Sitting of 22 May 1906

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before Three of the Clock.
MILITARY MANŒUVRES (ORDER IN COUNCIL).
The Comptroller of the Household reported His Majesty's Answer to the Address of the 21st February, as fol-loweth:—" I have received your Address, praying that I will make the Order in Council under the Military Manœuvres Act, 1897, a draft of which was presented to your House on the 21st February last. I will comply with your advice."
PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  PRIVATE BILLS [LORDS] (STANDING ORDERS NOT PREVIOUSLY INQUIRED INTO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, viz.:—Clacton Urban District Council Bill [Lords]; Barry Railway Bill [Lords]: Haslingden Corporation Bill [Lords]; Maryport Harbour Bill [Lords]; Glamorgan and South Wales Water Bill [Lords]; Cardiff Railway Bill [Lords].
  Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.
  Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford Railway Bill. Read the third time, and passed.
  Essex and Suffolk Equitable Insurance Society Bill [Lords]; Holyhead Water Bill [Lords]; Milford Docks Bill [Lords]; Mirfield Gas Bill [Lords]. Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
  North and South Shields Electric Railway Bill. Head the third time, and passed.
  Twickenham and Teddington Electric Supply Bill (King's Consent signified). Bill read the third time, and passed.
  Knott End Railway (Extension of Time) Bill [Lords], Mot amended, considered; to be read the third time.
  Manchester Corporation Bill. As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
  Bury Corporation Bill [Lords]. Read a second time, and committed.
  Poole Corporation Water Bill. Head a second time, and committed.
  Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 5) Bill. Read a second time, and committed.
  Lancashire Electric Power Bill. Reported with Amendments. Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

  PRIVATE BILLS (GROUP G).
  Mr. ALFRED HUTTON reported from the Committee on Group G of Private Bills: That Mr. Brotherton, one of the Members of the said Committee, was not present during the sitting of the Committee this day.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

  STANDING ORDERS.
  Resolution reported from the Select Committee.
  "That, in the case of the Penllwyn Railway and Road Bill [Lords], the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with. That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill, provided that

  1109
  Clause 49 be struck out of the Bill, unless the consent of the London and North Western Railway Company, as required by Standing Order 64, is proved before the Committee on the Bill. That the Committee on the Bill do report how far such Order has been complied with."
  Resolution agreed to.
  Penllwyn Railway and Road Bill [Lords]. Report [this day] from the Select Committee on Standing Orders road.
  Bill to be read a second time.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have agreed to—Amendments to—Manchester and Milford Railway Bill [Lords], without Amendment.
  That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the Matrimonial Causes Acts, 1857 and 1866, by extending the powers of the Court in relation to Maintenance and Alimony and leave to intervene, and to amend the Evidence Further Amendment Act, 1869." [Matrimonial Causes Acts Amendment Bill [Lords].]
  Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to provide for the incorporation of a company for providing accommodation for Trans-Channel Traffic; and for other purposes." [Channel Ferry Railway and Quay Bill [Lords].]
  Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise increased contributions to the Railway Clearing System Superannuation Fund Corporation by the railway companies and bodies contributing thereto." [Railway Clearing System (Superannuation Fund) Bill [Lords].]
  Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to enable the Scottish Provident Institution Buildings, Limited, to pay interest out of capital on certain of their shares; and for other purposes." [Scottish Provident Institution Buildings [Lords].]
  Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confer further powers on the Newport Harbour Commissioners; and for other purposes." [Newport Harbour Commissioners Bill [Lords].]
  Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to transfer the Lower School of Lawrence Sheriff at Rugby to the Governors of the Lower School of Lawrence Sheriff, Rugby, constituted by this Act; and for other purposes." [Rugby Subordinate School Bill [Lords], now "Rugby Lower School Bill [Lords].]"
  And also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act for conferring further powers upon the London and North Western Railway Company in relation to their own undertaking, and upon that Company in conjunction with the Great Western Railway Company, the Caledonian Railway Company, the Great Northern Railway Company, and the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company in relation to their respective joint undertakings; and for other purposes." [London and North Western Railway Bill [Lords].]
  Channel Ferry Railway and Quay Bill [Lords]; Railway Clearing System (Super-annuation Fund) Bill [Lords]; Scottish Provident Institution Buildings Bill [Lords]; Newport Harbour Commissioners Bill [Lords]; Rugby Subordinate School Bill [Lords], now "Rugby Lower School Bill [Lords];" London and North Western Railway Bill [Lords]; read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

PETITIONS.
  COAL MINES (EIGHT HOURS) BILL.
  Petition from Nantmelyn, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petition from Sion College, London, against; to lie upon the Table.

  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL (RELIGIOUS TEACHING).
  Petitions against alteration of Law; from Ashby Magna; Beckenham; Blackburn (two); Bromfield; Chantry; Dinas Powis (two); East Peckham (two); Forest Gate; Hanley Castle; Holy Island; Irlam (two); Little Carlton with Castle Carlton; Little Marsdon (two); Mappleton (two); Ponrith East; Port Eynon (two); Prittlewell; Rochdale; St.

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  Leonards-on-Sea; Southowram (two); Staplehurst; Swallow; and Titchfield; to lie upon the Table.

  LAND VALUES TAXATION, ETC. (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Fordyce, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  SOUTH AFRICA (CONSTITUTIONS OF THE TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE RIVER COLONIES).
  Petition of the Coloured People's Vigilance Committee, for enfranchisement of the coloured races; to lie upon the Table.
  VAGRANT CHILDREN BILL.
  Petition from Tynemouth, against; to lie upon the Table.
  RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
    FISHERY BOARD (SCOTLAND).
    Copy presented, of Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland, being for the year 1905. Part I., General Report [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
    LONDON TRAFFIC (ROYAL COMMISSION).
    Copy presented, of Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire and report as to the Means of Locomotion and Traffic in London, Vol. IV. Appendices with Index [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
    POLLING DISTRICTS (COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX).
    Copy presented, of Order made by the County Council of the County of Middlesex, reconstituting the Parliamentary Polling Districts in the County [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
    SOUTH AFRICA.
    Copy presented, of Customs Union Convention provisionally agreed to by the Representatives of the South African Colonies at a Conference held at Pietermaritzburg in March, 1906 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

    CEYLON.
    Copy presented, of Correspondence relating to an Agreement for Lease of
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    Pearl Fisheries on the coast of Ceylon [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

    EMIGRATION.
    Copy presented, of Report on the Emigrants' Information Office for the year ended December 313t, 1905 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
    TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
    Copy presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 3595 and 3596 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
    TRADE REPORTS (MISCELLANEOUS SERIES).
    Copy presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Miscellaneous Series, No. 650 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
    STREET BETTING.
    Return presented, relative thereto [Address April 11th; Mr. Cave]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 179.]
    PROSECUTION OF OFFENCES ACTS, 1879 AND 1884.
    Address for "Return showing the working of the regulations made in 1886 for carrying out the Prosecution of Offences Acts, 1879 and 1884, with statistics setting forth the number, nature, result, and cost of the proceedings instituted by the director in accordance with those regulations, from the 1st day of January, 1905, to the 31st day of December, 1905 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 241, of Session 1905)."—(Mr. Herbert Samuel.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Postal Facilities at Rockchapel, County Cork.
  Mr. FLYNNTo ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that requests have been addressed to the postal authorities by the priest and principal inhabitants of Rockchapel, county Cork, for an improved postal service and, in view of the fact that the mail service is at present carried on viâ Mallow, Abbeyfeale, county Limerick,

  1113
  Brosna, county Kerry, and Rockchapel, county Cork, a round of 70–80 miles at great expense, whether stops will be taken to expedite the mail service viâ the present Newmarket-Meelin route, the latter place being distant only a few miles from Rockchapel.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) An application has been received for an improvement of the service to Rockchapel, but as the existing service is carried on at a considerable loss I regret that I should not be justified in incurring the considerable additional expense which would be involved by serving Rockehapel as the hon. Member suggests, by way of New-market and Meelin instead of by way of Brosna.

  Naval Shipbuilding Statistics.
  MR. BELLAIRS: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that a recent Return, Dockyard and Contract Built Ships (No. 337 for 1905), gives figures of comparative cost, without any explanation of the fact that the Royal dockyards only build hulls of ships with a few exceptions, such as the engines of His Majesty's Ship "Encounter"; whether the dockyard charges include depreciation on buildings, machinery, yard craft, and interest on capital cost; whether he is aware that the accounts of the ordnance factories, on the recommendation of a committee, insert explanations that prices for Government work do not include price of land, interest on capital, or other trade charges not included in Government manufacture; and whether this practice can be carried out in such publications as the Navy Estimates.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The Return in question asked only for: The "completed cost" of each ship. As regards the inclusion of charges for depreciation on buildings, etc., no capital account is kept, and depreciation is not included, as such, in the dockyard charges; but the figures shown in column 7 of the Return include a fair proportion of (a) the annual outlay upon new workshops, building slips, storehouses, fixed ma chinery, etc., and (b) of the cost of their maintenance, and also (c) the amounts due to depreciation of workshop plant. It is not, therefore, considered necessary to insert explanatory notes as suggested
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  by the hon. Member, in such publications as the Navy Estimates.

  Memorial of Customs Watchers.
  MR. MASTERMAN: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he can state when the non-pensioner watchers of His Majesty's Customs, London, may expect to receive a reply to the memorial they presented to the Board of Customs in October of last year; whether this memorial has yet been forwarded to the Treasury; and whether he is aware that the non-pensioner watchers asked the Board of Customs to receive a deputation from their class so long ago as November last, and have not yet received a reply to their request.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) The memorial stated to have been presented in October last cannot be traced, but certain proposals affecting watchers are under discussion between the Customs and the Treasury, and pending decision, which it is hoped will shortly be arrived at theron, the question of receiving a deputation remains in abeyance.

  Irish Boys Joining the Royal Navy.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he can slate the number of Irish boys who joined the Royal Navy between May 1st, 1904, and April 30th, 1906, at ports in Great Britain and Ireland other than Queenstown.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) In the two years ended December 31st, 1905, approximately 230 boys (i.e., entries under eighteen, including boys, youths, domestics, artificers, and artisans) born in Ireland entered the Royal Navy at ports in Great Britain and Ireland other than Queenstown. Of these about 200 were "boys" and "youths."

  Civil Service Hired Assistant Clerks.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, seeing that the Vote for the Accountant General's Department of the Admiralty shows a new charge of £13,442 for salaries of 151 hired clerks who have not passed a Civil Service examination, will he state on whose recommendation these changes have been made and in whose patronage these appointments are vested, especially

  1115
  having regard to the fact that the alterations involve a reduction of the staff of Second Division clerks, who have passed competitive examinations, from 148 to 90; and, as examination by the Civil Service Commissioners has hitherto been regarded as the mode of access to the public service, will he state why this system has been replaced by one which puts a higher charge on the Estimates.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The grade of hired accountant clerk was introduced as part of a general reorganisation of the Accountant-General's Department. The clerks are appointed by the Accountant General of the Navy, who satisfies himself as to their capabilities and character. As previously explained, no examination is necessary for the new class, which is not established. Their employment does not entail a higher charge on the Estimates, the mean cost of a hired accountant clerk being only£100 a year, as compared with £194, that of a Second Division clerk. In addition to the saving in salary there will ultimately be a very considerable saving on the Civil Pensions Vote.

  Irish Exports.
  MR. BOLAND: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state the actual amount and the proportion contributed by Ireland to each of the following classes of exports, of which the total export for 1905 from the United Kingdom is stated to be, respectively, linen yarn, £927,617; linen manufactures (piece goods, plain, unbleached, or bleached), £4,225,394; piece goods, checked, printed, or dyed, and damask and diaper, £335,635; piece goods, sailcloth, £280,840; linen thread for sewing, £262,396; other linen manufactures, unremunerated, £1,236,951; and whether he will set out the figures in parallel columns.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) The official Returns of exports do not show what proportion of the exports of the articles referred to originated in Ireland. The value of the exports shipped from Irish ports direct to places abroad was as follows: linen yarn, £35,764; linen piece goods plain, bleached or unbleached, £911; linen thread for sewing, £273;
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  other linen manufactures unenumerated, £7,819. No doubt a very much larger proportion of the total exports of these articles was of Irish origin, though shipped abroad from ports in great Britain.

