week the rate for the parish of Westminster was of such an extraordinary character that the city councillors issued an elaborate explanation—;a sort of apology—;for the rate. They gave the figures for the last seven years, which showed that the rates for education had increased by 70 per cent. during that period, so that the City of Westminster is paying £193,000 a year more, which is equal to a rate of 8d. in the pound.
SIR WILLIAM ANSON: The Act had only been in operation three years.
MR. LOUGH: The late Government were extravagant for a much longer period than the hon. Baronet thinks. There is one other provision in the Act of 1902 to which I must make reference—;Section 13, which dealt with endowments. When we consider the drastic way in which endowments were dealt with in

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the Act it is perfectly astonishing to listen to the criticisms that are levelled at this Bill. What did that clause do? It endeavoured to wrench away educational endowments, which were available for the purposes of elementary education, from the purposes to which the founders had devoted them, and to apply them to the reduction of the education rate. There were two objections to that. It was contrary to the old and sound doctrine with regard to the use that ought to be made of these endowments, and secondly, if they had succeeded, the endowments would have gone to reduce the rate in a different area from that which was intended to be benefited. Luckily, for technical reasons, which I need not explain, this clause has not been operative, or only to a small extent, not more than £20,000 of endowments having been dealt with. The administrative difficulty of the Act has been gigantic, and even my short experience at the Board of Education shows me that it was only brought into operation by the unsparing efforts of the officials both there and among the Local Authorities. Let me give two examples of these difficulties. The payments under the old system had to be made to different bodies from those created under the new system, so at first these latter had no money, and a system of temporary instalments was resorted to for three successive years until the Government itself disappeared and left it to its successors to place things on a stable basis. But a worse step was taken. An Act was passed called the Education Working Balances Act, and its object was to allow authorities to borrow in order to be able to set up a balance at the bank. I think that was an exceedingly bad principle, though 161 out of 327 authorities have resorted to it, because it involved paying interest on the balance all the year round, and consequently it was extremely extravagant. I wish now to summarise the results. A recent Return shows that the total rates collected by all the education authorities in the last year were £2,000,000 more than in the previous year, and now amount to £11,250,000. I estimate this year's increase at £1,000,000, and this will make in rates alone the total increase £5,000,000 in four years. In London for the three
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years of the operation of the Act the rates have been 1s. 2½d. 1s. 4d. and 1s. 7d. The Acts which have thrown this heavy burden on the rates have instituted a system of control tending to inefficiency and extravagance. One of the features of the old school board system was the extent to which it used voluntary help. The system of the Bill of 1902 has caused a great increase of officialism and administrative expenses, the latter now amounting to about £1,000,000. These are very, serious results. A system in its nature extravagant and difficult to control has been set up, and the great bulk of the additional cost has been thrown not on the Exchequer, but on the local rates.
Now I come to deal with the present Bill. Its financial proposals are based on two principles—;the promotion of an economical and efficient system of administration, the affording of relief to the local authority. The Bill sets up the principle of absolute local control, so that for the first time the local authorities will be masters in their own house. They will engage the teachers, and every branch of the service; they will make their own bargains with owners of schools in their own way. Everything that can be done by facilities for borrowing cheaply has been done to relieve localities in the cost of providing schools. The period of repayment has been extended, and a lower rate of interest provided. The Bill facilitates the acquisition and transfer of land, and it permits borrowing for playgrounds, equipments, and alterations. Country parishes have been relieved by an alteration of the clause in the last Act, whereby the parish is left with only a quarter of the cost of building a school instead of three-quarters or a half. The right hon. Member for Dover has unreasonably misrepresented this provision. In a speech at the Albert Hall the right hon. Gentleman treated this clause as a new proposal which would turn these areas into a howling wilderness, when, as a matter of fact, it is a drastic measure of relief. I think the right hon. Gentleman might have read the Bill before making that criticism. The great urban districts are granted autonomy, and we hope that what we have done will enable them to discharge their educational duties more efficiently and

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economically. The grant of £1,000,000 is for no mysterious scheme like that of 1902. We provide it for purposes of expenditure which are far more limited than those of the Act of 1902. As my right hon. friend has explained to the House, it will be largely applied to the reduction of rates in those districts where provision has to be made for the purposes of the Bill. The Bill makes endowments available for the purpose for which they were intended. The House should not be led away by the denunciations of these clauses. I will do my hon. friends opposite the justice of saying that when they so heartily denounced the clauses they did not understand what was proposed. They are simple in their object, and I think that when they are understood by the House no reasonable person will see any objection to them. The disposition of the Government towards the schools is generous and sympathetic. No financial support is necessarily withdrawn. But it is almost impossible to understand the action of the Government without going outside the limits of the Bill. I will put one illustration before the House on a matter already referred to—;I mean the case of the necessitous schools. One of the worst changes the late Government made was the doing away with all special treatment of the necessitous school districts. The proposals for relieving them will command general approval. Necessitous districts suffer for three reasons. The children are an unduly large proportion of the population. Barking stands at the head of such districts with 240 children at school to every 1,000 of the population, and Bexhill is the lowest with 97. In many of these urban districts such as West Ham the children in elementary schools represent a fifth of the population. Then in these places the rates are very high, often 10s. in the £, expenses of building schools are great, and there is much poverty. I think it will be recognised from the explanation I have given that the Government desire to do all in its power to simplify and improve the System of educational finance. There is a great deal to be done, and I should like to see some movement towards consolidating the Acts under which the various grants are given, as even the
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names of these grants have now only a historic interest. I think there should be one consolidated grant. Then I think an improvement would be made if all the schools would adopt the same school year. All such improvements do not need legislation, but they would meet difficulties, facilitate economies, and assist the localities. The need of every effort is apparent when we realize the total cost of the service. With the additional grant the estimates this year amount to £13,750,000, when we add the rates this makes £26,000,000 for England and Wales alone. If we add to this, say £5,500,000 for the total cost in Scotland and Ireland, the charge for Education in the United Kingdom is £31,500,000. Therefore it represents at this moment the heaviest, as it is the most important, branch of State expenditure, I appeal to hon. Members to take as favourable a view as they can of a Bill which, according to the right hon. Member for Oxford University, preserves intact the framework of the Act of 1902. The proposals are liberal, moderate, and conciliatory. They may be a little costly for a time, and put restraint upon extreme views, but in so far as they carry out reforms without unnecessarily reversing the policy of the predecessors of the Government, they form an illustrious example of the spirit that has contributed so much to the stability of British institutions.
LORD BALCARRES: I believe the hon. Gentleman said that the education policy of the late Government was bad, but he did not succeed in proving that the rates in the City of Westminster had risen by 70 per cent. in the last three years in consequence.
MR. LOUGH: I said that the education rate had advanced by 70 per cent. in seven years.
LORD BALCARRES: I quite understand that, but the hon. Gentleman has not given the House the basis of his misleading estimate. I confess that I do not see how this Bill remedies the extravagance which has been laid to the charge of the Party now in opposition. I see no suggestion of economy, treating economy as a

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saving of money, in any part of this Bill. I do not call extending the period for the repayment of loans for public buildings good economy; it is most extravagant. I trust the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not allow that system to pervade other branches of his Department. The Secretary to the Board of Education, in a moment of pessimism, rather gave away the whole case when he said the scheme might be a little costly for a time. This scheme will be costly, and the sum of£1,000,000 provided in the Bill will be wholly insufficient to meet the new charges which will have to be met. Turning to the effect of Clauses 3 and 4 of the Bill on the local authorities, I maintain that the President of the Board of Education gave no reason in his speech to justify Clause 4, except that in his opinion a certain elasticity ought to be introduced into urban areas. Why should this distinction be drawn between town and country? It is illogical, partial, and unfair. I consider that the dual system is most unfair. The explanation of the distinction has been given by the Secretary for India, who admitted that the clause was introduced; to satisfy the conscientious scruples of the non-Protestant minority. I am in favour of their scruples being satisfied, but I do not see why their rights or the rights of other communities which are equal and concurrent should be taken away and solemnly regranted in the form of favours. The conditions attending the operation of Clause 4 will colour and control the whole of our local and civic life. The means of evasion are such that they will not only invite, but force, local authorities into the innermost religious strife from which they have hitherto been free. The hon. Gentleman is optimistic in regard to the attitude of the local authorities. The only condition imposed in the Bill is that they must consider an application, but there is no appeal from their decision. The Minister for Education was most
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eloquent, in introducing the Bill, in stating that the local authorities should be trusted to be fair-minded; but denominationalists have not always been treated with complete fairness and equitableness, for instance in Wales, and even in London. The right hon. Gentleman says that the English people have a positive genius for the administration of their laws. He did not use the word "British" people; perhaps he had in his mind the Scottish extraction of himself and myself; and he deliberately excluded the countrymen of the President of the Board of Trade. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us why the scheme is limited to urban areas? He tells us he wants elasticity, but I cannot see why he should limit the population to 5,000. That in itself is a hardship to the Church of England. The Chancellor of the Duchy, speaking yesterday attacked us severely, though not in the provocative manner of the President of the Board of Trade. We oppose this Bill because the members of the Church of England think that it inflicts injustice upon us. Under the special facilities clause the Jewish community can save 100 per cent. of its schools; the Wesleyans 52 per cent.; the Roman Catholics 77 per cent., but the Church of England, which educates five times as many children as any other denomination, can only save 25 per cent. of its schools. Is it not natural that we should feel some sense of injustice? Is it not inevitable under these circumstances that we should feel that we were being harshly treated, and if we use strong language should be pardoned?
MR. PAUL: Who use strong language?
LORD BALCARRES: Members of the Church of England.
MR. PAUL: I am a member of the Church of England.
LORD BALCARRES: And as such the hon. Member is entitled to support the Bill, but when I say "we" I mean the vast majority of the Church of England, and I do not know whether the hon. Member claims that if he were to appeal to the Church people in his constituency, they would agree with him that it is a Bill of a fair or honourable character towards their Church. At any rate, some members of the Church to which I belong feel that this Bill is a grave act of injustice. Four-fifths of the parents can demand facilities, but why not a half, or a bare majority? Surely that is the more simple method of ascertaining the view of the parish. The President of the Board of Education reminded us that minorities must suffer. It is indeed the badge of all their tribe, but does the right hon. Gentleman infer that the minority in this country is the Church of England, the Roman Catholics, or the Jews, the three chief denominations which together oppose this Bill? I do not think it can be said that the Church is in a minority, and I think the right hon. Gentleman ought to have more regard to the rights of the majority than he has shown by this Bill. With regard to the position of the teacher, why is the teacher in the town to be allowed to give this religious teaching while the teacher in the country is refused that permission? The distinction between two days and five days is, like the distinction between town and country, illogical, meaningless, and probably unjust. The House has not yet learned from the speeches which have been delivered what is going to be the precise relationship between the local authority and the teacher in the school. The right hon. Gentleman informed a deputation that the intention of the clause is that the teachers should remain the same as they are—;those who are most qualified to give the particular religious instruction which hitherto has been given in the school. That required
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a little amplification. It presumably does not apply exclusively to the living generation of teachers. When the teacher dies or is promoted, or retires, is a man to succeed him who will fulfil the conditions laid down by the right hon. Gentleman?
MR. BIRRELL: That is what I meant.
LORD BALCARRES: Then the whole claim of the right hon. Gentleman to have abolished tests is gone. The late Government in 1902 were more frank. They did not put into their Bill a clause saying that they were going to abolish teachers' tests and then allow it to be dragged out of them by a deputation waiting upon the Minister that the intention of the clause was illusory, and that the tests as they now exist in voluntary schools in the country are in the future to continue as in the past. Much balm will therefrom come to the soul of the passive resister! The permissive clause is the most objectionable of all, because it will create strife within the local authorities where strife does not now exist. There is practically no strife now except on the political platform and in the political Press. I wrote the other day to the chairman of the Lancashire Education Committee who has had more practical experience of education than any living man, and I asked how far the religious difficulty showed itself by the withdrawal of children, and he replied—;
"We have no information as to the children withdrawn by their parents from religious instruction. This is not notified to us."
This is a matter which does not affect the life of the school. It is somewhat significant in a county like Lancashire where our feelings on this subject are very deep, that this gentleman does not think it worth while to make inquiry into the point as to whether children are withdrawn from religious instruction or not. Yet this is a county where the

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people are sufficiently manly and independent to have no scruple in withdrawing their children if they desire to do so, any more than they would have any scruple in sending their children to a Congregational church, or in going themselves to any particular place of worship they might choose as opposed to any other. This clause introduces deliberately religious strife into every local area. To secure your four-fifths majority you will have to have a religious canvas. Does any Member want that? Having got your majority you must immediately make efforts to retain it, and one form those efforts will take will be to do away with Sub-clause B. Wherever there are not two schools the four-fifths majority clause would be altogether worthless unless we could at once get a small school built to accommodate the balance of our children from the voluntary school, and that is not desirable. The removal of a few children, the migration of half-a-dozen families, the opening of a new mill, or of a new seam of coal,—;all these things must readily and quickly change the conditions under which these facilities are granted. Then you would have inquiries re-opened and the old intrigues and constant fights on the local authority. But even as this clause is drafted, even before the withdrawal operates we should be entitled to re-open all these questions. The long and short of it is that there is going to be perpetual strife, confusion and intrigue, owing to the apple of discord wilfully thrown down by the Board of Education. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Education said that if these facilities were illusory they would be a fraud. I take his own words, and I go further. There is no logic in them, no stability, and no security. They mean constant friction where there is now no friction; constant friction in the town councils, for instance, where in ninety-nine cases out of 100 there is now absolutely no difficulty on religious questions. [An HON.
1274
MEMBER: Oh, oh!] Does the hon Member say that in ninety-nine cases out of 100 there is friction [An HON. MEMBER: No.] But under this Bill you are going to introduce it, because a town council, however wrongly the hon. Member may think, will be elected from one side and the other by people who in this case take a most profound interest in the religious question. I do not believe the right hon. Gentleman has realised his responsibility towards religious denominations. He has miscalculated the depth of the convictions of Churchmen, but he has also miscalculated our strength. We are told that the alternative to this clause is secular education or secularism, whatever it may be called—;the exclusion of any sort of religious teaching from our schools. That is a threat [MINISTERIAL Cries of "No"]—;a threat at least to those who believe in religious education, and history does not show that that form of threat is one of which denominationalists need be afraid. I deny emphatically that secularism is the alternative. It is admitted in all quarters of the House that the country will not at this time stand secularism, and it is my firm belief that the right hon. Gentleman will find it sufficiently difficult to pass his Bill with Clause 4 in it; but if he excludes the clause with a view to introducing secularism, he will find it absolutely impossible.
Motion made, and Question, "That the debate be now adjourned"—;(Mr. Bryce)—;put, and agreed to.
Debate to be resumed To-morrow.

HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
Order read, for resuming adjourned debate on Question [7th May], "That Major Dunne be one other Member of the Select Committee on the Housing of the Working Classes Acts Amendment Bill."
Question again proposed.
MR. KEIR HARDIEsaid that the Labour Party had no personal or political objection to the members of this Committee, whose names they were now opposing; they were objecting to them on a question of principle, and not upon any other ground whatever. He hoped the House, in considering this matter, would keep that fact well in mind. He wished to say, as representing those who sat on the Labour Benches, that in the past they thought the Patronage Secretary had, on the whole, met their claims fairly, and they attributed no blame to him upon that score. The action they were taking in reference to this particular Committee was based upon two grounds. The Labour Members who sat on those benches had been returned to Parliament to represent certain definite principles; they were entitled to representation upon all important Committees, and particularly upon those Committees directly affecting the working classes. That was a frank statement of their claim. Why had this particular Committee been so constituted as to exclude a Member of the Labour Party? The Secretary to the Treasury had admitted that if the Committee had consisted of fifteen Members, the Labour Party would have had a Member upon it. In a matter of such importance as this Committee was appointed to consider, the matter should have been so arranged as to entitle the Labour Party to be represented upon it. The appointment of such a Committee was not, and should not be, a matter of vulgar fractions. He and his friends claimed to be entitled to representation on all Committees concerning the working classes. From whom had objection come against the Labour Members being represented
1276
on the Committee? Had the Whips on the Opposition side or the Irish Whips made any objection? If no objection had been raised, then he should expect the Patronage Secretary to explain why the Labour Party had been so excluded. They said that, as a Labour Party, paid by Labour organisations, and directly representing Labour opinions, they were entitled to representation on a Committee of this kind. For that reason they would divide the House against the name now proposed.
MR. FENWICKsaid that after what had taken place in reference to the Motion before the House he thought the House would not consider him unreasonable if he claimed their indulgence for a short time. It was a matter of no concern to him what his hon. friends chose to label themselves, but, when they proceeded to rule those who like himself sat on that side of the House as outside the rank of Labour representatives [Cries of "No"], then he thought they were justified in protesting against such an act of excommunication. What special right had his hon. friends on the other side to be considered as the representatives of Labour that they who sat on the Ministerial side of the House had not an equal claim to? They were trade unionists, they stood at the head of large Labour organisations which they had built up. Their claim in both these respects was infinitely superior to the claim of some of those who claimed to be members of the Labour Party. They had been workmen. They had worked in the mine and in the factory side by side with those who sent them to this House. They were paid, and he was not ashamed to admit it, as hon. Gentleman claimed

1277
to be paid on the other side. He knew it was the fashion amongst some of his hon. friends like the hon. Member for Leicester to write them down as nondescript Labour Members, but he defied him or any other member of the Labour Party to cite a claim as unique as his own to be regarded as a Labour representative. He was not ashamed to admit that twenty-one years ago he was earning his bread as a working miner when the delegates representing the constituency which he now had the honour to represent in this House asked him to leave his work to represent them here, which he had done ever since. When any one of his hon. friends opposite could show a claim as unique as that, then they might claim in a special sense to be Labour representatives. His hon. friend the Member for Woolwich had said that those men who sat on the Liberal side and claimed—;let them mark the word—;to be Labour Members were Liberals pure and simple He ventured to say that even if they did claim that it was as bona fide as the claim of any hon. Member opposite. It was a matter of public notoriety that his hon. friend the Member for Wooliwch for many months in the last Parliament refused to sign the pledge of the Independent Labour Party. Yet was there any one of the Labour Members who regarded his hon. friend as less of a Labour representative because of that? If the signing of a pledge was to be the credential for becoming a member of the Labour Party then they would get many men whose hands had never been soiled with honest toil ready and willing to sign. He, therefore, entered his strongest possible protest to the argument that because they sat on the Ministerial
1278
side of the House they were not entitled to be regarded as Labour representatives. One of the Members of the proposed Committee, the hon. Member for Birkenhead, had as noble a record as a Labour representative and a trade unionist as it was possible for any man to have. In addition to that he had exceptional qualifications for service upon the Committee now in question by reason of the work in which he had been engaged so directly and efficiently for many years past. He had devoted his time more closely to the question of the housing of the working classes than probably any other Labour representative in the House, and in nominating him to sit upon this Committee the Government had acted wisely and well. He would ask his hon. friends to remember that on Thursday last week they were given a place on a Committee to deal with the question of the taxation of land values in Scotland and no objection was raised, and he thought Labour representatives who sat on the Ministerial side were entitled on this occasion to have a member of their own group.
MR. CROOKS: We welcome you.
MR. FENWICKsaid he was glad that claim was admitted, but if they claimed representation on Party lines his hon. friends opposite were only entitled as a separate and distinct Party to claim representation in proportion to their numbers. He understood the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil went one better than that, and claimed in addition representation in consequence of the special position which he and his friends occupied as representing Labour constituencies, His hon. friend could not claim it on

1279
both grounds. If he was content to take it on purely Party lines he must take his fair representation, and if the Government was not prepared to extend the Committee then he would have to be content with the fair representation in proportion to the number of the Party he controlled. But when the hon. Gentleman went outside and claimed it on special grounds his position was no stronger than, if indeed it was as strong as, the claim of his hon. friends who sat on the Ministerial side. There were a number of members of the so-called Labour Party who were trade union leaders and who stood at the head of great trade organisations, but what was true of those Gentlemen was not equally true of every member of the Party, and for them to attempt to rule others outside the pale of Labour representation was, in his opinion, sufficient justification for rising as he did to-night to enter a protest.
MR. SHACKLETONsaid he was very sorry that the hon. Member for the Wansbeck Division should have treated the matter as a question between the representatives of Labour on one side of the House and the representatives of Labour on the other. He was perfectly sure that if he knew the true history of this question he would have spoken differently. On no single occasion had they ever raised any objection to or questioned in any way any nomination from amongst the hon. Gentleman's friends on any Committee. If there was an issue between himself and his friends and some other Party in the House, it was between them and the Patronage Secretary and the Party on whose behalf he acted. In these circumstances he thought the question raised in the speech to which they had
1280
just listened would have been better raised round a table among themselves. He had not the privilege of listening to the speech of his hon. friend the Member for Woolwich, but he had read it, and he agreed with every word he said. It was as well that they should know where they were in this matter. What was the position? The Patronage Secretary had decided for himself how many Parties there were in the House. He and his friends refused to accept the decision of the Patronage Secretary as to what constituted a Party. That was the whole question, and they did not accept the suggestion that one of the members of the group opposite with which they were not connected represented them on this Committee. What he should have preferred would have been that the Party to which he belonged had been told that they were entitled or that they were not entitled to representation. He hoped there would be no further cavilling as between what was known as the trade union Party and the Party with which he acted. The Independent Labour Party did not sit in the House as supporters of the Government, and did not accept the Government whips. That was the clean division between them and those who sat as supporters of the Government, and the House ought to recognise it. He was exceedingly sorry that the issue had been raised between the two sections It had never been raised in that form by himself and his friends. The Government had chosen to select certain men first from one group and then from the other to serve on these Committees. It might happen that under such a system they would be without representation on some of the most important Committees, and they would never accept such a

1281
position. They sat in the House as a separate Party; they did not accept the Government whips, and they claimed sufficient independence to entitle them to representation on every Committee. If the Government did not think the Labour Party strong enough to claim the right of representation, then let them say so at once, and the Labour Party would see where they were. Although at present their numbers were small, they might come back sixty or eighty strong. Did the Government consider thirty Members a "miserable minority"? In many ways it was effective. If the Government gave them a representation of one, it did not follow that that Member would oppose the Government. In the House they had always treated all questions from a public point of view. They were independent, and in nine cases out of ten they voted with the Government. The Government would do wisely to recognise them and not to set them in competition against their friends who sat on the Government side of the House.
MR. BRACEsaid this discussion was to him one of the most painful experiences of his life, and he would not have interposed were it not that his hon. friend the Member for the Clitheroe Division had failed to appreciate the position of the trade union group of Labour Members. It seemed to be thought that, because the trade union group received the whips of the Liberal Party, they were, of necessity, supporters of the Government under all circumstances and were controlled by the Liberal Party. That was simple nonsense. The receiving of the Party whips was a small, and to him an unimportant, matter. The real touchstone as to whether they
1282
were supporters of the Government was not in the reception of the whips, but their action in the division lobbies; and time and again he and his friends had voted against the Government. If this claim were upheld, and he made no objection to it, the trade union group would, for its own protection, make the same claim to be recognised as a separate Party and to be entitled to representation on Committees.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. GEORGE WHITELEY,)said he had little to add to what he had said on this question last night. He was, in some respects, the trustee of all the Parties and sections in the House, and he ventured to conceive that it was his business, as Chief Whip, to endeavour, as fairly as he could, to make all the Committees as represenative of every section of the House as was possible. Hon. Gentlemen opposite claimed a representative on every Committee. Such a claim was preposterous and an absolute impossibility. The Labour Party were entitled to have one-twenty-third of the representation on these Committees, and yet, out of seventeen Committees which had been appointed, they were represented on no fewer than thirteen. The hon. Member for South Glamorgan had described the position exactly. If the Labour Party set up this claim, then the trade union group were entitled to make the same claim, the Ulster Unionists might claim to be a separate Party, and even another group which had been set up this very session, a group dealing with the Highlands of Scotland, might put forward the same demand for representation. He had taken a great deal of trouble to