  Prosecution of Mr. R. Murphy for Dog Licence.
  MR. SHEEHAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to the prosecution of Mr. Richard Murphy, Coachford, for having an unlicensed dog in his possession; is he aware that Mr. Murphy applied for a licence in the Irish language, and that it was refused; will he state the grounds for this refusal; is he aware that Mr. Murphy was served with a summons on Good Friday, and will he explain why this was subsequently taken back and another issued in its stead; will he state the locus standi of an ex-clerk of the petty sessions, named Carey, who intervened during the hearing of the case, pointing out to the Bench the penalty incurred by the defendant; and, seeing that the policeman, Constable Huggins, who prosecuted in this case, is causing annoyance to Mr. Murphy by constantly sauntering in front of his residence, will he say what steps he proposes to take.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I am informed that Mr. Murphy's application for a dog licence was written in the Irish language, and that the clerk of petty sessions informed Mr. Murphy that he was unable to read it, whereupon Mr. Murphy at once left. He was subsequently summoned by the police for having an unlicensed dog, and was fined half-a-crown and costs and ordered to take out a licence forthwith. Mr. Murphy was first served with a summons on Good Friday, but doubts having arisen as to the legality of service on that day a fresh summons was served. Mr. Carey, the late clerk of petty sessions, attends the court, with the approval of the magistrates, for the purpose of assisting his son, who has been appointed clerk. I am informed that there is no foundation for the suggestion that Constable Huggins is causing annoyance to Mr. Murphy, beyond the fact that the constable has several times visited Mr. Murphy's house in connection with his omission to take out a licence.

  Contribution of India and the Colonies to the Imperial Institute.
  MR. LAIDLAW: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will supplement the information given in the Statement of present contributions to the Imperial Institute made by the Government of India and by the British Colonies and Protectorates [Cd. 2874], by stating the aggregate contributions of such Colonies and Protectorates since the formation of the Institute to March 31st last, such information having already been given in respect to India.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) the required information will be supplied in due course.

  Naval Cadets —Withdrawals on the Ground of Health.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state how many of the 588 cadets who have been selected and passed by the Hoard of Admiralty for the Royal Naval College, Osborne, have been withdrawn from the college on account of health considerations or causes other than inability to show satisfactory progress.
  (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) Of the 588 cadets entered since September, 1903, sixteen have been withdrawn on account of health considerations or causes other than inability to show satisfactory progress.

  Roman Catholic Schools.
  MR. BOLAND: To ask the President of the Board of Education whether he can state the number of Catholic schools in England and Wales, respectively, on January 1st, 1906, in urban areas with a population of between 1,000 and 2,000, between 2,000 and 3,000, between 3,000 and 4,000, and between 4,000 and 5,000, respectively; can he state the number of schools in each of these categories in which the proportion of non Catholic children exceeds 20 and 25 per cent., respectively; and can be state the number of Catholic schools in urban areas with a population of 5,000 and over, in which the proportion of non-Catholic children; exceeds 20 and 25 per cent., respectively.
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  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) As regards the first paragraph, the hon. Member will find, from the already published Statement, No. 2947, the number of schools in the several categories desired which are outside the urban areas of 5,000 population and over. I do not think it would serve any useful purpose to go to the great labour of working out the figures for each of the various urban areas of differing populations desired by the hon. Member. I have no information upon the points asked in the remaining two paragraphs of the Question, nor, in the absence of a religious census, do I see how any such figures could be obtained.

  The Education Bill.
  SIR E. CARSON: To ask the President of the Board of Education if he can state approximately how many educational endowments are liable to be affected by Part II. of the Education (England and Wales) Bill.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) A large number of legal interpretations, which it is not in my power to make, would necessarily be involved in any attempt to set out a comprehensive list of all educational endowments which maybe liable to be affected by Part II. of the Education Bill. For these and similar reasons it would only be misleading to give the number asked for in the Question.
  SIR E. CARSON: To ask the President of the Board of Education if he could give to the House any approximate estimate of how the sum of £1,000,000 mentioned in Clause 12 of the Bill is arrived at, or upon what basis the said sum is arrived at.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The sum of £1,000,000 was arrived at by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I should suppose, by a careful consideration of what his Budget for next year is likely to be able properly to supply in relief of the educational burden. I must refer the hon. and learned Member to the Answers given on April 20th, May 7th, and May 10th†to previous Questions on this subject.
  † See (4) Debates, clvi., 28, 985, 1479.

  Education Bill—Minor Local Authorities.
  MR. CHARLES ROBERTS: To ask the President of the Board of Education if he will state the number of minor local Education authorities within the area of which not more than one public elementary school is situated; the total number of such schools connected with each denomination or classed as provided schools; and the number of children in average attendance at each class of schools in such single-school areas.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The term "minor local authority "connotes boroughs under 10,000 population, urban districts under 20,000, and parishes in rural districts. The total number of these within the area of which, respectively, there is one and only one public elementary school is 7,744, taking the January, 1906, figures; 22 of these are boroughs, and more than 100 are urban districts. The average attendance of these schools cannot be given accurately until further Returns are compiled, but it is approximately 694,164. (The denomination of the schools in each of the 7,744 areas above described is set out in the table of figures below.) It must be clearly understood, however, that this does not mean that 7,744 is the number of areas in which there is one, but only one, public elementary school available for the children of the area, for the reasons that (1) this figure does not include the num-

  England.

  Classification of Schools.

  Number of Minor Local Authorities.

  Average Attendance (approximate).

  Council schools

  1,493

  189,033

  Voluntary schools

  Church of England

  5,497

  445,067

  Roman Catholic

  30

  1,858

  Wesleyan

  16

  1,523

  Undenominational, & c.

  155

  14,075

  Total

  7,191

  651,556

  erous parishes in which there is no school at all, and the children have to walk to the school in the next parish, and (2) on the other hand, in the case of very many of the 7,744 areas, as also of the last-named parishes, the children are within easy distance of one or more schools in neighbouring parishes, and frequently go to such, and there is, in this way, a choice of schools for such parishes and districts. In this connection, however, it should be noted that there are a very large number of places, urban as well as rural, where, though there is more than one school within the area or within roach, there is no effective choice of schools, since all the schools within reach are of one type—denominational or undenominational, as the case may be. This may be equally true of any of the 7,744 areas above named. It is a matter that can only be determined by knowledge of local conditions in each case. Statement showing the number of minor local authorities on January 1st, 1906, within the area of which there is one, and only one, public elementary school with approximate figures for the average attendance in such schools.
  Note:—The term "undenominational, etc.," used below comprises British and Foreign Society's schools, and some other schools which are either undenominational, or of which the Board do not know the denomination.

  Wales and Monmouth.

  Classification of Schools.

  Number of Minor Local Authorities.

  Average Attendance (approximate).

  Council schools

  220

  19,475

  Voluntary schools

  Church of England

  307

  21,508

  Roman Catholic

  1

  43

  Wesleyan

  —

  —

  Undenominational, & c.

  25

  1,582

  Total

  553

  42,608

  England and Wales together.

  Classification of Schools.

  Number of Minor Local Authorities.

  Average Attendance (approximate).

  Council schools

  1,713

  208,508

  Voluntary schools

  Church of England

  5,804

  466,575

  Roman Catholic

  31

  1,901

  Wesleyan

  16

  1,523

  Undenominational, & c.

  180

  15,657

  Total

  7,744

  694,164

  Architect of Houses at Battery Park, Stornoway.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary for Scotland if he will state by whom the specifications for the Houses at Battery Park, Stornoway, were prepared.
  (Answered by Mr. Sinclair). By Colonel Gore Booth, R.E.

  Police and the d'Angely Case.
  LORD R. CECIL: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the London police are prosecuting inquiries into the antecedents of Madame d'Angely through the French police; and, if so, by whose orders such inquiries are being made and
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  for what purpose they are being carried out.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) Inquiries have been made and are being made by the Commissioner of Police, acting with my authority, with a view to laying the results before the Royal Commission. Grave charges have been brought against the police, and the police are entitled, in my opinion, to take any fair and lawful measures which may be necessary to make good their defence.

  Education of Children on the Gardens in India.
  MR. STANLEY WILSON: To ask the Secretary

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  of State for India whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the Papers relating to the education of children on the gardens in India.
  (Answered by Mr. Morley.) As I stated in the Answer which I gave on February 22nd last to a Question by the hon. Member for Manchester, North Division,† the subject is engaging the attention of the Government of India, and I will inform them of the interest taken in it by Members of this House. There are no Papers that I can lay on the Table.

  Irish Railways—State Control.
  MR. O'MARA: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether a scheme is prepared for State purchase of Irish railways; and, if so, whether this scheme vests the future control in the railways in a nominated, or partly nominated hoard, or whether he proposes to vest control in Irish representatives elected by the electorate, who will alone bear the financial burden involved.
  (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) No scheme for the State purchase of Irish railways has been prepared, and I am not at present in a position to make any statement on the subject.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    H M.S "Actæon "—Pollution of the Medway.
    MR. MORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty what are the terms of the instructions that have been issued in regard to the discharge of crude sewage from H.M.S. "Actæon" into the Medway, with a view to obviating danger of contamination to the adjacent oyster layings; and in what manner it is proposed to regulate the discharge, so as to avoid such danger.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON, Dundee): If my hon. friend will permit, I propose to hand him a copy of the instructions issued by the captain of the
    † See (4) Debates, clii., 503.
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    "Actæon." If, on reading them, he desires the subject to be further considered, he will perhaps confer with my hon. friend the Civil Lord.

    Female Labour at Devonport.
    MR. O'GRADY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty what were the wages per week of the men who have been displaced in the Devonport Dockyard by the women who are now employed at polishing and upholstering; and what is the result of the experiment in female labour in the trades named, both as regards cost and efficiency, as against the labour of the men displaced.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The Dockyard officers report that the men displaced by the women who are now employed at polishing were joiners, and were actually receiving, if established, 31s., and if hired, 32s. 6d. per week. The men displaced by the women upholstering wore skilled labourers, and actually receiving an average of 23s. 4½d. per week. In regard to upholstering, there has been considerably more work turned out since female labour was employed than was formerly done by the men, and in quality the work has been at least equally good. In regard to polishing, the work has been equal in quantity and superior in quality to that turned out by the men.
    MR. O'GRADY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that for the money received for this upholstering, one cannot expect good work, as it is something like 8s. below the proper amount?
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I know nothing about that.

    Engine-Room Artificer's Grievance.
    MR. HART-DAVIES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to a case in which a young engine-room artificer was arrested and marched through the streets by a naval patrol for wearing a shirt not of the regulation pattern; whether, in such a case, the offender would be entered as a criminal in the annual Returns of the naval crime; whether he is aware that these minute regulations as to dress and their strict

    1125
    enforcement, ordered under the King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, Article 530, Clause 1, have caused considerable irritation and been the cause of numerous desertions; and whether he will consider the advisability of issuing such instructions as will prevent such cases in the future.
    MR EDMUND ROBERTSON; Full inquiry is being made into the case referred to, and I will let the hon. Member know the result.

    Naval Courts-Martial.
    MR. DUNN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he will favourably consider a proposal to assimilate the procedure at naval courts-martial with that at present adopted at military courts-martial, with the object of affording naval prisoners charged with offences the facilities for defence possessed by military prisoners in a like position.
    MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: The point referred to by the hon. Member will be brought under the consideration of the Board.

    Soldiers and Civilian Attire.
    MR. BRAMSDON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the disadvantage which noncommissioned officers in the Army above the rank of sergeant are subject to as compared with rank and file soldiers, in regard to the privilege of wearing plain clothes at their stations when off duty; that on some stations general officers grant the permission and others do not; and whether he will take steps to secure uniformity in the matter.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE, Haddington): My hon. friend is mistaken in supposing that the rank and file possess any privilege in regard to the wearing of plain clothes at their stations as compared with the noncommissioned officers. In tins respect they are on the same footing, except that sergeants and superior ranks are permitted to keep plain clothes in barrack rooms. Under the King's regulations non-commissioned officers and men may be allowed to wear plain clothes when proceeding on
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    furlough, or pass, or for purposes of recreation. It is not considered expedient to interfere with the discretion of the general officers commanding in such matters.

    Yeomanry Regulations.
    MR. CHARLES ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, under the existing Yeomanry regulations, an officer or trooper who is prevented by illness or other unavoidable cause from attending preliminary drills, but who subsequently attends the whole of the annual training, is deprived of all pay and allowances.
    MR. HALDANE: The regulations permit general officers commanding to grant pay and allowances in such cases if they are satisfied that the failure to attend is due to circumstances beyond the control of the officer or yeoman concerned.

    King's Island, Limerick.
    MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the case of Mr. Michael Sheehan, of Limerick, who has been the yearly tenant of the King's Island at Limerick; is he aware that this tenancy has been hold by the Sheehan family for forty years at a yearly rental, and that the rent was paid punctually: will he say when Mr. Sheehan was called upon by the War Office to surrender this land, and when was the land surrendered; also what compensation do the War Office intend to offer as compensation to the tenant.
    MR. HALDANE: The facts are as stated in the first part of the Question. As grazing was required for Government horses during the first portion of the year, it was decided in July, 1905, to terminate the existing tenancy on September 29th, 1905, and notice to this effect was accordingly given. Under the revised conditions Mr. Sheehan became grazing tenant from October 1st to December 31st, 1905, at a reduced rent. The land is now in military occupation, but will be relet from July 1st to December 31st, 1906, when Mr. Sheehan will have an opportunity of tendering. As the letting was a grazing tenancy only, no compensation was payable on its termination on September 29th, 1905.

    Farrier-Sergeant M'Rury, of Lovat's Scouts.
    MR. HUNT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War why No. 317, Farrier-Sergeant M'Rury, 3rd Squadron, Lovat's Scouts, who is acknowledged to have been injured during the training of 1903, when in Government service, through no fault of his own, and who is permanently injured, and was for three months incapacitated altogether from doing his ordinary work, has never been able to get any compensation whatever from the Government; and whether in view of the effect of this failure to get any compensation on recruiting in South Uist and the adjoining islands, he will reconsider his case.
    MR. HALDANE: A report on this case has been called for.

    Indian Excise Administration.
    MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether the Committee appointed to inquire into the excise administration of India, and to promote reforms therein, has completed its investigations; and whether he is now in a position to state when the Report of the Committee will be published.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. MORLEY, Montrose, Burghs): I have ascertained that the Government of India expect to receive the report about the middle of next month.

    Indian Education Expenditure.
    MR. O'GRADY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he will inform the House of the amount of the annual grants from the Indian Exchequer for elementary education purposes in India, and the number of children attending public elementary schools in the country during the last year for which statistics are available.
    MR. MORLEY: The total expenditure from public funds upon elementary education in India during 1904–05 (which is the latest year for which figures are available) is stated by the Government of India at £578,067, but this does not in elude the cost of inspection, or the expenditure on children receiving elementary instruction in secondary schools,
    1128
    which cannot be separately shown. The number of children attending public elementary schools during the same year was 3,627,000.

    Indian Revenue for Opium.
    MR. BRIGHT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India what is the amount of revenue from opium; what is the probable amount of the surplus of the Indian revenue; and can he give any hope that by a moderate economy in Indian military expenditure enough money can be found to enable the Indian Government to dispense with this item of revenue.
    MR. MORLEY: In the budget estimates for the present year the total net receipts on account of opium (including excise) are estimated at £3,833,000. The surplus for the financial year is estimated at £874,100. As to the last paragraph, as the subject is to come up for discussion next week, I hope my hon. friend will consent to wait until then for such an answer as I can give him.
    SIR GILBERT PARKER: Has the right hon. Gentleman any reason to believe that the effect of opium on Orientals is more serious than that of wine and spirits on Europeans?
    MR. MORLEY: The hon. Gentleman is anticipating the discussion on this subject.

    China—Sir Robert Hart's Position.
    SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether satisfactory assurances have now been received from the Government of China that no interference is intended with the position of Sir Robert Hart or his eventual successor.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir EDWARD GREY, Northumberland, Berwick): I can add nothing material to the answer given on the 17th instant, † in which I stated that the Chinese Government had disclaimed any intention of not adhering to the Loan Agreements of 1896 and 1898, which stipulate that during their currency the administration of the customs is to
    †See Col. 645.

    1129
    remain as at present constituted. We understand this to mean that the terms of the decree will not make any change in the present administration of the customs under Sir Robert Hart, but we have asked for a definite assurance to this effect.

    Turkey and Macedonian Reform.
    MR. GOOCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the present temper of the Porte, His Majesty's Government will resist the increase of the Turkish tariff till Lord Lansdowne's conditions, involving the administrative control of Macedonia by the Powers, have been accepted.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: The question of the administrative control of Macedonia was settled for the present by the institution of the International Financial Commission on conditions which were accepted by His Majesty's late Government, and we do not consider that any other course could have been adopted. The assent of His Majesty's Government and that of the other Powers to the proposed increase of the Turkish tariff will only be given if a satisfactory guarantee can be obtained that the pro-coeds will be applied to making good the deficit in the Macedonian Budget.

    Opium Imports in China.
    MR. BRIGHT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether there is any treaty or agreement between this country and the Chinese Government which empowers us to introduce opium into China, even if its introduction were objected to by that Government.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: Foreign opium is imported into China on payment of a duty of thirty taels per 100 catties, with the addition of a likin, not exceeding eighty taels per 100 catties, by virtue of the additional Article to the Chefoo Convention of 1876, signed in London in 1885. This arrangement may be terminated by either party giving twelve months notice.

    Turkey and Egypt.
    DR. RUTHERFORD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in
    1130
    view of recent occurrences, His Majesty's Government intend to revise the relations between Egypt and the Sultan of Turkey; and, if so, whether they will consider the desirability of terminating the tribute.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: His Majesty's Government do not desire to raise these questions, and as a matter of fact the Egyptian tribute is entirely pledged to British and Foreign holders of Turkish bonds, and is remitted direct to them.

    Insane Criminals.
    MR. CLOUGH (Yorkshire, W. R., Skipton): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many of His Majesty's subjects are at present being detained during His Majesty's pleasure in prison and in asylums; and whether these cases are individually systematically, and periodically examined as to their fitness for release, and a what intervals of time.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE, Leeds, W.).At the present time there are 710 persons detained in lunatic asylums during His Majesty's pleasure, besides one who is awaiting removal from prison to an asylum. In each case an individual report as to the patient's condition is made Once a year to the Secretary of State, and if necessary special reports are called for at more frequent intervals.

    The Imperial Institute.
    MR. LAIDLAW: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the undertaking given by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer in this House, on May 6th, 1902,† that the projected transfer of the Imperial Institute to the nation would impose no financial charge on the Exchequer, unless further duties, not at present contemplated, should be imposed on the Commercial Department of the Board of Trade; whether such further duties in connection with the Institute have been imposed on the Board of Trade; and what has been the aggregate, direct and indirect cost, if any, to the nation of the Imperial Institute since its transfer.
    † See (4) Debates, cvii., 802.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE, Carnarvon Boroughs): I am aware of the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1902, to which the hon. Member refers. Since the Imperial Institute Transfer Act, the work of the Imperial Institute has considerably increased, which has thrown additional duties of supervision upon the Board of Trade, but there has been no cost to the Imperial Exchequer in consequence. A grant of £300 a year for four years has lately been placed at the disposal of the Board of Trade by Treasury for researches with regard to cotton cultivation within the Empire, and these researches have been carried on through the Scientific and Technical Department of the Imperial Institute.

    Deaths through Vaccination.
    MR. LUPTON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board with reference to the twenty-eight deaths recorded in the Registrar-General's 67th Report for 1904, as due to cow pox or other effects of vaccination, whether any compensation has been given to the survivors by the State; whether provision can be made in the Estimates for such compensation to be paid in future cases of deaths from this cause; and, if not, whether he will consider the desirability of inserting a clause providing for such compensation in his promised Vaccination Bill.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS, Battersea): No compensation has been given in the cases referred to. I could not give any promise that provision for compensation in any such cases would be proposed either in the Estimates or by a Bill. I may add that the twenty-eight deaths alluded to in the Question include not only those stated by medical practitioners or by coroners' juries to be duo to vaccination, but also those in which vaccination appeared from the medical certificates to be in any way connected with the cause of death.

    Halfpenny Postal Rates.
    MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that there are a number of persons in this country who are subject to annoyance, to fines,
    1132
    and to obstruction in their business operations by being unable to distinguish what communications may and may not go through the Post Office at the halfpenny rate; whether only two persons in this country have solved the problem what is bookpost or halfpenny matter; whether he has declared that these two officials disagree on the point; and whether he will still further attempt to explain and simplify the rules in the Postal Guide.
    THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON, Tower Hamlets Poplar): No doubt it is difficult to draw an exact line between communications which should be, or should not be, allowed to go through the Post Office at the halfpenny rate, but I think that my hon. friend greatly exaggerates the general ignorance and want of intelligence which he assumes prevails on this Question. He is, however, perhaps aware that in connection with the Postal reforms agreed to by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and mentioned in the Budget, I am about to extend the operation of the halfpenny rate, and I hope at the same time to be able to draw a clearer line and to simplify the rules.

    Bristol Telegraph Department.
    MR. CHIOZZA MONEY: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the women supervisors employed in the Bristol Telegraph Department have been forbidden to sit down during the whole of the eight hours' working day; that the only respite allowed them during that time is the thirty minutes rest for dinner; that one of them was recently told that if it was necessary for her to sit down the Department would soon find someone else to do her work; and if he will give instructions that in future suitable periods of rest shall be allowed the women concerned, and that all other employees of the office referred to shall be treated with consideration.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I have looked into the matter, and can assure my hon. friend that he is misinformed in thinking that the women supervisors at Bristol have been forbidden to rest whilst on duty.

    Education Grants.
    MR. O'GRADY: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education what is the total amounts of Exchequer grants allotted to elementary educational purposes in Great Britain and Ireland respectively, and the number of children attending public elementary schools during the past year.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. BIRRELL, Bristol, N.): The figures desired will be found, so far as they are obtainable, in the Return shortly to be issued by my right hon. friend the Home Secretary, in response to the order made by the House of Commons on April 4th last, on the Motion of the hon. Member for Kerry, W.
    MR. THOMAS O'DONNELLasked as to Ireland's share of the grant.
    MR. BIRKELL: I must have notice of that.

    Examinations in Welsh Subjects.
    MR. REES: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether he will consider the omission from the regulations and syllabus for the preliminary examination for the certificate, 1907, of Welsh subjects; and will he restore the subject of Welsh to a position of at least equal prominence with that which it enjoyed in the Code for former years.
    MR. BIRRELL: The hon. Member is under a misapprehension in regard to the place now occupied by Wesh subjects in the syllabus for the Preliminary Examination for the certificate, 1907. Provision has been made in the Revised Regulations and Syllabus for this Examination for questions to be set in history and geography having a special reference to Welsh history and geography. In the Examination in English language and literature an opportunity will also be afforded to candidates from Wales to use their knowledge of Welsh, and, as in previous years, Welsh may be taken as one of the optional subjects. Under those circumstances I think that the question hardly arises of restoring Welsh to a position of at least equal importance with that which it has hitherto enjoyed, since the present arrangements clearly
    1134
    tend to the encouragement of a real study of the language and literature of the Principality.

    Public Petitions.
    MR. ADKINS: I beg to ask the hon. Member for the Holmfirth Division of Yorkshire, as Chairman of the Select Committee on Public Petitions, whether the Committee appointed to inspect petitions presented to this House have any means of ascertaining whether signatures not affixed to the particular sheet containing the prayer and substance of the petition are or are not those of persons who are aware to what petition their signatures have been subsequently attached.
    MR. H. J. WILSON (Yorkshire, W. R., Holmfirth): There are no moans at present of ascertaining what my hon. friend desires to know. Everything depends on the good faith of those who promote the petitions.
    MR. ADKINS: May I ask if the hon. Gentleman will take steps to see that no petitions are sent in which are not actually signed on the paper containing the prayer of the petition?
    MR. H. J. WILSON: I dare say some means could be devised to deal with that. I will bring the matter before the Committee.
    MR. ADKINS: Will the Committee investigate the extraordinary phenomena presented by the extensive identity of signatures to the petitions against the Education Bill?
    MR. H. J. WILSON: It is the duty of the officials in the Petitions Office to draw attention to such cases, but if the hon. Member can name specific cases, I will cause inquiry to be made.