1283
try to conciliate hon. Members opposite. He had explained to them that in the circumstances their claim was unreasonable, and that the question was a question of principle upon which the Government were bound to take their stand.
MR. CROOKSsaid he would be the last man in the world to suggest that his friends opposite were not, in the best sense of the word, Labour representatives; but they were chosen as part and parcel of the Liberal Party and could not claim to represent the Independent Labour Party. There were many Members in the House who might put themselves up and declare themselves to be Labour representatives. The noble Lord the Member for East Marylebone claimed to be returned to the House by the working men of that borough and the right hon. Member for West Birmingham might make a similar claim. It was quite clear to those who sat beside him that the Committee would not be perfect if they shut out the hon. Member for Birkenhead, who would represent expert knowledge. The Independent Labour Party numbered thirty. They were sent to Parliament under certain conditions, and had special experience of the subject to be considered by the Committee. Yet they were told that their opinion was to be represented by men on the other side of the House! It was to be understood that they were not fighting the nominee of the Patronage Secretary, but they claimed to be a distinct Party, and demanded recognition as such. It was
said that their argument might apply to the Ulster Unionists, and that these should have a special representative; but the Ulster Unionists were part and parcel of the Conservative Party. [Cries of "Divide."] Hon. Gentlemen had hansoms to go home in, or motor-cars; the Labour Party had not, yet they did not wish to hurry up the division. They were fighting this point out with the Whip of the Liberal Party. That hon. Gentleman had put his Party in a false position by declaring that the Labour Party were represented by the Gentleman he had nominated.
MR. GEORGE WHITELYsaid he did not say that the Labour Party on that side of the House was represented on the Committee; but he said that labour was represented.
MR. CROOKSsaid that that was all very nice, but, as had been said already, every Member of the House might claim that he represented labour. The claim of the Independent Labour Party was that as this Committee was to deal with a matter closely connected with the working classes, they were entitled to special consideration. But really the whole system of nominating these Committees on the principle of Party strength was entirely wrong. He thought that the nation had a right to the services of the best men in the House irrespective of the Party to which they might belong.
Question put.
The House divided:—;Ayes, 320; Noes, 43. (Division List No. 70.)

AYES.

Acland, Francis Dyke

Ainsworth, John Stirling

Armstrong, W. C. Heaton

Acland-Hood, Rt Hn Sir Alex. F.

Alden, Percy

Ash ton, Thomas Gair

Adkins, W. Ryland

Allen, A. Acland(Christchurch)

Asquith, Rt. Hon Herbert Henry

Agnew, George William

Arkwright, John Stanhope

Astbury, John Meir

Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H.

Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.

Lamont, Norman

Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

Dickinson, W. H.(St. Pancras,N

Layland-Barratt, Francis

Baker, Joseph A.(Finsbury, E.)

Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

Lea, Hugh Cecil (St. Pancras, E.

Balcarres, Lord

Dobson, Thomas W.

Leese, Sir Joseph F (Accrington

Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

Duckworth, James

Lehmann, R. C.

Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley)

Lever, A. Levy(Essex, Harwich

Barker, John

Dunne, Major E. M. (Walsall)

Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral)

Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

Levy, Maurice

Barran, Rowland Hirst

Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

Lewis, John Herbert

Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)

Edwards, Frank (Radnor)

Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

Beale, W. P.

Elibank, Master of

Lough, Thomas

Beauchamp, E.

Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward

Lupton, Arnold

Beaumont, W. C. B. (Hexham)

Erskine, David C.

Lyell, Charles Henry

Beckett, Hon. Gervase

Evans, Samuel T.

Lynch, H. B.

Bellairs, Carlyon

Eve, Harry Trelawney

Macdonald, J.M. (Falkirk. B'gha

Benn, John Williams(Devonp'rt

Everett, R. Lacey

Mackarness, Frederic C.

Benn, W.(T'wr Hamlets, S. Geo.

Faber, George Denison (York)

Maclean, Donald

Bennett, E. N.

Fenwick. Charles

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Berridge, T. H. D.

Ferens, T. R.

M'Crae, George

Bertram, Julius

Ferguson, R. C. Munro

M'Kenna, Reginald

Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

Fiennes, Hon. Eustace

M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)

Billson, Alfred

Forster, Henry William

M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.)

Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

Fuller, John Michael F.

M'Micking, Major G.

Black, Arthur W.(Bedfordshire

Fullerton, Hugh

Maddison, Frederick

Boulton, A. C. F. (Ramsey)

Furness, Sir Christopher

Manfield, Harry (Northants)

Brace, William

Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

Mansfield, H. Rendall(Lincoln)

Bramsdon, T. A.

Gladstone, Rt. Hn HerbertJohn

Marks, G Croydon(Launceston)

Branch, James

Glendinning, R. G.

Marnham, F. J.

Brigg, John

Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

Brodie, N. C.

Greenwood, Hamar (York)

Massie, J.

Brotherton, Edward Allen

Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

Menzies, Walter

Brunner, J.F.L. (Lancs., Leigh)

Griffith, Ellis J.

Meysey-Thompson, E. C.

Bryce, J. A. (Inverness Burghs)

Gulland, John W.

Micklem, Nathaniel

Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

Molteno, Percy Alfred

Buckmaster, Stanley O.

Haddock, George R.

Mond, A.

Burns, Rt. Hon. John

Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

Montagu, E. S.

Burnyeat, J. D. W.

Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis

Montgomery, H. H.

Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r)

Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

Buxton, Rt. Hn. SydneyCharles

Harrison-Broadley, Col. H. B.

Morgan, J.Lloyd (Carmarthen)

Cairns, Thomas

Hart-Davies, T.

Morley, Rt. Hon. John

Carlile, E. Hildred

Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

Morpeth, Viscount

Carr-Gomm, H. W.

Harwood, George

Morrell, Philip

Causton, Rt. Hn Richard Knight

Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

Morse, L. L.

Cave, George

Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Haworth, Arthur A.

Nicholls, George

Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-

Hedges, A. Paget

Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster

Chance, Frederick William

Helme, Norval Watson

Nield, Herbert

Channing, Francis Allston

Henry, Charles S.

Norman, Henry

Cheetham, John Frederick

Herbert, Colonel Ivor (Mon., S.)

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)

Nussey, Thomas Willans

Churchill, Winston Spencer

Hill, Sir Clement(Shrewsbury)

Nuttall, Harry

Clarke, C. Goddard (Peckham)

Hill, Henry Staveley (Staff'sh.)

O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

Cleland, J. W.

Hobart, Sir Robert

Paul, Herbert

Clough, W.

Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

Paulton, James Mellor

Coats, Sir T. Glen(Renfrew, W.)

Holden, E. Hopkinson

Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek)

Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

Holland, Sir William Henry

Pearce, William (Limehouse)

Collins, Sir. Wm. J(S. Pancras, W.

Hooper, A. G.

Pearson, Sir W. D. (Colchester)

Cooper, G. J.

Hope, W. Bateman(Somerset, N

Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye

Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

Horniman, Emslie John

Pease, Herbert Pike(Darlington

Corbett, C.H (Sussex, E. Grinst'd

Houston, Robert Paterson

Philipps, Col. Ivor(S'thampton)

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke)

Cory, Clifford John

Hyde, Clarendon

Pickersgill, Edward Hare

Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

Illingworth, Percy H.

Pollard, Dr.

Courthope, G. Loyd

Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central)

Cox, Harold

Jackson, R. S.

Priestley, W.E.B.(Bradford, E)

Craig, Herbert J.(Tynemouth)

Jardine, Sir J.

Radford, G. H.

Crombie, John William

Johnson, John (Gateshead)

Rainy, A. Rolland

Crosfield, A. H.

Johnson, W. (Nuneton)

Raphael, Herbert H.

Crossley, William J.

Kearley, Hudson E.

Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

Dalrymple, Viscount

Keswick, William

Rees, J. D.

Davies, David (Montgomery Co.

Kincaid-Smith, Captain

Rendall, Athelstan

Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

Renton, Major Leslie

Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

Lambert, George

Richards, Thomas(W. Monm'th

1286

1287

Richardson, A.

Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

Wason, John Cathcart(Orkney)

Ridsdale, E. A.

Strachey, Sir Edward

Waterlow, D. S.

Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

Wedgwood, Josiah C.

Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

Whitbread, Howard

Robertson, Rt. Hn. E.(Dundee)

Stuart, James (Sunderland)

White, George (Norfolk)

Robertson, Sir G. Scott(Bradf'rd

Sutherland, J. E.

White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

Robinson, S.

Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

White, Luke (York, E.R.)

Roe, Sir Thomas

Tennant, E. P. (Salisbury)

Whitehead, Rowland

Rogers, P. E. Newman

Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

Whiteley, J. H. (Halifax)

Rose, Charles Day

Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen,E.)

Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

Rowlands, J.

Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

Wiles, Thomas

Runciman, Walter

Thomas, David Alfred(Merthyr

Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

Russell, T. W.

Thomasson, Franklin

Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

Thompson, J. W.H(Somerset, E.

Williams, W. L. (Carmarthen)

Scarisbrick, T. T. L.

Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark)

Williamson, A.(Elgin and Nairn

Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde)

Tomkinson, James

Wills, Arthur Walters

Scott, A.H.(Ashton under Lyne

Torrance, A. M.

Wilson, A. Stanley(York,E.R.)

Sears, J. E.

Toulmin, George

Wilson/Hon.'C.H. W.(Hull, W.)

Seaverns, J. H.

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Wilson, Henry J.(York, W.R.)

Seely, Major J. B.

Ure, Alexander

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

Valentia, Viscount

Wilson. J. W. (Worcestersh. N.)

Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick, B.

Verney, F. W.

Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Vivian, Henry

Winfrey, R.

Silcock, Thomas Ball

Wadsworth, J.

Wodehouse, Lord (Norfolk,'Mid

Simon, John Allsebrook

Wallace, Robert

Wood, T. M'Kinnon

Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

Walrond, Hon. Lionel

Woodhouse,SirJ.T.(Huddersf'd

Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

Younger, George

Smith, F.E.(Liverpool, Walton)

Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent

Soares, Ernest J.

Ward, W Dudley(Southampton

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—;Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease.

Spicer, Albert

Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph(Chesh.)

Wason, Eugene(Clackmannan)

NOES.

Banner, John S. Harmood-

Hodge, John

Shackleton, David James

Barnard, E. B.

Hudson, Walter

Sloan, Thomas Henry

Barnes, G. N.

Jenkins, J.

Snowden, P.

Bottomley, Horatio

Jowett, F. W.

Summerbell, T.

Bull, Sir William James

Kelley, George D.

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Byles, William Pollard

Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)

Thorne, William

Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

Macpherson, J. T.

Walsh, Stephen

Crooks, William

M'Calmont, Colonel James

Wardle, George J.

Duncan, C.(Barrow-in-Furness

Marks, H. H. (Kent)

Watt, H. Anderson

Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

Masterman, C. F. G.

Wilkie, Alexander

Fell, Arthur

Money, L. G. Chiozza

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Gill, A, H,

O'Grady, J.

Glover, Thomas

Parker, James (Halifax)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—;Mr.

Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)

Richards, T. F.(Wolverh'mpt'n

Arthur Henderson and Mr. Ramsay Macdonald.

Hay, Hon. Claude George

Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

Higham, John Sharp

Seddon, J.

Mr. Mackarness, Mr. Morrell, Mr. Rowlands, Mr. Vivian, Mr. T. R. Bethell, Mr. Lane-Fox, Colonel Lockwood, Mr. Abel Smith, and Mr. Ginnell nominated other Members of the Select Committee.
Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
Ordered, That five be the quorum.—;(Mr. George Whiteley.)

ALIENS BILL.
Read the third time, and passed.
And it being after half-past Eleven of the clock on Tuesday Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put.

Adjourned at twelve minutes after Twelve o'clock.

Preamble
The Lord Shute (V. Barrington) took the Oath.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with:—;Gas Companies (Removal of Sulphur Restrictions.)
The same was ordered to lie on the Table.
Crellin's Patents Bill [H.L.]. Presented (pursuant to leave given yesterday), and read 1a.
Ritz Hotel Bill [H.L.]. Presented (pursuant to leave given yesterday); read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.
Manchester Churches Bill [H.L.]. The Chairman of Committees informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn. The Orders made on the 22nd of March and Thursday last discharged, and Bill committed.
Folkestone and District Electricity Supply Bill [H.L.]. The Chairman of Committes informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn. The Orders made on the 29th of March and Thursday last discharged, and Bill committed.
Cambrian Railways Bill [H.L.]. Reported from the Select Committee, with amendments.
Millwall Dock Bill. Reported, without Amendment.
Hull and Barnsley Railway (Steam Vessels) Bill [H.L.]; Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways Bill [H.L.]; Havana United Railways and Regla Warehouses Bill [H.L.]; North Metropolitan Tramways Bill; Hull and Barnsley and Great
1102
Central Railway Companies Bill [H.L.]. Reported, with Amendments.
Scottish Provident Institution Buildings Bill [H.L.]. Committed.
Portsmouth Water Bill [H.L.]. Leave given to the Select Committee to adjourn over To-morrow.
Scottish Union and National Insurance Company Bill [H.L.]—;(Petition for additional Provision). Examiners' Certificate of non-compliance with the Standing Orders referred to the Standing Orders Committee on Monday next.
Carlisle Corporation Bill; Todmorden Corporation Bill; Great Eastern Railway Bill. Read 2a, and committed.
Bacup Corporation Bill; Cardiff Gas Bill. Read 2a, and committed. The Committees to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
North East Lincolnshire Water Bill; Thornton Urban District Gas Bill; New Mills Urban District Council Bill. Read 2a, and committed.
Uxbridge Gas Bill. Read 2a, and committed. The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
Buenos Ayres Grand National Tramways Bill [H.L.]. Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
H. R. Baines & Company Bill [H.L.]; Vauclain's Patent Bill [H.L.]. Returned from the Commons agreed to.
Great Yarmouth Waterworks and Lowestoft Water and Gas Bill [H.L.]; Western Valleys (Monmouthshire) Sewerage Board Bill [H.L.]. Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Five Lords appointed a Select Committee on the Mullingar, Kells, and Drogheda Railway Bill [H.L.] and other Bills do form the Select Committee for the consideration of the Great Yarmouth Waterworks, and Lowestoft Water and Gas Bill [H.L.], and the Western Valleys (Monmouthshire) Sewerage Board Bill [H.L.]; read, and agreed to. All petitions referred to the Committee, with leave to the petitioners praying to be heard by counsel against the Bills to be heard as desired, as also counsel for the Bills.

PETITIONS.
  EDUCATION.
  Petitions in favour of maintenance of existing religious teaching in Church of England schools—;of parents and guardians of children attending schools at Worsley; Manchester (2); Astley (2); West Houghton (2); St. Marks; Monton; Eccles; Swinton; Farington; Hoole; Darwen (2); Goosnagh; Blackpool; Blackburn (2). Of teachers in schools in Westhoughton (3); Eccles; Swinton; Astley; Glodwick; Swinton; Hoole; Blackpool; Lytham; Darwen; Goosnagh; Blackburn (2). Read and ordered to lie on the Table.
POISONS AND PHARMACY BILL [H.L.]
Petitions for amendment of; of persons signing; in Loughboro'; Lincoln; Nottingham; Sheffield. Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  BOARD OF EDUCATION (SPECIAL REPORTS ON EDUCATIONAL SUBJECTS).
  Volume 16. School Training for the Home Duties of Women. Part II. Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, and France.
  ALIENS ACT, 1905.
  Return of alien passengers brought to the United Kingdom from ports in Europe or within the Mediterranean Sea daring the three months ending 31st March 1906, together with the number of expulsion orders made during that period requiring aliens to leave the United Kingdom.
  TRADE REPORTS—;MISCELLANEOUS SERIES.
  No. 649. Gold Mines of Formosa.

  ANNUAL SERIES.
  No. 3579. Persia (Arabistan).
  No. 3580. Netherlands (Java).
  No. 3581. Persia (Bushire).
  Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  LUNACY.
  Report to the Lord Chancellor of the number of visits made, the number of patients seen, and the number of miles travelled by the visitors of lunatics from the 1st October, 1905, to the 31st March, 1906. Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.
  STANDING COMMITTEE.
  Report from the Committee of Selection for the Standing Committee, that they have added the Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, the Lord Granard (E. Granard) and the Lord Fitzmaurice to the Standing Committee; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
  POISONS AND PHARMACY BILL [H.L.]
  Reported from the Standing Committee with further Amendments. The Report of the Amendments made in Committee of the Whole House and by the Standing Committee to be received on Friday next, and Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 76.)
  PUBLIC TRUSTEE BILL [H.L.]
  Reported from the Standing Committee without further Amendments. The Report of the Amendments made in Committee of the Whole House to be received on Thursday next.
  PATENTS, DESIGNS, AND TRADE MARKS (REGISTRATION OF PATENT AGENTS) BILL [H.L.]
  Reported from the Standing Committee with Amendments; and to be printed as amended. (No. 77.)
  POST OFFICE (MONEY ORDERS) BILL.
  Reported from the Standing Committee without Amendment; and to be read 3a on Thursday next.
  SOLICITORS BILL [H.L.]
  House in Committee (according to order). Bill reported without Amendment. Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read 3a on Thursday next.

  STANDING ORDERS RELATING TO PRIVATE BILLS.
  THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The EARL of ONSLOW): My Lords, this is an Amendment of the Standing Orders

  1105
  relating to generating stations for electrical purposes. There is considerable apprehension on the part of His Majesty's Office of Works that the erection of these enormously powerful generating stations may have a serious effect upon some of the national collections, and possibly even upon some of the public parks; and under those circumstances they desire that your Lordship's House and the other House of Parliament should amend the Standing Orders, so that before any Bill authorising the erection of generating stations is passed they may have the opportunity of reporting upon it, and the Committee considering the Bill may have that Report in front of them, before they agree to recommend that the Bill be passed into law.
  Moved, that Standing Orders No. 106, be amended by inserting after "trade" in line 4, "and His Majesty's Office of Works."—;(The Earl of Onslow.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  Standing Orders amended accordingly, and to be printed as amended. (No. 78.)

  LOCAL TAXATION.
  THE EARL OF DENBIGHrose "To call attention to the present system of local taxation, whereby the greater part of the accumulated wealth of the country contributes comparatively little to local charges; and to the system of compounding whereby a large number of those who elect the local authorities are insufficiently informed as to their share in the growing burdens imposed upon the ratepayers."
  The noble Earl said: My Lords, Your Lordships will remember that in 1896 a very important Royal Commission was appointed for the purpose of considering the great and complex question of local taxation, and that after a certain number of interim Reports, the final one was issued in 1901 after the Commission had taken a great deal of evidence, and gone into the whole history of the subject and its working in a most minute and exhaustive way. A considerable number of recommendations were made, but I do not know that any one of them has been acted upon, except that which dealt
  1106
  with clerical tithes. The question of local taxation is always with us, and it is daily becoming more and more acute. I do not know that there is anything people grumble more at than the steady and constant rise in the rates. I should like, by way of emphasising that fact, to call your Lordships' attention to a few figures. Looking at the rates from the point of view of the average increment per annum, I find that in the year 1881–1882, compared with six years before, the average increment per annum was £548,000. In the year 1890–1, compared with eight years before, the annual increment was £1,515,000. In the year 1902–3, compared with 1899–1900, the average increment was £2,398,000, and the increase of 1902–3 over 1901–2 was £3,888,834. Then, again, look at the increase in local expenditure. The total expenditure for 1902–3 was no less a figure than £128,968,743 in England and Wales alone, and if you take the amount of loans into consideration as well—;and, after all, these loans are an annually recurring figure and it is perfectly fair to take them into the calculation of the annual expenditure—;the full amount equals between £150,000,000 and £160,000,000, or rather more than the national expenditure. The population, between the years 1898 and 1903 increased by 5·9 per cent.; the rateable value by 13·3 per cent., but the public rates increased by 33·8 per cent., whilst the loans of the local authorities rose by no less than 41·5 per cent.
  1 think these figures make one reflect on this matter. At the same time, it is curious to observe the general ignorance of the complexities and details of this great question outside the ranks of those whom I will call professionals and experts. The ordinary individual very rarely studies the question at all, and confines his observations and thought on the subject of rating to language of a more or less emphatic kind when the rate collector calls with his demand note. I daresay that comparatively few people realise what I pointed out to your Lordships a moment ago, that the total local expenditure is very considerably in excess of the national expenditure. Of the total annual local expenditure of £152,000,000 nearly £58,000,000 is raised by rates, £16,246,000 by Government contributions, and £40,000,000 by loans. Ther

  1107
  water, gas, trams, tolls, and the various side shows and speculations indulged in by the municipal authorities of a more or less lucrative character, such as river steamboats and the like, bring in £36,000,000 gross, out of which you have to deduct the working expenses and provide many millions for interest and sinking fund on the enormous total of local loans, which amounted three years ago—;the last date in respect of which figures are available—;to £437,000,000.
  I would like to point out that the total of £152,000,000 in 1902–3 is nearly double the figure for 1892–3, ten years previously, when the total was £82,000,000. The £58,000,000 raised by rates every year is nearly double the amount raised ten years before, when it was £34,700,000, but the Government contributions from the Exchequer for local relief only vary to this extent, that they are £16,246,000 now as against £10,600,000 ten years ago. We have heard a great deal in past years of the increase in national expenditure and how that has been responsible for much of the slackness of trade and want of employment in the country, and the platforms frequented by noble Lords opposite have re-echoed during the past year with denunciations of the expenditure of the late Government, to which has been mainly attributed the existence of the unemployed problem in a somewhat acute form. But it is rather curious that, with the exception of a general growl, one very rarely sees an accusation on this point raised as regards the increasing rates. I suggest to the House that if it is true, as no doubt it is, that money taken in taxation from a man reduces the amount available by him for the purposes of employment, it is only a question of detail whether you take the money for national or local purposes.
  I have no intention of going into the general question, because it is a very large one indeed, and if I had the hardihood or ability to attempt it, I am afraid I should have to emulate the example of the Deputy in the Hungarian Parliament, who spoke for over twenty-four consecutive hours just to keep the ball rolling in regard to the subject under discussion. I hasten to say that I only propose merely touching the fringe of the subject. I shall deal more especially with two particular aspects of the question to which much attention is
  1108
  being directed. The reference which I have on the Paper as to whether the general wealth of the country pays a proper share of taxation deals, of course, with that much argued point as to whether realty should pay as much as it does to local taxation: in other words, whether a man should be rated more with regard to the premises which he occupies than with regard to his general ability to pay.
  There is a very interesting history of the subject given in the Report of the Royal Commission at which I would invite your Lordships to glance for a moment. After the dissolution of the monasteries the parish was recognised as the unit of area for the collection of money for the relief of the poor, and for a time contributions were voluntary; but, at the same time, the local bishop was empowered to employ pressure which nowadays would come under the description of "peaceful persuasion," and if the parishioners did not contribute according to their ability they were sent to prison. Then in 1601 came the great Act of Elizabeth, which is the foundation of our rating system. Payments to the Poor Fund were made obligatory, according to the ability of the parish or locality to pay. The idea at that time seems to have been that this contribution should take the form of a sort of local income-tax, but there was no general method for ascertaining a man's income. There was a great deal of legal controversy as to whether a man was rateable in respect of his stock-in-trade and other personal property, and a variety of decisions were given to which it is unnecessary for me to refer; but towards the end of the eighteenth century the rating of stock-in-trade was certainly practised in the cloth and woollen districts of the south and west of England. The result of that was to destroy these local industries, and to compel them to migrate to other parts where they were not so rated, a course which is taking place to-day in regard to many of our large industries.
  The crisis arrived in 1839, when it was definitely decided that stock-in-trade was assessable for local taxation. So much dissatisfaction was caused that a special Act was passed in 1840 for the purpose of exempting all personalty and stock-in-trade. It was to remain in force until the end of 1842, and it is interesting.