    Barlinnie Prison Warders' Grievances.
    MR. WATT: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if he is aware that dissatisfaction exists among the warders of Barlinnie Prison, Glasgow, with reference to hours of duty, especially in regard to attendance at lectures without time allowance being granted, and that a statement of these grievances has been made to the Commissioners with a request that it should be forwarded to the

    1135
    Secretary for S1cotland; will he say whether he received these papers; and, if so, will he say when he received them.
    THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. SINCLAIR, Forfarshire): I received the statement in question from the Commissioners on April 25th, and it is now under consideration.

    Belfast Illegal Coining Case.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state whether any memorial was presented to the Lords Justices by Crawford prior to his release from prison, after conviction for illegal coining at Belfast, and, if so, what were the terms of the memorial; whether the receipt of the memorial was followed by further investigation on the part of the police authorities; whether the removal of Constable Graham, the degradation of Constable Fraser, and the admonition to District Inspector Clayton were consequent on these investigations, and, if so, on what grounds; and whether there are any other circumstances in connection with the case which he can communicate to the House.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BRYCE, Aberdeen, S.): It is the fact that a memorial was presented by Crawford, as stated in the Question, asking for an inquiry into his case, and an investigation followed, and the persons referred to in the Question were dealt with as mentioned. It has been determined to have an inquiry instituted forthwith into the organisation, discipline, and past and present working of the police force employed in Belfast, and this inquiry will be conducted by Mr. Matthew Bourke, K.C., Mr. Ulick Burke, Resident Magistrate, and Mr. Singleton, Assistant Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary (retired).

    Cork County Court Valuer.
    MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Mr. Richard Martin, of Little Island, the county court valuer on whose valuation the Recorder of Cork increased, instead of abating, the rent of Michael Hegarty, of Carrignavar, is a relative of the landlord, Mr. Richard Mansergh Martin; and, if so, whether the Land
    1136
    Commission will take steps to prevent the relatives of landlords from again interfering in the fixation of their rents.
    MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the Recorder of Cork that in the case referred to the total rent of the three separate holdings of Mr. Hegarty was fixed at £134 10s., as against the previous judicial rent of £140 in respect of the entire holding before it was divided into three. There was, therefore, an abatement and not an increase. The Recorder states that he is wholly unaware whether the court valuer, in whom he has complete confidence, is related to the landlord, and that when the valuer sat with him for the purpose of taking evidence no objection to his doing so was made on the tenants' behalf. The Recorder, however, will give directions that valuers shall not act in cases in which they are related to any of the parties.

    Motor Fishing Boats for Ireland.
    MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the character of the Report on the working of the motor fishing boat "Pioneer," purchased by the Congested Districts Board (Scotland), steps will be taken by the Congested Districts Board (Ireland) to get a few such boats for the fishermen on the South and West Coast of Ireland.
    MR. BRYCE: The Congested Districts Board have had the Report in question under their consideration. They are not at present prepared to recommend the use of paraffin or petrol motors in the larger fishing boats on the West Coast of Ireland. They understand, however, that the Department of Agriculture have enabled the crew of a small fishing boat to procure a motor, and they will watch the result of the experiment.

    Dingle Pier.
    MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received a memorial from the Dingle Harbour Board asking for a grant for the extension of the pier; whether he is aware that the district served is all congested, and the most highly rated in all Ireland, and that fishing is the main industry; whether

    1137
    he is aware that, owing to the fact that the pier does not extend sufficiently far into the sea, delay is sometimes caused in landing fish, and loss thereby incurred; and whether, under those circumstances, steps will be taken to have the pier reported on by an engineer from the Board of Works or Congested District Board, and such grant as he considers necessary for its extension given.
    MR. BRYCE: I have received the memorial referred to and the Board of Works have favoured me with a Report upon its proposals. In the opinion of the Boards engineer the proposed extension would not effect the desired end. It is a fact that the district of Dingle is congested, and that the charges upon it in respect of railway and harbour guarantees are very high, and I understand that fishing is its main industry. The Congested Districts Board have from time to time considered schemes for the improvement of Dingle harbour, and it was recently decided that the best way of securing this end would be to dredge a channel to the existing pier. This has recently been arranged for by the Dingle Harbour Board, and the Congested Districts Board have made a considerable contribution towards the cost of the work, which is about to be commenced.

    Killygordan Evicted Tenants.
    MR. MCVEIGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the attention of the Estates Commissioners has been called to the matter of Thomas Kieve, who was evicted from his holding on the Mansfield Estate, Killygordan, East Donegal, because he declined to pay an increase of rent; and, seeing that a portion of the estate is sold and in the hands of the Estate Commissioners, whether he will request them to reinstate Kieve in his holding, as it is still lying derelict.
    MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that the lands in question are not in their hands. They have, however, approached the owner with reference to the case of Thomas Kieve, and have referred Kieve's application to one of their inspectors for inquiry, with a view to effecting a settlement.

    Galway Hosiery Factory.
    MR. CHARLES DEVLIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a number of persons interested in the revival of Irish industries and anxious to provide employment for the purpose of retaining the people have started a hosiery factory in Galway; that this has now been operating successfully for some years; whether he is aware that on behalf of these persons an application was made to the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in Ireland to procure for the advantage of the workers in this factory the services of an instructor in the finer class of hosiery, the local county committee offering to pay half the expenses; and, seeing that this application was rejected by the Department, will he make representations to the Department to comply with this request in order to assist the effort being made in Galway to revive its industries.
    MR. BRYCE: I understand that the facts are substantially as stated in the Question. The Technical Instruction Committee for the Urban District of Galway recently applied to the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for a special grant for the purpose mentioned. The Department were unable to accede to this application because they had already allocated to the urban district the full amount at their disposal for the purposes of technical instruction in the district. The total annual fund at the disposal of the Galway Technical Instruction Committee is, approximately, £1,000, which includes a local rate of one penny in the pound and a contribution of £680 from the Department's endowment. The Department have pointed out to the local committee that if they wish to aid the industry in question, such aid must be given from the joint fund made up of the Department's contribution and the local rate.

    Gethin Estate, County Sligo.
    MR. P. A. MCHUGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland on what date was the Gethin Estate, at Ballyconnell, Magherow, county Sligo, sold to the Congested Districts Board; has the estate been yet vested in the Board, and, if not, can he say when it will be

    1139
    vested, and can he explain the delay; is he aware that a servant of the Board, named Carroll, has caused annoyance to the tenants on this estate, by obstructing them in the collections of seaweed for manuring their crops, a privilege they enjoyed under their late landlord; and that Carroll prevented a man, named Phelim Moffit, a tenant occupying a one acre holding, from securing grazing for a milch cow on the grazing farm of 800 acres now in the hands of the Board, but still unstripped; and will he, as chairman of the Congested Districts Board, see that operations for improvement and enlargement of holdings on this congested estate are proceeded with at the earliest possible moment.
    MR. BRYCE: The date upon which the Congested District Board arranged to purchase this estate was April 6th, 1905. The estate has not yet been vested in the Board by the Estates Commissioners, who have been fully occupied with prior engagements, but it is anticipated that the vesting will be effected in July. The Board have received a complaint against Carroll, and are making inquiry into the matter. As soon as the estate is vested in the Board steps for the rearrangement and enlargement will be taken without delay.

    Colonel Malone's Westmeath Estate.
    MR. GINNELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if be will state the name of the inspector who visited the estate of Colonel Malone in Westmeath on behalf of the Estates Commissioners, the date of the visit, any explanation of the fact that tenants and others who lodged a memorial with the Commissioners complaining of certain matters and asking the sale to be carried out in accordance with the law, and who were assured that those matters would be investigated on the ground, have not been called upon and have not been able to see the inspector; does this inspector see none but the landlord and his friends in matters in which the tenants are equally concerned; and will the Commissioners stay the sale until the matters raised have really been investigated on the ground.
    MR. BRYCE: This Question appears to be asked under a misapprehension of
    1140
    the facts. The Estates Commissioners inform me that two originating applications have been lodged with them in respect of two separate portions of Colonel Malone's estate. The lands comprised in the first application have already been inspected, but these lands do not include the former holdings of certain evicted tenants from whom applications for reinstatement have been received. These holdings are included in the second application, and an inspection of them will shortly take place, when full inquiry from all persons concerned will be made.

    Fitzwilliam Estate. Wicklow.
    MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state whether the whole or any part of the Fitzwilliam estate, in county Wicklow, has been sold under the Act of 1903; if so, what was the extent of the acreage sold; what was the number of the tenants; whether any of the tenants have refused to purchase at the landlord's price; how many years purchase did the landlord demand on first term and on second-term rents respectively: what was the total amount of the purchase money and the amount of the bonus paid or to be paid to the landlord; and whether there was any inspection for value of the holdings sold.
    MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that 60,422 acres of the estate of Earl Fitzwilliam have been sold to 1,055 tenants under the Land Act of 1903. The Commissioners have no information as to the number of tenants who may have refused to purchase at the landlord's price. The number of years purchase of the rents varied considerably, but generally was:—In the case of rents fixed after August, 1896, between twenty-five and twenty-six years purchase; and in the case of rents fixed before August, 1896, between twenty-two and twenty-three years purchase. The purchase money was £536,016, and the bonus payable to the vendors is 12 per cent, of the amount advanced. In all cases not within the zones, the holdings were duly inspected as to the security for the advances applied for.
    MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state the

    1141
    number of tenants on the Fitzwilliam estate, county Wicklow, who have been proceeded against for arrears of rent between 1st January, 1904, and 15tb May, 1906; whether those tenants so proceeded against had refused to purchase their holdings at the landlord's price; and whether they have since submitted to the landlord's terms, and signed agreements to purchase.
    MR. BRYCE: The Estates Commissioners inform me that they have no information from which they can furnish the particulars asked for.

    Constantine Maguire Estate, County Fermanagh.
    MR. FETHERSTONHAUGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state why the tenants on the Constantine Maguire estate, county Fermanagh, whose cases to fix fair rents were heard so far back as December 5th last by a Sub-Commission Court, have not yet been informed of the decisions of the Court; and whether, as rent is now being demanded from the tenants, he will suggest to Messrs. Wade and Hunt, who heard the cases at Enniskillen, that as the holdings were inspected so far back as January last a decision would be of importance to the tenants before they pay rents which may be affected by the decision.
    MR. BRYCE: I am informed by the Land Commission that the decisions of the Sub-Commission Court in the cases referred to were announced on the 18th instant, and the results communicated to the parties on the following day.

    Cork City Railways.
    MR. O'SHEE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that on the evidence of the promoters of the Cork City Railways and Works Bill a local contribution of £50,000 is not forthcoming either from private persons or by way of guarantee from public bodies towards the construction of the proposed line for connecting the railways in Cork City; whether the Treasury, in view of this fact, and of the undischarged parliamentary obligations of the Great Western and the Great Southern and Western Railway Companies under the Fishguard and
    1142
    Rosslare Act of 1898, will strictly adhere to the conditions laid down last session, and re-affirmed by them this session, and decline to make any grant of public money, unless £50,000 is found locally, in connection with this Bill; whether the Great Western Railway Company now appears as the principal promoter of this Bill, and has agreed to find part of the £98,000, the estimated cost of construction, and to undertake the management of the proposed new line; whether, as the construction of this line was one of the obligations undertaken by the two companies mentioned in 1898, and that no question of a grant of public money towards the same was then raised by them, their obligation to construct such line with the co-operation and consent of the local bodies and the existing railways in Cork City still remains undischarged; and whether, as they have at length obtained such co-operation and consent in support of the scheme in this Bill, they are now bound to give effect to it without the help of public funds.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. MCKENNA, Monmouthshire, N.): It is true that one of the conditions on which the Treasury were prepared to invite Parliament to contribute £60,000 last session towards a scheme for connecting the railways at Cork by a bridge over the River Lee was that a sum of £50,000 should be forthcoming locally, and that this condition has been reaffirmed during the present session. The local support was not forthcoming and the pledge therefore has lapsed. The scheme last year was calculated to cost £180,000, but this year there is a scheme for building the bridge, which is now under consideration in Committee, involving an expenditure of about £100,000, towards which local contributions to the extent of £25,000 are proposed. Should this scheme be reported by the Committee to be in the best interests of the economic development of the South and South West of Ireland, the Treasury are prepared, subject to the local contributions of £25,000 being obtained and to certain other conditions, to invite Parliament to contribute the sum of £25,000. I believe the Great Western Railway Company are supporting this Bill, but this fact has had nothing to do with the Treasury decision which has been taken

    1143
    solely with a view to encouraging the development of the South and South West of Ireland. Had either of the other two Bills which have been before the House this Session obtained the sanction of the Committee rather than the Bill which the Great Western Railway is supporting, the Treasury would have considered the claims of those Bills in the same way.
    MR. POWER: Is it because the Great Western Railway fail to carry out their solemn obligation to the House that they are now to be given this £25,000?
    MR. MCKENNA: The solemn obligation of the Great Western Railway was to use their best endeavours to obtain the consent and co-operation of the Cork Commissioners for certain work. They have obtained the assent of the Cork Commissioners and they now propose to carry out by this Bill the project to which the hon. Gentleman refers. The co-operation of the Commissioners would not have been given but for the fact of Treasury assistance, and that is the ground of our Act.
    MR. POWER: Surely the hon. Gentleman does not maintain that the company are carrying out their obligations.
    MR. MCKENNA: If the hon. Gentleman will refer to Section 12 of their Act he will find out the promise to have been exactly as I stated.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the Parliamentary obligations accepted by the great Western and Great Southern and Western Railway Companies in 1898, and of the action of Parliament in reference to the matter in July 1901†, and the decision of a Committee of the House with regard to a similar Bill last session, he will decline to allow a grant of public money for the project in the Cork City Railways and Works Bill which those companies undertook to carry out without such grant; whether he is aware that both these companies are supporting this Bill in the expectation of a grant of public money, while they continue in default as to their obligation to build the Cork and Fermoy
    †See (4) Debates, xcvii., 856.
    1144
    direct line, towards which they were to have obtained a grant of £93,000; and whether there is any precedent for making a grant of public money to assist four railway companies to connect their systems for their own benefit.
    MR. MCKENNA: The proposed grant towards the scheme for a connection between the Railways of Cork does not relieve the companies from their obligation to construct the Cork to Fermoy line. The grant is not made to assist the railway companies to connect their system for their own benefit, but in order to secure the carrying out of a scheme in the general interests of railway communication in the South of Ireland, which there was reason to believe could not be carried out without Government assistance.
    MR. POWER: May I ask the hon. Gentleman in connection with this Question whether on July 19th, 1901‡, the then Prime Minister said that the Treasury had not the power, nor if they had would they exercise it, to sanction any escape from the Parliamentary obligations which had been entered into.
    MR. MCKENNA: Yes, Sir, the Treasury was then bound up to 1903 for the building of the Fermoy line, but the power to build the line expired in 1905, and when that power did expire the Treasury were no longer under any obligation to allot the £92,000 for that purpose.

    Duties Paid by Ireland.
    MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he will state the amount respectively of tea, coffee, cocoa, sugar, spirits, beer, wine, tobacco and snuff consumed in Ireland during the year ending 31st March, 1906, giving also the amount of duty payable on each.
    MR. MCKENNA: A statement is being prepared and a copy of it will be sent to the hon. Member. Perhaps he will excuse the Chancellor of the Exchequer from reading out the figures in. The House, as they are rather lengthy.

    Committals for Contempt of Court
    MR. P. A. MCHUGH: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether the Government propose to introduce legislation
    ††See (4) Debates, xcvii., 856.

    1145
    amending the laws relating to committals for contempt of Court; and whether he can state approximately when such legislation will he introduced.
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, Stirling Burghs): I am afraid I cannot give a pledge as to the introduction of legislation for amending the laws relating to committals for contempt of Court, but, as the hon. Member is aware, my right hon. friend the Attorney-General for Ireland has admitted that there is a case for legislation, and I can assure him that the Government will not lose sight of the matter.

    Electoral Corruption.
    MR. S. COLLINS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, considering the nature of much of the evidence revealed at the recent trials, in connection with the Yarmouth and Maidstone elections, will the Government take an early opportunity to bring in a Bill to so alter the Corrupt Practices Act that it may become more effectual in securing purity of elections.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I am quite aware that the Corrupt Practices Act has been the subject recently of a good deal of depreciatory comment, and it is not surprising if, after so many years experience, it may require considerable amendment; but I do not think any step can be taken this session.

    The D'Angely Case.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether the terms of reference to the Royal Commission in connection with the D'Angely case will cover the payment of compensation; and has any apology been or will the same be made to Madame D'Angely and her friends.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: It will be open to the Commissioners, after hearing the evidence, to make any recommendation with regard to the D'Angely case that they may think proper.
    SIR HOWARD VINCENTasked whether steps would be taken to ensure the presence of Madame D'Angely before the Royal Commission, and that she should give evidence on oath.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I am not aware. I have taken no steps.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether his attention has been drawn to the indignation expressed through France at the reluctance of the defaulting authorities to apologise in the D'Angely case in view of the fact that the lady insulted is a French subject, and the importance attached to a continuance of the friendly relations between these countries will this situation be immediately dealt with.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: We have received no information tending to show that the feeling of indignation alleged in the Question to exist in France has been created, nor has anything occurred at all likely to affect prejudicially the friendly relations of the two countries.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: Had this lady to leave the country because of the treatment extended to her?
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I am not aware of anything of the sort.
    LORD R. CECIL: Is it true that the Metropolitan police have been making inquiries of the Paris police as to Madame D'Angely?
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Does the noble Lord think that I am aware of all that is done by the Metropolitan police? The noble Lord abuses his powers of interrogation. A Question is asked me as to a supposed state of indignation in France, and the noble Lord proceeds to ask me what the police are doing.
    LORD R. CECIL: I am sorry that I have discomposed the Prime Minister. Probably he will view my offence with a more lenient eye when I point out that I have put a Question on the Paper to the Home Secretary, but not for oral answer. I thought that possibly one Cabinet Minister might have communicated with another.
    MR. FLAVIN: May I ask whether this lady has not gone away for the good of her health?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
    Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDON reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had nominated the following fifteen Members to serve on the Standing Committee on Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures, in respect of the Prevention of Corruption Bill [Lords]: Mr. Vivian, Mr. Nield, Mr. Hay, Mr. Bonar Law, Mr. Barran, Mr. Raphael, Mr. Ridsdale, Mr. C. E. Price, Mr. Charles Nicholson, Mr. Higham, Mr. Charles Duncan, Mr. K. C. Lehmann, Mr. Emmott Barlow, Mr. Hugh Law, and Mr. W. G. Nicholson.
    Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDON further reported; That they had nominated the following fifteen Members to serve on the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure, in respect of the Open Spaces Bill: Sir Edward Strachey, Mr. H. W. Lever, Mr. W. Pearce, Mr. Courthope, Mr. Channing, Mr. C. H. Wilson, Mr. Osmond Williams, Mr. Alexander Cross, Viscount, Castlereagh, Mr. George Bowles, Mr. James Parker, Mr. John Johnson, Mr. Roche, Mr. Howell Davies, and Mr. John Ainsworth.
    Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDON further reported; That they had nominated the following fifteen Members to serve on the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure, in respect of the Fertilisers and Feeding Stuff's Bill: Sir Edward Strachey, Mr. H. W. Lever, Mr. W. Pearce, Mr. Courthope, Mr. Channing, Mr. C. H. Wilson, Mr. Osmond Williams, Mr. Alexander Cross, Viscount Castlereagh, Mr. George Bowles, Mr. James Parker, Mr. John Johnson, Mr. Roche, Mr. Howell Davies, and Mr. John Ainsworth.
    Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDON further reported; That they had discharged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manu factures, in respect of the Merchant Shipping Acts Amendment (No. 2) Bill: Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer; and had appointed in substitution Mr. Howell Davies.
    Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDON further reported, That they had dis-
    1148
    charged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Trade (including I Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures, in respect of the Dogs Bill: Colonel Kenyon-Slaney; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Percy Thornton.
    Reports to lie upon the Table.

    PUBLIC TRUSTEE BILL [LORDS].
    Read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 227.]
    PILOTAGE BILL.
    Order for Second Reading upon Friday next read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
NEW BILLS.
  ADVERTISEMENT REGULATION BILL.
  "To authorise local authorities to make by-laws respecting the exhibition of Advertisements," presented by Mr. Hart-Davies,; supported by Mr. Wyndham, Sir Brampton Gurdon, Sir Edward Clarke, Mr. Charles Schwann, Mr. Butcher, Mr. MacNeill, and Mr. Beale; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be-printed. [Bill 224.]
  LICENSING ACT (1902) AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend, and extend the Licensing Act, 1902," presented by Mr. Stanley Wilson; supported by Lord Robert Cecil; to be read a second time upon Friday, 8th June, and to be printed. [Bill 225.]
  DUBLIN CIVIL BILL COURT AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To improve the procedure of the Civil Bill Court of the city and county of Dublin," presented by Mr. Healy; to be read a second time upon Friday, and to be printed. [Bill 226.]

  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. EMMOTT (Oldham) in the Chair.]
  Clause 1:—
  MR. ASHLEY MR. ASHLEY (Lancashire, Blackpool) moved an Amendment to Clause 1 to add to the words fixing the date of the coming into operation of the Bill, the following: "or such other later date as the local education authority may determine." He said his Amendment embodied the principle of local option, a principle which ran through a great many clauses of the Bill, and he thought the Government should look upon it with favour because it endeavoured to carry that principle further. The local education authority had under the Bill grave and heavy responsibilities thrown upon it, and it seemed to him that the least the Government could do would be to give it some say in the question as to when the Act should come into operation. The Act required ample time for consideration both on the part of the education authorities and electors, and a year and three months was a hopelessly short period in which to consider the matter. The question as to when the Act should come into force was obviously one for local option and not for the Committee to decide. Let them consider what the procedure under this Bill would be. In the first place there would be the election to decide what the mandate was for the local education authority to carry out. Then after they had received their mandate, they would have to decide upon their line of policy. Having decided that, they would have to carry out intricate negotiations with the trustees of voluntary schools for the taking over of those schools. They would have to decide what the rent was to be and the conditions under which they would proceed. Then they would have to consider petitions under Clause 4 and hold a public inquiry in the case of nearly every voluntary school in the authority's area, which in a county like Lancashire would involve something like 600 or 700 inquiries. It was impossible for the Education Authorities to know how long such inquiries would take. Then, again, in the
  1150
  case of Roman Catholic schools it might be that the teachers would refuse to continue to serve in the schools after the education authority had taken them over, and that would mean the appointment, of a now staff of teachers and further delay.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 1, line 8, after the word 'eight,' to insert, the words' or such other later date as the local education authority may determine.'" —(Mr. Ashley.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. SAMUEL EVANSobjected that the Amendment was out of order, because a similar proposition had been decided the previous day on an Amendment.
  THE CHAIRMANreplied that he had considered that point and had come to the decision that the Amendment at present before the Committee was in order, as it sought to give the decision to the local authority alone instead of to the Board of Education on the instigation of the local authority.
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. LOUGH, Islington, W.)said he wished to offer a word of congratulation to the Member who had moved the Amendment, upon having found a fresh argument on the point. It was not very often so much was said on the Opposition side of the House in praise of local option. They, however, on the Ministerial side of the House were all of opinion that to introduce local option in this matter would be a great mistake. Nothing could be worse than uncertainty about the date on which the Act would come into operation, and he hoped the hon. Member would not press the point unduly. There was a provision in Clause 10 of the Bill which would meet cases of difficulty.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURthought the hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the Committee must have listened with imperfect attention the previous evening to the speeches of the President of the Board of Education, because the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill admitted that there was a difficulty in regard to these dates,