  1109
  to note that the Commission call attention to the fact that this Act is kept in force now by the Expiring Laws Continuance Act which comes before Parliament every year. Yon know well that as modern requirements increased and society developed it was felt to be very unjust that real property should boar the entire burden of maintaining services necessary and beneficial to the whole community, and a system of grants-in-aid and subventions was gradually introduced, which was afterwards changed in 1888 by the Act passed by the noble Viscount Lord Goschen when he substituted for that a system of what is known as assigned revenues. Other revenues were assigned in 1890, and in the year 1902–3 £16,000,000 came from these revenues as against £58,000,000 raised in rates.
  I have heard it said that the noble Viscount's system does not work perhaps quite as well as he had anticipated. I have seen accusations against it that it has introduced a complexity into accounts which none but an expert can deal with, and that it wants reconsidering. I will not venture to express any opinion on that question in the presence of the noble Viscount himself, although possibly the matter may be referred to by other noble Lords in this debate. However, the broad aspect of the question is that in spite of what has been done, and in spite of the great difficulty which the Royal Commission admits exists of finding the true relation of personalty to realty, the Report emphatically states that non-rateable property does not as yet bear anything like its full share for those public services which can be regarded as more national than local. Then the Report deals more minutely with the question, and states that poor relief comprising the various services administered by boards of guardians and the police, and criminal prosecutions, are certainly national matters. They state that education is national in a high degree, and that the main roads are becoming more and more national in view of the increasing mobility of the population and the invention of new methods of locomotion.
  There are some interesting Tables set out in the Report. Although we are cautioned to use them with the very greatest care and not to generalise too
  1110
  much from them, still they give some very useful information on the relative positions of personalty and realty in this country. There is a Table on page 15 which deals with taxes incidental to the ownership, occupation, and transfer of property. As regards Imperial finance the amount chargeable to rateable property is 17·6 of the whole, and to non-rateable property 21·4 of the whole. But, my Lords, when you come to local finance the position is very much reversed. On rateable property the percentage is 82·8 of the whole, and on non-rateable property—;that is, personalty—;it is only 6·1 of the whole. Then there is another interesting Table on page 20 of the Report, which shows the amount of the different descriptions of property coming under the Death Duties, with a view of establishing some idea of the proportions of real and personal property in this country. This Table points out that in the three years 1898, 1899, and 1900, out of the total duty that was paid, 75 per cent. was on personalty and only about 25 per cent. on realty, showing that the amount of personal property is apparently very much in excess of real property.
  Without going more into detail, I would like to draw the especial attention of the House to what the Commissioners state. They state that for national purposes people should be taxed more with regard to their ability to pay. What the Commission consider a just grievance they say cannot be remedied without a direct contribution from the Exchequer, or an extension or development of the system of assigned revenues as brought in by the noble Viscount in 1888. I wish to draw the especial attention of noble Lords opposite to this matter, because I consider it has become really pressing in view of the Government's proposals to tax land values. That will be a subject for separate debate, and I am, therefore, not going into it to-day. I am not going to argue whether or not the expected revenue will be obtained, nor whether the tax which they anticipate putting on will not ultimately fall on the occupier in places where there is competition to obtain houses. But this fact is perfectly clear, that on whomsoever it falls it is an additional tax on real property, and, therefore, any dealing with

  1111
  that question without considering the whole question of rating is fundamentally unjust in view of the Report of the Royal Commission that real property already bears far more than its just proportion of local, but at the same time really national burdens. I cannot do better than call your Lordships' attention to what was said on this matter by the noble Earl whose absence we deplore so much—;Lord Spencer. The noble Earl spoke last year on this question, and he was very strong indeed against touching it without dealing with the whole question of rating. He condemned what he called "peddling and tinkering" with the matter, a course to which he said he had the greatest possible objection.
  I now wish to direct the attention of the House to another matter which has excited great interest all over the country amongst actual ratepayers—;I refer to the system known as compounding, under which an owner of property below a certain value either arranges voluntarily, or is compelled by the local authority to make himself responsible for the rates which he includes in his rent. He hands over that amount to the local authority less a certain commission or composition which is allowed him for his trouble and risk in collecting. It was stated before the Commission that something like from two-thirds to three-fourths of the owners of property in the Metropolis pay rates direct, and in these cases the actual amount of the rates is never brought under the notice of the occupiers who have the voting power. Not only is there the case of small properties under the compounding limit when the system can be enforced by the local authority, but the system also holds good in the many flats and tenements which are springing up all over London and our large cities, and in which the tenant pays a rent inclusive of rates and outgoings. There is no denying the fact that this is a very convenient system. It saves a great deal of trouble to the local authorities, and it makes them more secure as to the rates than if they had to be collected individually from small occupiers, many of whom in the poorer districts live from hand to mouth and are given to perpetrating what are known as "moonlight flits" whenever it is likely to be financially inconvenient for them to pay their rent.
  1112
  Compounding is also very popular with many landlords. As I have pointed out, they allow for the full rates which they collect, but they can receive a composition up to 30 per cent. according to the conditions arranged for. That is a considerable advantage to the landlords, but it is a great loss to the rates of the district. There are two systems. For the poor rate compounding is only enforced by the local authority in the case of properties of a certain valuation laid down by the Poor Rate Assessment and Collection Act, 1869, and the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882. For the general district rate compounding is frequently regulated by means of local Acts. Lord Spencer referred last year, in the speech to which I have already alluded, to an eloquent speech by Mr. Gladstone, who defended compounding on the score of convenience; but Lord Spencer spoke very strongly, and pointed out how necessary it was that all electors should take an interest in, and full responsibility for, the public services. He said that it was a very serious matter indeed that hundreds of thousands of electors did not know how much of their rent went in the payment of rates. Here is an extract from the evidence given by the late Lord Farrer. Lord Farrer said—;
  "Facility of collection is no doubt a great advantage to a governing body. But this facility should not be such as to make the taxpayer unconscious of the burden. Otherwise a great security for economy and good administration is lost. Those who pay the piper call the tune, and in calling the tune they should not only pay the piper but feel that they pay him."
  I do not think the point could be put better than that.
  I suggest to your Lordships that this is not a Party matter. I have seen the strongest condemnation of the present working of the compounding system in some of the most advanced organs which support His Majesty's present Government. This is a question upon which both Parties can meet. I do not think that the desire for good and sound administration, the desire that people should be certain that they get proper value for their money, and the desire to make those having the voting power appreciate more the duties and responsibilities of citizenship—;I do not think that these desires can be called the perquisite of any one Party. As matters

  1113
  stand, a great many ratepayers never see the rate collector from one year's end to the other. They never realise what the expenditure is. I do not suppose the majority of them even know what the rate in the pound is which is levied in their district; but when they have to face an increase in the rent owing to a rise in the rates they simply put it down to the grasping rapacity of the landlord.
  I think there is a remedy for this state of things, but I believe the only possible remedy is to be found in the lowering of the compounding limit and having a more uniform system than prevails at the present moment. In London the compounding limit is £20, in Liverpool it is £13, and in Birmingham and Manchester £10. In other places throughout the country I think it is £8, but there is no reason at all why these limits should not be reduced so as to compel direct rating in a great many more cases than at present. It is not possible, I believe, to do away with compounding altogether, because in the case of very cheap and small occupations the amount, if collected weekly, fortnightly, or monthly, would be so small as to make the direct collection of it impracticable, and the abolition of compounding altogether would cause great loss on the rates by reason of the number of defaulters. But, at the same time, the loss would not be so great as is imagined, for although collecting direct from small occupiers would mean a great deal more clerical work and more collectors, yet you would save the large amount of money which is now lost to the ratepayers through the composition allowance to landlords who pay direct.
  I have had an interesting correspondence with a gentleman at Manchester, who deals rather exhaustively with the question, and he sends me some figures with regard to North and South Manchester, excluding the central portion of the city. He points out that the rateable value is £1,760,000. The compounding property represents a rateable value of £441,000, or 25 per cent. of the whole, and the composition allowed to the landlords is £31,600, which sum is therefore lost to the ratepayers. This gentleman makes a suggestion which is well worthy of consideration. He calculates that if there were 160 more collectors, and they were told off
  1114
  to collect from 500 houses each, the work could be done, and after paying them and allowing for loss from defaulters, he works out that there would be a balance of £15,000 for the benefit of the rates. I think there is a good deal in that suggestion, and I do not see why it should not be carried out in those localities where a high rate of composition is allowed at the present moment.
  Then there is another suggestion, that landlords should be compelled by law to show the rate separate from the rent on the demand note when they collect their rents. This movement is beginning. I have here two sample cards designed for the purpose of showing the rent and the rate to be collected, and I think that if that were done generally it would at all events bring home to the occupiers the exact amount of the rate they were paying, and show how much of what they paid was rent and how much went to the rating authority. It would have to be made obligatory. It would, of course, put landlords and their agents and collectors to a certain amount of extra trouble, and, therefore, there is no hope of expecting it to be carried out generally unless it is ordered by statute, and I do not see any reason why that should not be done.
  Before I conclude I should like to point out one great anomaly that exists at the present moment, though it has really no place among the subjects of which I gave notice. I allude to the extent to which limited companies are rated, and the fact that they are not allowed a single vote in regard to the administration of the money which they have to pay. There has been a huge development in joint stock enterprise of recent years. In 1894 the capital of limited companies believed to be carrying on business in this country amounted to £1,000,000,000. In 1904 the amount was nearly double, and reached £1,900,000,000. Of course, it is impossible to exactly estimate the amount of rates paid by limited companies, but railways alone pay from £5,000,000 to £6,000,000 in rates, a tax which works out at some thing like £273 per mile per annum. That can only be regarded as a very great burden. It is a very great injustice that they should have to pay this amount and that none of those companies should have a single voice in the administration of it. The present system is a relic