  1151
  and that it might be necessary to fix a later date. He hoped that when the Amendment of the hon. Member for Basingstoke came on, leaving it to His Majesty in Council to determine such later date, a more favourable answer would be given than any one had yet succeeded in extracting from the Government. He did not know that it would be any good pressing the present Amendment, but if his hon. friend went to a division he should vote with him.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid an Amendment such as the one before them gave some chance of making provision where real hardships existed. The Bill dealt with the question as though a grievance existed everywhere all over England. It treated England and Wales as if they were chess boards, all white or all black as the case might be, without any chance whatever of elasticity. There were, however, a great many parishes all over the country in which no grievance whatever existed. In such cases, he asked, why intervene? Were they going to scatter their million of largesse all over the country whether it were wanted or not? How was the million of money to be distributed? Had that not an important bearing upon the Amendment? There were provisions in the case of England where, if Nonconformists had a grievance, the local authority should intervene and give them some of the money. That was all right, but in cases where the parties were provided for why should his money, for it was Irish money as well as English and Scottish, be given away without any necessity? For this reason he regarded the Amendment favourably. He might be wrong, but he did say that the Government did not appreciate the effect of their own Bill. The Bill was imposed upon the Government and the House of Commons by a small fanatical section of the country, and admittedly a grievance existed in a small geographical area only. Yet they were passing the Bill as if the grievance was a general thing ! Why should they not have the right to say, whether they were Wesleyan, Nonconformist, or Protestant, that they were getting on fairly well and were fairly provided for, and therefore they would prefer to control themselves? That was all the Amendment proposed; it was an Amendment which provided that the Bill
  1152
  should not come into operation until the local authority asked for it, and surely the local authority was the best judge of the medicine which the patient needed. He hoped the Government would give the Amendment much more consideration than they had seemed disposed to do.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAINsaid he understood that the hon. and learned Member who had just spoken was averse from imposing on every parish in the kingdom a scheme which might be suitable for some places and unsuitable for others, and would allow a much larger local option than apparently the Government had been inclined to allow. If he had rightly understood the hon. and learned Member, he most thoroughly agreed with him. He hoped that even if now the discussion on that point was not carried much further, the Committee would have an opportunity later on, by some Amendment directly raising the issue, of discussing and deciding upon the point. Assuming that the Bill was right as it stood, he asked whether the Government had allowed themselves enough time to carry it through. He had never seen a measure so complicated and as to which it was so difficult to come to a conclusion as to what would exactly happen under it. In this point of practical operation it seemed clear that the Government themselves did not understand the Bill. Their answers to the inquiries which had been made had been totally irrelevant and had not met practical difficulties. They had been very short answers, and he really thought it would be advisable to spend a little more time upon this stage. It was evident to all the Committee what was the position of the majority on the other side. They came to the House— new men, most of them—and said, "Here we are, 350; cannot we have our way? Are we not all-powerful? There is a miserable minority which actually asks questions, requires explanations, and demands discussion. Was anything so intolerable ever heard of? The rights of minorities we have for many years consistently promoted and supported; but we never intended for a moment to admit that that included the right of free discussion." He quite understood that position. Hon. Gentlemen opposite were, many of them, new to the procedure of the House, and they were very much

  1153
  mistaken—very young, indeed, in Parliamentary life—if they thought any action of that kind would be to the advantage of the Bill. [An HON MEMBER: You cannot bully us.] That was true. He could not bully hon. Members and they could not bully him. He would set forth his view of the action which would be taken under this Bill. He would assume that the Bill was passed as it stood, say, on September 30th in the present year. Then there would be three months to January 1st, 1907, during which Parliamentary agreements might be made be between the owners and trustees of voluntary schools and the local education authority. He understood that there were 14,000 of these schools, in which case there would be 14,000 agreements to be made. Those agreements might be infinitely varied— there might be the ordinary agreement contemplated, perhaps desired, by the promoters of the measure; there was an agreement possible under Clause 3, relating to what were called ordinary facilities; and there was a separate series of agreements which might be made under Clause 4, relating to extended facilities. With the best will there must be difficulty in making voluntary agreements in three months for 14,000 schools. He took it for granted that the hope of the Government had been that their proposals would be taken as conciliatory proposals, and would be satisfactory to a great number of those who were concerned in denominational education. Surely there could no longer be a shadow of belief in the minds of the Government or any of their supporters that they had succeeded. It was perfectly clear—he was not saying whether it was right or wrong—that the vast majority of those interested in denominational teaching, whether Jews, Catholics, Wesleyans, Anglicans, or members of other bodies— were opposed to the Bill in its present shape. [Cries of "No."] Surely it was absurd to deny that. It was absolutely certain that the vast majority were opposed to this Bill as it stood. That being so, let them see how it increased the difficulty of these voluntary agreements. These schools—the Catholic.and the Anglican schools for instance—were, after all, very fairly organised. To his mind it was not conceivable that 14,000 schools, or any appreciable fraction of them, could take advantage in the three months between the passing of the Bill and January 1st, 1907, to make any
  1154
  agreement. What was to happen between January 1st, 1907, and January 1st, 1908, which was the second period? He took it that the local education authorities, finding that they might appeal to a Commission, but were not hound to do so, would endeavour still to come to an agreement before they appealed to the Commission, and a certain period of 1907 would be occupied in that way. How much time would they give for that? He thought that in three months the local education authority ought to have become aware whether an agreement such as they would accept was possible or not. Then they had nine months left in 1907, during which period the local authorities might present applications to the Commissioners to make schemes for all that remained of the 14,000 schools. Was ever anything more absurd presented to a business House of Commons? He appealed to anyone who had had any experience of the framing of schemes by any Government authority or by any judicial tribunal. He appealed to those who had been acquainted with the formation of schemes under the Endowed Schools Act whether they thought that three men were to go up and down the country holding public inquiries in the case of 14,000 schools more or less, and that they could accomplish that work in nine months. He could not think that the Government had considered the absolute necessity of great elasticity. The whole thing would be a ridiculous fiasco if they confined themselves to these dates, from a desire to meet the impatience of some of their supporters, who apparently were anxious that there should be no discussion of an Amendment and no alteration of any line of the Bill. This brought them to January 1st, 1908, when, according to Clause 1, all voluntary schools must come under the public school system or must cease to have any kind of assistance, either from rates or taxes. the hon. Member for North Camberwell last night said, "Oh! you have Subsection 2 of Clause 10."
  DR. MACNAMARA: I first of all referred to Subsection 6 of Clause 9.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Last night the hon. Member rested himself on Subsection 2 of Clause 10.
  DR. MACNAMARA: I think not. I first of all referred to Sub-section 6 of Clause 9.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Oh! Yes; the hon. Member now brings to his assistance—
  DR. MACNAMARA: And then.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. Member brings to his assistance now—
  DR. MACNAMARA: And then.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, Stirling Burghs): Does the right hon. Gentleman mean to imply that my hon. friend is stating that which is not true? My hon. friend has repeated what he said last night, and then the right hon. Gentleman by the way he emphasised the word "now" seems to imply that my hon. friend did not bring the clause referred to to his assistance last night.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I make no imputation whatever upon the veracity of the hon. Member for North Camberwell. He says, and I did not think it necessary to refer to it, that last night he mentioned this sub-section, and I said he brought it to his assistance now. I suppose he does bring it to his assistance now.
  DR. MACNAMARA: And then.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. Gentleman does bring it to his assistance now.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: It is a small matter, but I think the right hon. Gentleman who does not wish to make seriously any imputation, should modify his language. He does make an imputation, his emphasis on the word "now" excluding the idea of its having been done then.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I said in language which cannot be mistaken— [MINISTERIAL cries of "Withdraw."] Who wishes me to withdraw the language I have just used? I have not the slightest intention, and never had, of imputing any lack of veracity to the hon. Member for North Camberwell. I am not going to be
  1156
  lessoned by the right hon. Gentleman who has come most unnecessarily to the assistance of an hon. Gentleman well able to defend himself, and whose interference I regard as entirely impertinent.
  MR. MYER: I rise to order. I wish to know whether it is Parliamentary language to say that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister is impertinent.
  THE CHAIRMAN: I should have called the right hon. Gentleman to order if I considered that he had transgressed the bounds of Parliamentary order.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAINasked the Committee to allow him to dismiss from his mind and to dismiss from theirs the incident that had taken place, and to go back to the plain, simple argument which he was addressing to them. He had completed his review of what was possible up to January 1st, 1908. Then there came Clause 10, Sub-section 2.
  DR. MACNAMARA: Clause 9, Subsection 6.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAINsaid he was not talking of the hon. Member. Clause 10, Sub-section 2, said practically if no arrangement had been come to with the voluntary schools by the end of 1908 the local education authority had a right to use the school without payment, subject to the same religious instruction being given as before, and also to the employment of the same teachers to give that instruction. In other words the school was to be continued as a denominational school, but under the control of the local authority for a limited period from 1908 to 1909. That, of course, did allow of a transition period, but twelvemonths was entirely insufficient. They could not count on being able during that period to make arrangements with all these 14,000 schools. The prolongation of the Commission by another Bill did not touch the question of the number of schools which in 1908 must cease to be voluntary schools. If they were to agree that, so long as the Commission was prolonged, the whole matter should be held up, then the answer to the hon. Member for North Camberwell would appear to be sufficient, but to have the Commission going on, while the schools were to cease

  1157
  to be voluntary schools, was no settlement whatever of the practical difficulty. There was one other point. Clause 8 provided that the Commission might make a scheme in accordance with certain conditions with regard to the trusts of the school house in future. Sub-section (b) provided that if the Commission were of opinion that the use of the school house for the purposes of a public elementary school by the local authority was the best mode of giving effect to the trusts, they might by their scheme make provision for the purpose, subject to such conditions as to payment or other matters as might be agreed to by the local authority. What was to happen if the local authority did not agree? Here was a Commission which had held a public inquiry and had examined into the wishes of the parents and other matters and had given its decision that a school was to be taken over on the payment of a fixed sum and on certain other conditions. Suppose the local authority had to pay £1,000 and refused to do it, the scheme would fall to the ground. There was no provision to meet that case. The proposition in the Bill was most one-sided, because the trustees had no option whatever. They must accept what the Commission arranged for them, while the education authority might refuse, and so long as they were animated by the spirit which appeared to animate so largely this Committee they would refuse, to pay any sum whatever for any of these schools. Here was a new difficulty, and yet in Clause 1 the Government made a statutory provison that in no case should these schools remain voluntary schools. Surely it would be wise to allow much greater elasticity and to consider the possibility of a much longer period before the final transfer took place. He hoped he had said nothing which in any way was calculated to offend any susceptibilities, and he trusted that under the circumstances the right hon. Gentleman would give him a full reply.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOAED OF EDUCATION (Mr. BIRRELL, Bristol, N.)said that, as he understood the Bill, the whole of the three months between September, 30, 1906, and January, 1907, and also the whole period of time down to January 1, 1908, was open to all authorities to come to terms as speedily as they could with the voluntary schools. They were all well acquainted with the
  1158
  voluntary schools—some of them too well. [OPPOSITION cries of "Oh."] He was speaking of their sanitary arrangements, and not making any reflection on their teaching. The local authorities were, at all events, well acquainted with the schools within their areas, and he had no doubt that even by this time they had formed a pretty good idea as to which schools they would require for the purposes of public elementary education. It was of extreme importance that they should know as soon as possible what schools they could obtain. Therefore it was necessary to arrange a reasonably short space of time, and the Bill provided that the Commission should open its inquiry some time in 1907. That did not limit free negotiation between the local authority and the owners of these schools. It simply enabled the Commission to get to work as soon as possible. As to Clause 10, that clause really did nothing more than the Act of 1902 did, under which the local authority had control over secular education, but not over the appointment of teachers. This clause provided that where a bargain was not struck the school should pass to the local authority, but the religious teaching should go on as before, so that if the parties wont before the Commissioners and no bargain was struck there would be no breach in the religious teaching, which would not be in any way affected. Therefore, for the purpose of bargaining, between the parties, the period of fifteen months allowed was ample; and as to the extension of time to January 1, 1909, the time would be ample also to deal with such cases as came before the Commission Court. He believed the times fixed were ample for the purposes of the Bill.
  MR. SAMUEL ROBERTSsaid he supported the Amendment of the hon. Member for Blackpool because it would give local authorities who were satisfied with the present condition of things the power to go on as they were now. He supported the Amendment in that for genuine reasons and he could give the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education a case in point. He had the honour to represent a city in which the Act of 1902 had been administered with very great success. It had been a success because both political Parties, as soon as the Act became law, made up their

  1159
  minds that they would sink all religious and political differences and work the Act for the benefit of the children. They had done that not only in the elementary schools, but in a very great extension that had been made on the lines of secondary education. A large grammar school and a training college had been founded and altogether the Act was proceeding smoothly, and they wished to be let alone. This was a reason why local authorities should have some discretion in the matter. The last report of the education committee in his town said that cordial relations had been maintained between the committee and the managers of non-provided schools, and the result of their hearty co-operation had been distinct'y beneficial to the general interests of education. Why could not that condition of things be allowed to continue. If the local authority "were of opinion that the Act was working smoothly, and that there were no religious difficulties, because the relations between the local authority and the managers of the non-provided schools were most cordial, he earnestly commended that to the right hon. Gentleman as a reason for accepting the Amendment, and for letting things go on as they were.
  MR. WYNDHAMwho rose amid cries of "Divide," said he only wished to say one word on the larger question raised by the Amendment. Under that proposal the local authority would have not only a suspensory power but also a great squeezing power, because they might come to the owners of the non-provided schools and say, "unless you remove all these grievances down comes this Act of Parliament upon you." He recommended that point of view to hon. Members opposite who had talked so much of popular control.
  LORD R. CECILsaid that this Amendment raised one of the most important points in the Bill, and he thought the Committee were quite entitled to know whether the Government agreed with the policy advocated by the hon. Member. No reply had yet been made to the contention that it was desirable to give some liberty to the local authorities to contract themselves out of the Act. The question was of very considerable magnitude, and of much interest. One
  1160
  hon. Member had said that he was surprised to hear anyone on the Opposition Benches advocating local option. It was very easy to use the phrase "local option" as indicating a principle; but no one was entitled to use it as applying to only one particular form of local option. The real truth was that there was a good deal to be said for the principle of local option. This Bill was full of local option the whole of the religious welfare of the country was to be determined by the particular syllabuses which the local authorities made each school adopt. Then the question whether extended facilities were to be given to particular schools was to be left to the local authorities; and it was only carrying the matter one step further to say in this Bill that these facilities should come into operation or not in their districts. The hon. Member for the Ecclesall Division of Sheffield had said that the present system was in full operation in the city he represented; but in vast tracks of the country the operation of the present system of religious teaching was satisfactory. There was no opposition to it; no religious difficulty. The people were perfectly happy under the existing system. [MINISTERIAL ironical laughter.] He could quite believe that some hon. Members opposite might regard that as a surprising observation, but if they went about the country with an unprejudiced mind they would see for themselves the fairness of the observation. This Bill would inevitably stir up religious strife in every local election. He therefore ventured to hope that the Government would give the Committee some answer to the question put by the hon. and learned Member for Louth.
  MR. DILLONsaid that as he understood the Amendment it would have the effect of giving local option to any authority in the country to postpone indefinitely the operation of the Bill, and a local education authority could fix a date fifty or 100 years hence before it came into operation. Therefore the effect of the Amendment was to introduce the principle of local option into the Bill. In the shape in which that principle was introduced here it might possibly come to the rescue of some of the Anglican schools in the country,

  1161
  but the Catholic schools would be left outside its scope, because could anybody suppose that all the urban districts of the country would not proceed to put the Act in force in country towns? Therefore, as far as the Catholic schools were concerned, it would afford them no protection at all. More than that, when they came to Clause 4, which dealt with extended facilities and was based upon local option, they intended in order to protect their schools to argue against it. Many of the speakers in the debate seemed inclined to use the provisions of the Bill as a political weapon without any regard to Catholic schools, and in discussing public control they seemed to look upon denominational schools merely as objects of political warfare across the floor of this House. Were they to be dragged into supporting an Amendment which set up the principle of local option as a guiding principle of the Bill and which if adopted would not protect a single Roman Catholic school in this country? This debate had consumed much valuable time which should have been devoted to considering some of the great principles of the Bill which there was some chance of passing. He thought the time spent upon this Amendment had been largely wasted. There was no chance of passing it, but it had furnished some extremists on the other side with a weapon which they would use against them on Clause 4. He could not see a single argument in favour of the Amendment, but he believed in the view put forward by the Leader of the Opposition that there was a strong case for more I time to consider and carry out this arrangement. That point, however, was down for consideration in an Amendment by the hon. Member for Basing stoke, and that was one which when they came to it he should strongly I urge the Government to accept. That Amendment provided that the; Bill should come into operation on the day named or at such later date as His Majesty in Council might determine. He would only say that in his judgment the Government made a great mistake in not accepting the Amendment which they disposed of the previous night, under which the postponement had to be a reasonable
  1162
  one, because it could only take place with the consent of the Education Department itself. He was utterly unable to support this Amendment.
  SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid he would not support this Amendment for a moment if he thought it would put the Roman Catholic schools in a worse position than they were now. If it were carried every local authority which desired to maintain the status quo under the Act of 1902 would be enabled to do so, and he thought it would be admitted that the Act of 1902 was more favourable to Roman Catholics than the Bill in its present form. Under the Amendment the Roman Catholic schools throughout the country where local option was used would be in the favourable position in which they were left under the Act of 1902, and when they came to Clause 4 of the Bill he should endeavour to amend it so as to make it mandatory in order that the present conditions might be: preserved as far as possible. He thought the Minister for Education would admit that any Bill of this character meant disturbance to our educational institutions throughout the country. It was not merely the religious question and the fear that religious teaching would be endangered in the schools in which it had been maintained, but there was a practical disturbance which resulted in hesitation in regard to the reconstruction or enlargement of schools in consequence of the uncertainty prevailing as to what might follow the undertaking of that work, and that would mean, as they knew from the experience of the Act of 1902, the dislocation of such efforts and of the work of local authorities throughout the country. He should like to know whether the Secretary of the Board of Education had given himself time or opportunity to ascertain how the Bill of 1902 was working throughout the country. The hon. Gentleman had not been very long in office, and he ventured to think that he had hardly allowed himself the opportunity of ascertaining in how many districts of the country there was any difficulty whatever occasioned by the working of the Act of 1902. They knew perfectly well on the high authority

  1163
  of the teachers themselves that in the schools there was no religious difficulty. They knew very well that the local education authorities in our great towns and in many of our great counties had addressed themselves to the work of education seriously, vigorously, and with admirable effect, and all this was to be disturbed by the introduction of religious difficulties again under the operation of this Bill. Had the President of the Board of Education asked himself what part of the United Kingdom was injuriously affected by the Act of 1902? [" Oh."] Hon. Members opposite appeared to him to be vocal merely for the purposes of interruption.
  MR. LEIF JONESinquired, as a matter of order, whether it was open to the hon. Baronet to discuss the working of the Education Act of 1902 throughout the country on the question of when the present Bill should come into force.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid he was listening to the hon. Member, and suggested that it might be better if he had not so much advice.
  SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid the interruption of the hon. Member was itself singularly irrelevant. If hon. Members disputed that the Act of 1902 was working smoothly throughout the country perhaps they would rise in their places and say so.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid the hon. Baronet was travelling rather far afield in challenging hon, Members to discuss the working of the 1902 Act in detail.
  SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid the point he was putting which he thought had been ruled, to be in order was whether the local education authority should allow the Act of 1902 to remain in operation. He submitted that from that point of view the discussion of the operation of the Act of 1902 was in order upon the question of the postponement of the operation of this Bill if it became law. No doubt there were disturbed areas in which the Act of 1902 had not worked
  1164
  smoothly, but that arose not from religious but from political differences introduced by hon. Members in order to disturb the working of that great measure. He contended that they should not dissipate the energies of the local authorities by exciting religious difficulties, and thus dislocate educational effort. If local authorities were satisfied with things as they were they should be allowed to say so, and to exercise the option offered by the Amendment.
  MR. ASHLEYdisputed the assertion that the Amendment would not benefit a single Roman Catholic school. In Lancashire the Roman Catholics, the Church of England, and other religious bodies had worked together and were working together under the Act of 1902. He wished the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill would give them some idea of the working of the local option proposed.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid he had not intended to address the Committee again, and should not have done so except for the speech of the hon. Member for East Mayo, which was a side attack on himself. He wished to assure the hon. Member that he did not pay the smallest attention to anything he said either in the House or out of it, that no appeal could be made to him that would affect his action in the matter, and that any such appeal would be thrown away. He had formed the opinion that this Amendment was one of the most valuable that had been proposed from the Catholic point of view, and he observed that no member of the Government had been able to answer the points that had been made in its favour. He knew there were hon. members of the Irish Party who were more Ministerialist than Ministers, and strange to say those who were so anxious to save the time of the Committee were those who were supposed to be extremely anxious in the interests of religious education and not the avowed secularists on the opposite side of the House. He therefore thanked the Government and the members of the Ministerialist Party for the patience with which they had

  1165
  listened to the arguments addressed to them, which he thought had been in strong contrast to the attitude of hon. Gentlemen beside him.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 114; Noes, 406. (Division List No. 89).

  AYES.

  Acland-Hood, Rt.Hn. SirAlex. F.

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Fell, Arthur

  Nield, Herbert

  Anstruther-Gray, Major

  Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey

  O'Brien, William (Cork)

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Parker Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)

  Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. Hugh O.

  Fletcher, J. S.

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

  Forster, Henry William

  Percy, Earl

  Balcarres, Lord

  Gardner, Ernest (Berks, East)

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. A.J. (City Lond.)

  Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

  Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

  Balfour, Capt, C. B. (Hornsey)

  Haddock, George R.

  Ratcliff, Major R. F.

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

  Baring, Hon. Guy (Winchester)

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent Ashford)

  Remnant, James Farquharson

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

  Harrison, Broadley, Col. H. B.

  Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

  Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

  Beckett, Hon. Gervase

  Hervey, F. W. F. (BuryS. Edm'ds

  Salter, Arthur Clavell

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

  Hill, Sir Clement (Shrewsbury)

  Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton)

  Bowles, G. Stewart

  Hill, Henry Staveley (Staff'sh.)

  Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk)

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Hills, J. W.

  Starkey, John R.

  Burdett-Coutts, W.

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Butcher, Samuel Henry

  Hunt, Rowland

  Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxf'dUniv)

  Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.

  Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H.

  Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark)

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hn. Col. W.

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Keswick, William

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Cavendish, Rt. Hon. Victor C.W.

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Valentia, Viscount

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Lane-Fox, G. R.

  Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. Howard

  Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey.

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)

  Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)

  Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

  Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham)

  Walrond, Hon. Lionel

  Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J.(Birm.)

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid.)

  Clarke, Sir Edward (CityLond.)

  Liddell, Henry

  Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

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

  Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham)

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Lowe, Sir Francis William

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

  Courthope, G. Loyd

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Craig, Capt. James (Down, E.)

  M'Calmont, Colonel James

  Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart-

  Craik, Sir Henry

  M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W.)

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Younger, George

  Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon

  Marks, H. H. (Kent)

  Doughty, Sir George

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Ashley and Mr. Samuel Roberts,

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Meysey-Thompson, E. C.

  Du Cros, Harvey

  Middlemore, John Throgmorton

  Duncan, Robert(Lanark, Govan

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Muntz, Sir Philip A.

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

  Barnard, E. B.

  Boulton, A. C. F. (Ramsey)

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Barnes, G. N.

  Brace, William

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Bramsdon, T. A.

  Adkins, W. Ryland

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Bright, J. A.

  Agnew, George William

  Beale, W. P.

  Brocklehurst, W. D.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Beauchamp, E.

  Brodie, H. C.

  Alden, Percy

  Beaumont, Hubert (Eastbourne

  Brooke, Stopford

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Beaumont, W. C. B. (Hexham)

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

  Armitage, R.

  Bell, Richard

  Brunner, Sir John T. (Cheshire)

  Armstrong, W. C. Heaton

  Bellairs, Carlyon

  Bryce, Rt. Hn. James (Aberdeen)

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Benn, Jn. Williams (Devonport

  Bryce, J.A.(Inverness Burghs)

  Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

  Benn, W. (T'wrHamlets, S. Geo.

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Astbury, John Meir

  Bertram, Julius

  Buckmaster, Stanley O.

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Bethell, J. H. (Essex, Romford)

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

  Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Baker, Joseph A.(Finsbury, E.)

  Billson, Alfred

  Burnyeat, J. D. W.

  Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

  Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Black, Alexander Wm. (Banff)

  Byles, William Pollard

  Barker, John

  Black, ArthurW. (Bedfordshire)

  Cairns, Thomas

  Barlow, JohnEmmott(Somerset

  Blake, Edward

  Cameron, Robert

  Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

  Boland, John

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight

  Ginnell, L.

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Cawley, Frederick

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Glendinning, R. G.

  Lough, Thomas

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Glover, Thomas

  Lundon, W.

  Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Luttrell, Hugh Fownes

  Clough, W.

  Grant, Corrie

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Clynes, J. R.

  Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

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

  Greenwood, Hamar (York)

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  Mackarness, Frederic C.

  Cogan, Denis J.

  Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

  Maclean, Donald

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Hall, Frederick

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

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

  Halpin, J.

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Hammond, John

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.)

  Cooper, G. J.

  Harcourt, Right Hon. Lewis

  MacVeigh, Chas. (Donegal, E.)