  1115
  handed down to us from days gone by, when joint stock enterprise had not become the great feature it is to-day of commercial conditions. I contend that this is a matter which ought to be considered in connection with the rating question, for it seems unjust that the present system should be allowed to continue.
  There were some interesting figures published last year with regard to rating in Holborn. The rates raised by the Holborn Borough Council for the year ended March 31st, 1905, amounted to £341,296. Of that amount £97,400, or 28·53 per cent. of the total rate, was payable in respect of premises in the occupation of limited liability companies, public authorities, hospitals, hotels, and other promises in respect of which no names appeared upon the register of electors. In contrast to this, of the total number of names upon the current register—;11,979—;no less than 6,712, or 56·03 per cent. do not themselves pay rates; the rates are paid by their landlords. Lord Spencer, in the speech last July to which I have already referred, said—;
  "A curious instance was brought to my notice recently in the case of the Borough of Holborn. Figures were quoted showing that more than one-fourth of the sum paid in rates in that borough was paid by companies which had no voting power whatever, and that, on the other hand, more than half of the registered voters paid no rates at all. Therefore, people who paid the rates do not vote, and people who do not pay have votes. Direct taxation is the best way of showing the electors whether there is good government, and I wish sincerely that something could be done by Act of Parliament to alter the present system."
  It should not be impossible to devise some more just system. I have no doubt that one of the criticisms which will be made by noble Lords who may speak from the benches opposite will be, Why did not your Party deal with this question when they were in power? I believe there were reasons for that. However, I have no doubt that point will be dealt with by the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition. Probably there were excellent reasons for not dealing with it. Doubtless, one of them was the important consideration to which the Commission calls attention—;that you cannot deal with the question of further subventions and equalising the amount paid by realty and
  1116
  personalty without heavy expense, and I believe the money was not available. Still I cannot help regretting that compounding was not dealt with.
  But this question has become much more acute than it was even last year. Rates are rising in an alarming way, and although I have said that this is no Party question, and that I believe the members of His Majesty's Government are as anxious as we are for sound economy and sound administration, there is no disguising the fact that there are a large number of the supporters of the Government who are notorious for their desire to spend public money in every sort of enterprise and are not particularly careful as to whether they get proper value for that money or not. The knowledge of that fact has undoubtedly created very considerable alarm in the minds of the ratepayers of this country. I suggest to your Lordships that it is high time that this question was dealt with. If His Majesty's Government are really and sincerely anxious to see the question of local rating put upon an equitable basis, if they wish to see sound administration and proper economy, they should find time to deal with it even though they have other large and important questions on their hands at the present moment. I apologise for having detained the House so long and thank your Lordships for listening to me so patiently.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (Earl CARIUNGTON): My Lords, the noble Earl who has just sat down very rightly said that this is a great and complex question, and I think I can congratulate him on a most excellent and interesting speech showing great knowledge and grasp of the subject. I ask for the indulgence of the House in venturing to say a few words on this question, because I know that I am speaking in the presence of many noble Lords who have forgotten more on the subject than I ever knew, and fifteen years experience on the London County Council has taught me that the more you think the question over the more difficult it seems to become. I also have to thank the noble Earl for acknowledging that the question is not a Party question. We on this side of the House are grateful to him for that statement, and we shall look with confidence

  1117
  to the kindly co-operation, sympathy, and help of the noble Earl opposite and his friends when we come to deal with this question.
  The noble Earl put the whole matter very plainly. He gave us to understand that local taxation could be well described in this way: A, B, and C occupy similar properties; A and B may be much richer than C, but they all pay the same amount of rates, based on the annual value of the property they occupy and without any reference to the difference in their incomes. When the Final Report of the Royal Commission was issued we plunged into it to see if by hook or by crook A and B could be made to fairly and properly contribute according to their ability. On page 13 there is a suggestion that perhaps a local income-tax might help us. The Commissioners state—;
  "The Elizabethan poor rate was perhaps originally intended to be something like a local income-tax, and the practice of rating on means and substance,' which continued in some parts of Scotland down to our time, was very similar."
  But they go on to say—;
  "It is, however, clear on reflection that a local income tax—;i.e., an income tax imposed and levied by local authorities within their own district—;tends more and more to be incompatible with modern social and political arrangements."
  Therefore we are face to face with this, that a local income-tax will not work. The Report states that a tax on the incomes of the inhabitants would be more burdensome and less productive than the present rates, and that instances of the chaos that would ensue might be indefinitely multiplied. It is clear, therefore, that the first suggestion will not help us in the least and that it can be dismissed.
  It is said that one method of attaining results similar to those desired by the advocates of a local income-tax is the imposition of a special local rate on inhabited houses. But we find that there are very serious objections to this suggestion as well. A rate on dwelling houses would fall rather unfairly on a householder with a family for which ample accommodation is required, as compared with unmarried persons in receipt of a similar income. Therefore we have to dismiss the suggestion as to an inhabited house rate. Those are the only two suggestions that I can find in the Final
  1118
  Report of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation. On page 14 of the Report we find a definite proposal to the effect that State assistance in some form is necessary. The Report states—;
  "We are driven to the conclusion that the grievances which we have set forth cannot be remedied without either a direct contribution from the Exchequer or the extension and development of the system of assigned revenues which has been in existence since 1889."
  That is the conclusion at which the Royal Commission arrived.
  I now come to the second matter touched upon by the noble Earl—;the question of compounding. Lord Denbigh's contention, as I understand it, is that if the persons whose rates are now compounded for paid them direct to the rating authority local administration would become less extravagant. We have been told that over and over again, and I suppose there is something in it. Last week a discussion took place in your Lordships' House with regard to the alleged extravagance of the Poplar Board of Guardians, and Lord Balfour of Burleigh criticised them severely for having, in their Poor Law Schools, constructed a staircase of teak and installed a roof beam which would not, he said, disgrace the finest cathedral in England. The noble Lord said he had also been informed by a correspondent that a further sum of £50,000 had been unnecessarily spent on the building. The absence of an efficient check on local expenditure is, according to Lord Balfour, largely due to what is called the vicious system of compounding.
  I remember what happened in the case of the compound householder in 1866 and 1867. The Representation of the People Act of 1867 was generally known in the country as "Disraeli's leap in the dark." They went to the country, and the result of the "leap in the dark" was that Mr. Gladstone came into power with as large a majority as we have at present. It was then discovered that there were 700,000 persons in this country who lived in houses under £10. Their rates were not allowed to be compounded for. They had to pay them direct, and the difficulties of the authorities were very great in consequence. In October, 1867, there were 25,000 persons summoned in Birmingham, and in May, 1868, there were 15,000 persons summoned in the same city, 5,000 distress warrants being

  1119
  issued. In London the difficulty was as great as in the country. In Bethnal Green and also in Mile End there were 15,000 summonses; in Hackney, 6,000; and in Lambeth 5,000. So great was the inconvenience that Viscount Goschen, who I believe was President of the Poor Law Board at that time, brought in a Bill in 1869 to restore compounding. Powers of compounding were then reintroduced, and have remained exercisable ever since.
  It is difficult to know what is best to be done. I would point out that a man who lives in a house rented at four pounds a year would, if the rates were increased one penny in the pound, only have to pay 4d. a year more. I do not think that would be any great hardship, and I doubt whether such an increase would constitute an effective inducement to a ratepayer to look more closely into local affairs. The remedy suggested by the noble Earl, that the compounding rate should be lowered, does not agree with the Report of the Royal Commission. Lord Balfour, who was very severe in his criticism of this vicious principle, states in this Report that it could not be abolished, and he goes on to recommend that the rate should be raised. The noble Earl and Lord Balfour certainly do not see eye to eye in the matter.
  The Royal Commission recommends a direct contribution from the Exchequer. I must remind the House that that was in 1901, and that things are very different now from what they were then. Without trespassing on any controversial ground, I may remind the House that the National expenditure, which in 1904 was £94,000,000, is now £145,000,000. So that it is less easy at the present to find the £3,000,000 which I believe would be necessary for this purpose. The income-tax stands at 1s. in the £, and it is somewhat difficult to raise these large sums suddenly, however necessary they may be. I may be asked, are the Liberal Party, now that they are in power, going to offer a non possumus? I am not able to make any definite statement in the name of my right hon. friend the President of the Local Government Board, but I can assure the noble Earl who preceded me that Lord Spencer's words will be fully and entirely acted up to. I can assure the House that there will be no peddling and tinkering with the matter, and that when it is taken in hand it will
  1120
  be dealt with in a comprehensive manner, and the Government will recognise the greatness of the task they have undertaken. I need only say, in conclusion, that the Government are pledged to consider this question of local taxation at an early date, and in their opinion that reform should begin with valuation.
  THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I feel that the House owes a debt of gratitude to the noble Earl who introduced this subject to our notice to-night, and I confess to some trepidation in venturing to say even a few words upon a question which has may intricacies into which I do not propose to enter, because I am incompetent to deal with them; but I do desire to say a word or two upon one branch of the subject, quite limited in its scope, but of supreme importance to the general welfare of the poorest classes in our urban population.
  It has been implied in the speech of the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture, that Lord Denbigh, in introducing the subject, was deprecating in a special way the extravagance of some local authorities with regard to expenditure which falls upon the rates. I did not quite understand the noble Earl to press that point; but, if it is pressed, I should not be prepared to follow in that direction. I believe there have been instances in which the expenditure of the local authorities, both urban and rural, has been somewhat reckless, but I put that as nothing compared with the advantage that very often has accrued from expenditure which has been denounced at the time as extravagant, but in the long run has proved to be the truest and highest possible economy, because of the improvement it has brought about in the lives of those on whose behalf the expenditure was incurred. Such things have taken place constantly in London. For example, the provision of open spaces, the adoption of the Libraries Act, and the provision of baths and washhouses are extremely expensive undertakings, but the expenditure will ultimately prove to have been of the wisest and best possible kind. Therefore, I do not follow any one who bases all his objections on the ground of possible extravagance on the part of local authorities.

  1121
  The single point upon which I desire to dwell for a moment is the educative advantage which comes from the tenant paying his rates direct instead of under the system of compounding. It was touched upon by the noble Earl, Lord Denbigh, but he did not dwell upon it in any detail. There are in all our great cities, and, above all, in London, landlords and land lords. A great many landlords are striving to the best of their power to enable their tenants to rise to the highest level of citizenship of which they are capable. One of the largest landowners in London is the body known as the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners have for many years administered the greater part of their urban properties under the guidance and management of a lady who is known all the world over for her efforts in this direction—;Miss Octavia Hill. Miss Octavia Hill is most keen and eager on this subject of compounding, and for this reason. Those who are striving to arouse in the people intelligence in public affairs, and a sense of responsibility in regard to local expenditure, are met on every side with the difficulty which arises from the law which renders it at all events possible, and in ordinary circumstances usual, that the tenant knows nothing whatever about the rates which he has to pay, or the way in which they are ultimately expended.
  In London at this moment there are twenty-nine boroughs, and I think I am right in saying that twelve of them make it absolutely compulsory on the owner of property that he shall, whether he wishes to or not, allow his tenants to compound for the payment of the rates. The tenant naturally takes little or no interest in the way in which the rates are expended, because it makes no difference to him whether the rates are high or low; at any rate, he does not find it out if it does. There are many parts of England in which this power of compounding is rarely used, and I think it will be found, if statistics are forthcoming, that in those districts where the occupier pays his rates directly there is infinitely greater interest taken in public affairs than there is in regions where compounding is practised on a large scale.
  I had to look the other day into a question connected with the borough of
  1122
  Burnley. In that borough a few years, ago there was practically little or no compounding, and I believe I am right in saying that in the municipal elections something like 93 or 94 per cent. of the possible voters at the local elections went to the poll. Contrast that with some of our London boroughs. I lived for some years in the borough of Southwark. In that borough at the present moment about 35 per cent. of the electors go to the poll on the occasion of the election of the borough council, and some 50 per cent. on the occasion of the county council election. But general interest in these elections is absolutely lacking, and I believe that to be attributable in no small degree to the fact that by far the larger proportion of the people who occupy tenements and houses in these regions pay the rates only through what they regard as an additional impost by the landlord.
  I admit that, while the present system of quarterly payments of rates is adhered to, there are practical difficulties in the way of collecting the rates directly from the poorest occupiers. It is not to be expected that a man or woman who is struggling with poverty will be able to keep untouched the growing pile of pence or shillings reserved for rates so as to be able to have the sum ready when the quarter ends. But in the poorest districts rents are collected weekly or fortnightly, and there ought to be no insuperable difficulty in collecting the rates in the same way. We are told that the expense of such collection would be prohibitive. I do not believe it. It is possible at this moment to get rents collected in the poorest districts for an expenditure on commission of 5 per cent, and these rents are probably collected in large measure from scattered houses in different parts of a neighbourhood. The authorities give a commission of from 15 to 30 per cent. for the collection of the rates when the person collecting them happens to be the landlord. You would have that money in hand in considering the extra expense involved in a fortnightly collection of rates direct from the tenant, and such collection becomes, of course, both easier and cheaper when you can collect from house to house or room to room instead of from scattered tenants.
  Those who are accustomed to the administration of large property, where

  1123
  there is a philanthropic element in the matter, and who are forced by the necessities of the case to adopt the compounding system, endeavour to educate the people by collecting separately the money required as rent and the money required in payment of rates. They have not found an insuperable difficulty in doing so, and experts have told me that there would probably be a large saving to local authorities if this were carried out on an extensive scale. I know that evidence to the contrary was given by official witnesses before the Royal Commission, and I do not wish to undervalue their testimony. But, after all, they were looking at it from one side only, and in any case it is almost inexcusable that in twelve metropolitan boroughs compounding should be made compulsory. In sixteen it is a voluntary arrangement, and every encouragement is given to its adoption. Yet it must always be remembered that the system gives full encouragement to landlords whose only desire is to get the utmost commercial value for their property. These landlords, when the rates go up 1d., add 2d. or 3d. to the rent, and there are districts in which it is positively said to be a gain rather than a loss to the landlord that the rates should go up. I would strongly urge that Clause 4 of the Act of 1869 which enables a local authority to make compounding compulsory, should be repealed, and that the system of voluntary compounding should be discouraged and reduced to a minimum. The slipshod, careless, shiftless tenant likes the plan, but it is in the highest degree discouraging to those landlords who are striving to improve the understanding capacity of those from whom they draw their rents and to increase their sense of civic responsibility.
  LORD ZOUCHE OF HARYNG-WORTH: My Lords, I rise with great diffidence to address a few words to the House on this important subject, especially after the extremely able speakers who have preceded me. There are, however, one or two points that I should like to bring forward, and I can claim some knowledge of the subject as I served on the Joint Committee on Municipal Trading. The question of municipal trading is not precisely the same as the one we are discussing to-day, but it is in some measure germane to it. Abundant evidence was given before the
  1124
  Joint Committee to which I have referred of the extravagance, and, I am afraid, the somewhat reckless extravagance, of various local bodies. Sometimes they were county councils, at other times they were borough and other councils, but the result in each case was to handicap very seriously local industries.
  The noble Earl who initiated this discussion referred to the question whether the accumulated wealth of the country contributes its fair share to local charges, and he seemed to hint at the rating of personal property. The noble Earl shakes his head. I evidently misunderstood him. This question has often been before the public, and I protest with all the strength of which I am capable against an idea of enlarging the field of local taxation by the inclusion of personal property which would only result in increasing the rates. The theory is that at present one man, so to speak, supports a burden, and that if another supporter is; introduced that burden will be lessened. On the contrary, the inevitable result would be to double it. As to the question of compounding, I should like to add my humble testimony to what has been said about the abuse of this system. We know that compounding was started as a matter of convenience, and a rebate was allowed the landlord as an inducement for him to carry out this arrangement; but I must admit that compounding, when it is associated with large rebates, does not seem to me to be a businesslike arrangement.
  I have in my hand a table showing the amounts allowed by metropolitan borough councils to owners of property in respect of compounding. In Poplar the allowances for collection were in 1904 no less a sum that £30,195, and for the year 1906–7 the amount is estimated at £37,000, which I am informed is equivalent to a rate of 1s. in the pound on the whole of the rateable value of the borough. So that, if you balance one thing against the other, I do not think there is very much gained by allowing these large rebates as an inducement or bribe to owners of property to collect the rates. I do not think it can be pointed out too strongly that as a result of this system the compounding householders never see the rate collector, and most of

  1125
  them do not know how they are assessed. Yet they have votes at municipal elections, and their votes are often sufficient to swamp those of the actual ratepayers directly interested in checking extravagant expenditure.
  The people whose rates are included in their rents are as a rule more open to agitation than those who pay rates direct, and can often be induced to vote for municipal councillors who represent that they have done much for the community without asking these voters for a penny. If the matter is thought over, it will be seen that many of these councillors are in an almost impregnable position. Theoretically they are subject to the votes of the ratepayers, but it is exceedingly difficult to turn them out. Sometimes this has a rather extraordinary result. One of the witnesses before the Joint Committee to which I have referred was the town clerk of a large and important city which shall be nameless. He was detailing the various ways in which they managed their business, and he admitted the enormous extent of the local taxation. At the conclusion of his evidence he added, with as near an approach to a wink as the august surroundings would permit, that the corporation did pretty much as he told them; so that the result of the system is that the expenditure of a whole city may be in the hands of one individual.
  It is said that these people pay rates in their rent, but that is not always true, because the rent very often does not depend entirely on the rates. There are places, in which there is not a large demand for houses, where the landlord cannot recoup himself by raising rents. But in some places and in London the landlord is able to increase the rent, and I think the point brought forward by the most rev. Primate is an important one, that great hardship is being inflicted on poor people by their being charged rents higher than are necessary to cover the rates. A man who never sees the rate collector has no possible interest in bringing his influence to bear in reducing the rates, and if he is of the working class he will possibly favour undue expenditure because he thinks it will bring him more labour and extra wages. It is difficult to know what ought to be done to remedy this
  1126
  state of affairs. The fairest remedy is that municipal votes should be confined to those who actually pay rates. Taxation and representation should go together. It may be a drastic remedy to disfranchise those who do not pay rates; but whatever remedy is found the subject is one that is receiving, and will continue to receive, increased attention out of doors.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord FITZMAURICE): My Lords, it is my good fortune in this House to represent a Department of which I think it may be said with certainty that it is the only Department which is in no manner connected, directly or indirectly, with the levying of rates. I therefore owe some apology to your Lordships for venturing, to intervene in this debate; but I have been connected for a great number of years with the administration of a large county, and even the absorbing interest of foreign affairs cannot blot out of the mind of any Member of either House of Parliament who has taken an active part in local affairs the interest which he must feel from that connection.
  My principal reason for rising to say a few words is to remove a misapprehension under which the noble Lord who has just spoken seemed to be in regard to what fell from my noble friend the President of the Board of Agriculture. The noble Lord seemed to think that my noble friend had in some way identified himself with a proposal for rating personalty.
  LORD ZOUCHE OF HARYNG-WORTH: I was referring to what was said by the noble Earl who initiated the discussion, and not to what fell from the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture.
  THE EARL OF DENBIGH: I should like to say that I had no intention of arguing in favour of rating personalty. All I want is a further contribution from the personal property of the country towards helping taxation which falls to such a large extent on realty.
  LORD FITZMAURICE: I am glad then to think that neither the noble Earl opposite nor my noble friend the President of the Board of Agriculture

  1127
  identified himself with that proposal. Indeed, after the interesting investigations and reports of the Royal Commission it is now almost impossible to conclude that the rating of personalty in the real sense of the expression comes within the region of possibility. Sir George Murray and Sir Edward Hamilton entirely bear out in their Report what the noble Earl who introduced this subject said so well. But one of the great misfortunes of this question is that it has become so involved in a mass of details, so obscured by one Report after another, so taken up in Acts of Parliament which partly repeal and partly amend previous legislation, that the question has become to many minds almost abhorrent, although everybody acknowledges its immense importance. We must all acknowledge its great importance. Local expenditure has, as the noble Earl pointed out, gone up enormously, and it appears likely to continue to go up by leaps and bounds. Therefore, to introduce, or to endeavour to introduce, some order and method into the great mass of detail in which the subject is involved is a matter of increasing and urgent necessity.
  I am not going to attack the late Government for not having taken up the Report, of the Commission, or rather those great Reports, and dealt with the subject of local taxation reform. I am quite willing to believe that had it not been for the important questions of foreign and colonial policy which occupied such a large part of their time and attention, they would, in all probability, have attempted to deal with the Report of the Commission which they themselves appointed. I regret that they only touched one small corner of the subject, the rating of agricultural land for certain purposes and the rating of tithe, apart from the other recommendations of the Commission. The late Government probably thought, as I imagine any Government would—;and I put this in rather as a caveat on the part of this Government—;that this question was an enormous one, which might very well occupy the whole of a Parliamentary session. If I desired to find a proof, if one were deemed necessary, of what I have just said, I would remind your Lordships that when the Local Government Act of 1888,
  1128
  which so largely altered the whole system of local government in this country, was passed, that measure did not stand by itself. It was very largely affected by the proposals in the Budget of that year, and when the great changes and reforms that were then made are spoken of they are sometimes identified with the name of the noble Viscount who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and sometimes with the name of Mr. Ritchie, who introduced the Bill. The reason is this, that although Mr. Ritchie was the parent of the Bill, the measure would have been quite impossible if the support and goodwill of the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not been obtained. That is our position to-day.
  This is a question which must obviously be largely settled elsewhere, because it is essentially a financial question. The Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day is master of the situation, and I may remind your Lordships that it has been pointed out in the Budget statement of the year that there are questions connected with the collection and transfer of rates under the system identified with the name of the noble Viscount which are receiving the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Any financial arrangement associated with the name of the noble Viscount must necessarily stand on a very strong foundation, because he is one of our greatest living authorities on finance. One of the most difficult duties of the Government will be to consider the strong arguments which induced the noble Viscount and Mr Ritchie to adopt that plan, and also, on the other hand, the very able arguments adduced against it by such high authorities as those who signed both the Majority and the Minority Reports of the Commission. But that something must be done we all agree.
  We have heard much in this debate about the inequality of the incidence of local taxation on real and personal property; but there is another inequality which grows year by year and which will have to be considered—;the inequality in the distribution of some of the grants from the Imperial Exchequer in aid of local taxation The distribution of the probate duty not only constitutes a very great injustice in the case of some counties, but is an admirable illustration of what the noble Earl who introduced this

  1129
  subject so ably directed our attention to—;the difficulty and confusion of the whole question. In 1888 it was decided to make this distribution between the counties and county boroughs, and the counties that could show the larger proportion of main roads got the larger grants. It was not, perhaps, at that moment such an unfair thing. The distribution was called a temporary distribution, but it has gone on ever since, and now the retrograde counties have come into line in the matter of main roads, but still receive only their share on the basis of 1888. Thus the inequality has got worse and worse, and His Majesty's Government are perforce obliged to consider that question and cannot treat it as one that can be deferred indefinitely.
  I believe myself that it will be most difficult to abolish compounding to any large extent, because of the very great convenience such an arrangement is to the local authority. I remember the great agitation that arose at the time when the compounding householder was abolished under Mr. Disraeli's Bill. I stood at the time as a candidate for Parliament, and although there were thorny and exciting questions on foot, like the disestablishment of the Irish Church and the abolition of University tests, the only question I was asked was whether I would support the restoration of the compound householder. If we attempted again to abolish compounding we should meet with very considerable opposition. I hope the noble Earl will be satisfied with the expression of opinion to which his notice has given rise, and will not be disappointed when I say that on the whole this is a question the decision of which must lie elsewhere, and that probably the question of valuation and assessment will be found to lie at the root of the matter, and. as was intimated by my right hon. friend the President of the Local Government Board, will have to be dealt with first.
  VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords, I do not rise for the purpose of pressing His Majesty's Government on a matter on which it is obvious they cannot have had time to make up their minds. Nor do I wish to follow noble Lords who are thoroughly conversant with local finance as to schemes for altering the present unfairness of the incidence of rating. It
  1130
  is from the point of view of the heavy burden of the rates on the industrial community that I wish to say a few words. The burden of the rates falls very largely on industry, and the cases of removal, of which Messrs. Yarrow's is an example, are common. The evil effects of this burden falling upon industry is experienced, not only by the employer and the employee, who loses his occupation, but with great and increasing severity by those who remain in the district.
  If the present position is compared with that of a year ago it will be found that the percentage of empty houses in the London County Council area has risen from under 2 to 4 per cent. This is obviously a serious matter, for as the proportion of empty houses increases the rates fall with greater severity on those remaining. It is not only in the case of one class of industry or in one district that the effect of the rates is to penalise British industries. Although railway companies are considered in many quarters as having no claim to consideration, they have a very considerable grievance in this matter. Within the last ten years the amount of money paid by the great railway companies in England has risen by something like 60 per cent. Whereas ten years ago they paid £173 a mile in rates, they now pay £283 a mile. Railways in other countries pay much less. It may interest your Lordships to know that in the United States the average amount paid in rates is £61 per mile, against £283 here. I do not for one moment suggest that the circumstances are precisely similar, but the fact is one which calls for careful investigation.
  I heard of the case the other day of an agricultural parish in Northamptonshire, the population of which is a little over 4,000, and the acreage 1,671 acres. This parish carried out a drainage scheme which raised the local rates from 9d. to 3s. 1d. This burden fell mainly on the Midland Railway Company, who were assessed at £7,478 a year and paid 81 per cent. of the total rates. The railway company had to bear the burden of this drainage scheme although they gained practically no benefit from it. Railway companies all the while have no possibility of being represented on the spending authorities. It is, therefore, a clear case

  1131
  of taxation without representation. It must be borne in mind that under the present system the sufferers are not merely the railway directors and shareholders. The whole of the travelling and buying public are affected, inasmuch as they have to pay higher fares and rates of carriage on account of the heavy burden placed on the companies. I was glad to hear that His Majesty's Government are alive to the importance of this question, and I hope that when they come to deal with it they will do so in a large and comprehensive spirit, remembering the very important effect which rates have on the prosperity of the manufacturing industries of the country.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, your Lordships might suppose that we who sit on this Bench are wanting in respect to the House, or in appreciation of the importance of the subject we have been discussing, if we allowed this debate to close without expressing, in a few words, the interest we take in it. It has been, as our debates not infrequently are, of a somewhat inconclusive character, but I do not think that my noble friend who introduced the subject need regret having done so, for he has elicited a very instructive and useful discussion.
  My noble friend would probably not be unwilling to leave- the matter where it was left by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the speech to which we have just listened. It seems to me quite clear that we must accept as entirely reasonable the plea of His Majesty's Government for more time in which to examine this great question. It is one which has been before the public a long time, and which others have hesitated to deal with, and we can scarcely take them to task because they have not, in the first half year of their term of office, addressed themselves to the solution of the problem. It seems to me also reasonable to say that it cannot be properly dealt with unless the question of valuation is thoroughly examined, and, in addition to that, I think it may fairly be argued—;indeed, it is obvious—;that no settlement of this matter can be proposed except in connection with the financial arrangements of the year, which it must necessarily affect.
  1132
  I trust, however, that His Majesty's Government will bear in mind that, although there are wide differences of opinion, although Lord Balfour's Commission produced, if I may borrow a phrase from Mr. Gladstone, not a Report, but a litter of Reports, throughout all those Reports there runs the admission that something should be done to give effect to the views which my noble friend Lord Denbigh has expressed this evening. There may be differences as to the proper mode of giving effect to these proposals. There are two distinct schools of thought upon them. There is the school of thought which we connect with the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, who I am sorry to see is not in his place at this moment, and who, in the year 1888, dealt courageously with this question. I have no doubt he would be ready to defend the views which he then held. But, on the other hand, these Reports contain weighty arguments which go to show that if relief is to be given to the ratepayers, it can be given in some better form than by the assignation of particular kinds of revenue in aid of local expenditure.
  I have neither the knowledge nor the courage to decide between these two views. But what I do wish to insist upon is that both those who hold the one set of opinions, and those who hold the other, maintain, as indeed did Lord Spencer in the passages quoted by my noble friend, that this matter is one which requires the earnest attention of Parliament. By all means, if it is to be dealt with, let it be dealt with in the spirit indicated by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who evidently feels, as indeed the Royal Commission felt, and particularly two Members of that Commission—;Sir George Murray and Sir Edward Hamilton—;that if there is to be a rearrangement of these imposts the matter should be treated, not in a hap-hazard fashion, but on a thoroughly scientific basis.
  The gravity of the problem has undoubtedly been increased by the rapid augmentation of local expenditure. To my mind, that is one of the most formidable and alarming circumstances which we have to consider in the age in which we are now living. It is not so very long since the local expenditure of this

  1133
  country stood at about one-half of its Imperial expenditure. The local expenditure now exceeds the Imperial expenditure of the country; and if we consider side by side the growth of Imperial as well as local indebtedness, I think we may indeed feel that the financial position is one which cannot be too seriously or carefully considered.
  I will offer one or two observations only with regard to the question which occupied a conspicuous place in most of the speeches to which we have listened—;the question of compounding. I have never yet met any one who did not believe that in principle compounding was an undesirable system, undesirable because it inevitably tends to diminish a sense of civic responsibility. There can be no doubt about that, and it is admitted, in so many words, in the Majority Report of the Commission. On the other hand, there are unquestionably very great difficulties in the way of its entire abolition. The Commission dwell upon the practical difficulties of collecting and enforcing payment from the large number of the poorest classes in our great towns who, as they point out, are in the habit of moving freely from one part of the country or one part of the neighbourhood to another, and who are therefore not always very easy to follow up. But I am bound to say that it does seem to me, particularly after listening to the evidence laid before us by the most reverend Primate, that the question of compounding should be very seriously examined by his Majesty's Government.
  The Commission actually recommended that the compounding limit should be raised. I cannot help hoping that it may be found possible, on further examination, to lower that limit. I also think that the suggestion made by my noble friend, that in all cases where rent and rates are demanded at one and the same time, the rent and the rates should be separately shown, is one deserving of consideration. The noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture brushed that suggestion rather hastily on one side. He took the case of a man whose premises were valued at £4 a year, and said that if that man had to pay an additional 1d. in the £ the additional claim would amount only to 4d., which, he thought, was not likely to constitute an effective inducement to
  1134
  the ratepayer to look more closely into local affairs.
  But, my Lords, supposing that the rates are already 7s. or 8s. in the £, that they have been rising penny by penny for years past, and that the ratepayer is given a full opportunity of seeing how the burden of the rates is growing and growing, until it is likely to swamp him and the neighbourhood in which he lives, I cannot help thinking that he will then acquire more of that sense of responsibility in which he is perhaps deficient at present, and that he will realise that, desirable as may be many of the objects for which the ratepayers' money is spent, those desires cannot be indulged consistently with the solvency of the district in which he lives. We heard with satisfaction from the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and from the President of the Board of Agriculture that His Majesty's Government are alive to the importance of this question, and propose to deal with it as soon as they conveniently can. All that we can do is very earnestly indeed to commend it to their attention, and to assure them that, so far as we are able, we shall regard it, not as one for Party dispute and recrimination, but rather as one concerning very closely the welfare of the people of this country, and one, therefore, regarding which both Parties may well co-operate to the best of their ability.
  THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (The Marquess of RIPON): My Lords, I almost feel that I ought to make an apology to your Lordships for occupying your time even for a few moments, because, after the able speeches of my noble friends behind me, there is really nothing left for me to say on behalf of His Majesty's Government. But I am anxious to thank my noble friend opposite for the very fair spirit in which he has just addressed us, and particularly for his promise of assistance in the great and difficult work which lies before any Government which attempts to deal with this question.
  Your Lordships know how long the question of local rating has been before the country. You know that many Governments have sought to deal with it and have not been successful in their undertaking, and you are well aware of the great complexity and difficulty with

  1135
  which the question is surrounded. This is in itself a sufficient reason to explain why past Governments have not desired to undertake a question of such great difficulty. But the time has undoubtedly come when this question ought to be fully considered and dealt with by the Government of the day. The late Government, although the Report of the Royal Commission was in their hands in 1901, did not feel themselves able to deal with the question in a large way. They preferred to deal with a single point of it, and they did so in a way which has always seemed to those with whom I have the honour to act as being a very imperfect, and, indeed, a very undesirable mode of dealing with the question. But the Agricultural Rates Act of last year was passed, I think, with the general understanding that it was for a limited period, four or five years, and that whatever Government was in power would during that interval attempt to come to some settlement of this question.
  Noble Lords opposite may be well satisfied that His Majesty's present Government are determined to take the matter up. I was particularly glad to hear from my noble friend that he, with us, recognised that the question of valuation was a primary one upon which the matters rest. It is to that question, as we believe, the Government ought first to direct their attention, but, of course, that will be only to lay the foundation upon which the further revision of the whole subject must rest. You may be sure that the whole question is under the consideration of the Government and will be dealt with by them. You have the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in moving his Budget this year, that he was convinced that the existing system of the assignment of heads of taxation to local bodies had been shown to be unsound, and he desired to get rid of it at as early a period as possible. My noble friend pointed out that that system was established by the noble Viscount Lord Goschen. No doubt at the time it was established there were great hopes that it would be successful in its working. The noble Viscount is not in his place at the present moment. I do not know whether he has changed his opinion or not, but it is clear from the Report of the Commission that the system has broken
  1136
  down, and that the time has come when some other and more satisfactory system must be adopted for the purpose of aiding the local rates.
  With respect to the question of compounding, I am one of those who believe that it will be found extremely difficult, if not impracticable, to abolish that system. I well recollect those days when the compound householder first rose into prominence. Your Lordships will remember that at the time of the passing of Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill the compound householder was abolished. Two years afterwards he was resuscitated by my noble friend Viscount Goschen, because his abolition had produced such a state of confusion. But when we hear such a speech as that which fell from the most reverend Primate to-night, when we hear how earnestly he argues against the continuance of this system and the great authorities to which he referred as being opposed to it, there is no doubt that it will be the duty of His Majesty's Government carefully to consider that branch of the subject.
  I cannot say myself, if I speak my frank opinion, that I have much hope that we shall be able to arrive at the conclusion that it can be abolished. My noble friend opposite argued in favour of the figure being reduced at which compounding commences, but the Commissioners say let the figure be raised. Therefore, it is by no means clear that a reduction of the figure would be the right mode of dealing with the subject. It has been shown by past experience to be a question of infinite difficulty, and I am quite confident that my right hon. friend the President of the Local Government Board will give to that branch, as well as to every other branch of the subject, his most careful consideration.

  MERCHANT SEAMEN'S ALLOTMENTS.
  LORD ELLENBOROUGH: My Lords, I gave my reasons for wishing that this Return should be granted when I addressed your Lordships on April 5th last. After consultation with the noble Earl who represents the Board of Trade a form of Return has been drawn up which will give all the information I ask for. I therefore beg to move for a Return in that form.
  Moved, That there be laid before the House a Return showing the number of seamen (exclusive of officers) who entered into foreign-going agreements

  Name of port.

  Number of Seamen (exclusive of Officers) who entered into foreign-going Agreements.

  Number of Seamen (exclusive of Officers) who made allotments.

  Percentage of Seamen who made allotments.

  To relatives or other persons.

  To a Bank.

  Total

  —;(Lord Ellenborough.)
  THE EARL OF GRANARD): His Majesty's Government, as I have informed the noble Lord privately, will be very pleased to grant the Return for which he moves.
  On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
  House adjourned at Seven o'clock, to Thursday next, half-past Ten o'clock.