  Corbett, CH (Sussex, E. Grinst'd

  Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Wrorc'r)

  M'Crae, George

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Harrington, Timothy

  M'Hugh Patrick A.

  Cory, Clifford John

  Hart-Davies, T.

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  M'Killop, W.

  Cowan, W. H.

  Harwood, George

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

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Crean, Eugene

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Maddison, Frederick

  Cremer, William Randal

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  Mallet, Charles E.

  Crombie, John William

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Manfield, Harry (Northants)

  Crosfield, A. H.

  Hazel, Dr. A. E.

  Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln)

  Cross, Alexander

  Hedges, A. Paget

  Marks, C. Croydon (Launceston)

  Crossley, William J.

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Marnham, F. J.

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

  Davies, David (Montgomery Co.

  Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen W.)

  Massie, J.

  Davies, M. (Vaughan-(Cardigan

  Henry, Charles S.

  Masterman, C. F. G.

  Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

  Herbert, Colonel Ivor (Mon., S.)

  Meagher, Michael

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)

  Meehan, Patrick A.

  Delany, William

  Higham, John Sharp

  Menzies, Walter

  Devlin, Charles Ramsay (Galway

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Micklem, Nathaniel

  Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)

  Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

  Molteno, Percy Alport

  Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

  Hodge, John

  Mond, A.

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Hogan, Michael

  Money, L. G. Chiozza

  Dillon, John

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Montagu, E. S.

  Dobson, Thomas W.

  Hooper, A. G.

  Montgomery. H. H.

  Dodd, W. H.

  Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N.

  Mooney, J. J.

  Dolan, Charles Joseph

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Horridge, Thomas Gardner

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Duckworth, James

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Morley, Rt. Hon. John

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

  Hudson, Walter

  Morrell, Philip

  Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley)

  Hutton, Alfred Eddison

  Morse, L. L.

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Hyde, Clarndon

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Murnaghan, George

  Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Murphy, John

  Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

  Johnson, John (Gateshead)

  Murray, James

  Edwards, Frank (Radnor)

  Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

  Myer, Horatio

  Elibank, Master of

  Jones, D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  Napier, T. B.

  Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Newnes, Sir George (Swansea)

  Erskine, David C.

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Nicholls, George

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  Joyce, Michael

  Nicholson, Chas. N. (Doncast'r)

  Essex, R. W.

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Nolan, Joseph

  Evans, Samuel T.

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Norman, Henry

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Kelley, George D.

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Faber, G. H. (Boston)

  Kennedy, Vincent Paul

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Kilbride, Denis

  Nuttall, Harry

  Ferens, T. R.

  Kincaid-Smith, Captain

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary, Mid

  Ffrench, Peter

  King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Field, William

  Laidlaw, Robert

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Lamb, Edmund G.(Leominster)

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)

  O'Doherty, Philip

  Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Lambert, George

  O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

  O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

  Fuller, John Michael F.

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid

  O'Dowd, John

  Fullerton, Hugh

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  O'Hare, Patrick

  Furness, Sir Christopher

  Lea, Hugh Cecil(St. Pancras, E.)

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N)

  Gardner, Col. Alan (Hereford, S.)

  Lehmann, R. C.

  O'Mara, James

  Gibb, James (Harrow)

  LeverA Levy (Essex, Harwich)

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Gilhooly, James

  Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral)

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Gill, A. H.

  Levy, Maurice

  Paul, Herbert

  1168

  1169

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Schwann, Chas. E.(Manchester)

  Wallace, Robert

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek)

  Scott, A. H. (Ashton under Lyne

  Walsh, Stephen

  Pearce, William (Limehouse)

  Seaverns, J. H.

  Walters, John Tudor

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

  Shackleton, David James

  Walton, Sir John L. (Leeds, S.)

  Perks, Robert William

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Philipps, J. Wynford (Pembroke)

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

  Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent)

  Philipps, Owen, C. (Pembroke)

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampt'n

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Pollard, Dr.

  Silcock, Thomas Ball

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Watt, H. Anderson

  Price, Robert John (Norfolk, E.)

  Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

  Priestley, Arthur (Grantham)

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

  Weir, James Galloway

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

  Snowdon, P.

  Whitbread, Howard

  Rainy, A. Holland

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  White, George (Norfolk)

  Raphael, Herbert H.

  Soares, Ernest J.

  White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

  Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

  Spirer, Albert

  White, Luke, (York, E. R.)

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro')

  Stanger, H. Y.

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.)

  Whitehead, Rowland

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Steadman, W. C.

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Rees, J. D.

  Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Rendall, Athelstan

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Renton, Major Leslie

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

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

  Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Richardson, A.

  Stuart, James (Sunderland)

  Williams, W. L. (Carmarthen)

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Sullivan, Donal

  Williamson, A. (Elgin & Nairn)

  Risdale, E. A.

  Summerbell, T.

  Wills, Arthur Walters

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Sutherland, J. E.

  Wilson, Hn. C. H. W. (Hull, W.)

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Taylor, Austin, (East Toxeth)

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

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs)

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Robertson, Rt. Hn.E. (Dundee)

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Tennant, E. P. (Salisbury)

  Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N)

  Robinson, S.

  Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

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

  Robson, Sir William Snowdon

  Thomas, Sir A (Glamorgan, E.)

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr

  Winfrey, R.

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Thomasson, Franklin

  Wodehouse, Lord (Norfolk, Mid)

  Rose, Charles Day

  Thorne, William

  Woodhouse, Sir J. T (Huddersfi'd

  Rowlands, J.

  Tomkinson, James

  Young, Samuel

  Runciman, Walter

  Toulmin, George

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Russell, T. W.

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Villiers, Ernest Amherst

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES— Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease.

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Wadsworth, J.

  Scarisbrick, T. T. L.

  Waldron, Laurence Ambrose

  Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde)

  Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)

  MR. CLAVELL SALTERsaid he understood that if he moved his Amendment in a temperate manner and did not place any undue emphasis upon any particular word, he might achieve the distinction of moving the first Amendment which the Government would accept. He had placed this Amendment on the Paper in consequence of the unsatisfactory and inconclusive result of the debate yesterday on the Motion moved by the hon. Baronet the Member for Oxford University. The difficulty which they had to face was that Clause 7 would come into operation before the Commission had concluded their labours. It was quite true, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for North Camberwell, that this Bill made some sort of provision for that contingency in Clause 9, but it should not be forgotten that
  1170
  these schools might be swept away before their future had been settled, Then again, Clause 10 only made a temporary provision, and did not meet any large number of cases. If during the transition period a new teacher was to be appointed it would have to be done by the local authority, and they could not ask any questions with regard to the religion to be taught. That I showed them that Clause 10 was not intended to meet this case. It would not be right for this clause to come into operation until the Commission had settled the future of these schools. He assumed that the Commission would be a judicial body and would carry out its functions in accordance with the principles of the High Courts of Justice. If so, it would have to give patient, impartial, and separate consideration

  1171
  to each case. The Commission would have to take into account local feelings and desires, and consider the terms of the trust deeds. The Bill appeared to contemplate a kind of triangular friendly arrangement between the managers of the schools, the Commission, and the local authorities. He thought it would be agreed that it would be a fair estimate to say that the Commission would not be able to deal with more than one case in a day. There were roughly 8,000 schools under trusts belonging to the Church of England, and if the Commission dealt with one each day and worked five days a week for ten months in the year it would take them forty years to complete their labours; and if they worked six days a week and took no holidays it would take about thirty-six years. He suggested to the Committee that there really was no practical sensible objection to this proposal, and he hoped the Government would be able to accept it.
  Amendment proposed—
  " In page 1, line 8, after the word 'eight' to inert the words 'or such other later date as His Majesty in Council may determine.'"— Mr. Clavell Salter.
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. BIRRELLsaid he understood from the speech they had just heard that it was quite a friendly Amendment to help the Government out of a difficulty. He had already expressed his opinion upon this proposal. He did not think that the Government had taken too sanguine a view. The hon. and learned Member for Basingstoke contemplated forty years as a not extravagant estimate of the length of time it would take this Commission to get through its labours. If the Government had taken any such view as that they would not have put forward this proposal in the form they had done. They believed business would be transacted much more rapidly. Lord-West bury and Lord Cairns, he remembered, presided over a court in which they disposed of cases in connection with insurance companies, where it was necessary to proceed by classification and
  1172
  determine them in classes, and they certainly got through a great deal of work in a comparatively short time. He did not think this clause was the proper place for the consideration of any Amendment of the, sort proposed, and when they came to Clause 8 the Government would have no objection to proper consideration being given to the possibilities which had been suggested.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid there was considerable inconvenience in having a clause at the beginning of a measure which was not in full harmony with a clause which it was proposed to amend later on. The right hon. Gentleman almost made his mouth water when he described the rapidity with which judges could get through their business. That would rather imply that the complaints they used to hear from the law courts were without foundation. The right hon. Gentleman did not deny that the calculations of the Government might be mistaken and that it might be necessary to make some alteration, but he suggested that the proper place to make the alteration was in Clause 8 or Clause 10. If they passed Clause 1 as it stood and confined their amending zeal to Clauses 8 and 10 they would leave a discrepancy between the earlier and the later parts of the Bill. Unless the President of the Board of Education thought that the actual substance of the Amendment was wrong and that the machinery of the Bill was right surely this and this only was the only place in which they could demand that elasticity which ought to govern the whole Bill. At least he thought the right hon. Gentleman ought to tell them why a later clause was the best place to introduce this change.
  SIR E. CARSONremarked that what the President of the Board of Education proposed was to extend the time in which the Commissioners might act on a later clause of the Bill. That might extend their time and they might go on making schemes, but before these schemes were made the schools would have become provided schools. That was the very thing that those on his side of the House objected to, that these schools should become provided schools

  1173
  before the terms were settled by the Commission. He thought that the right hon. Gentleman would not deny that, no matter what extension of time was given to the Commissioners in the later clauses of the Bill, if Clause 1 were passed in its present state, on a particular date mentioned in the clause all schools not then dealt with would cease to be recognised as public elementary schools. That meant that the Board of Education would wash their hands of a school, though at some future date the Commissioners by a further extension of time might settle the terms under which it might come back to something like its original position after the mutilation of the religious teaching. He could not understand why the right hon. Gentleman persisted in refusing this class of Amendment. They could forgive him for refusing last night to have any confidence in the Education Department, but why did he object to this power of the King in Council? What did it mean? It only meant that the Government—his own Government in Council—should advise His Majesty if they thought proper—the united wisdom of the greatest Cabinet with the greatest majority that ever existed. What really was at the root of the matter? There must be something more than mere objection to the Amendment that had been put forward, for if the whole thing was left to the discretion of the Government, what was the reason that this power should not be given? The truth of the matter was that the Government wanted to use compulsion towards the Commission and towards the voluntary schools. They did not want to leave time; they wanted to hurry on the matter in such a way that they might say, "if you do not come to terms at once and quickly—not one, or two, or ten cases a day, but a hundred cases a day—if you do not come to terms then you are left out altogether, and we will build other schools at the public expense." What was the next thing? The President of the Board of Education had asked the Committee to consider how Lord Cairns and others had done special work expeditiously by classification. Hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House objected to trusts for denominational purposes
  1174
  being classified and put on general terms. Each school had a perfect right to have its own case investigated and its own value determined. If the Government were really in earnest in trying to make progress with this Bill and to come to a fair agreement then this was exactly the kind of Amendment they could not object to. The Amendment did not take anything from them; it left the whole power with them; and it was for the ulterior reasons which he had ventured to suggest that he believed the Government refused to accept the Amendment.
  THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir W. ROBSON, South Shields)remarked that the right hon. Gentleman had said truly that here was a case in which the Opposition were pressing on the Government an addition to their powers, and he had expressed astonishment that the Government did not jump at the opportunity of increasing their control. It was perfectly obvious that if the Government thought the power was necessary they would not refuse it. But let them consider whether it was necessary or not. The difficulty suggested was that the Commission might be blocked by the great number of cases—cases which the right hon. Gentleman had just told them might be incapable even of classification. He thought the right hon. Gentleman had scarcely considered the business aspect of the Commissioners' work. Of course the cases that would come before the Commission would be amply capable of classification. As a rule these trusts fell into several well-defined forms, and a few decisions would facilitate the settlement of hundreds if not thousands of cases. Then there would be a number of details left over which would have to be considered apart from the general character of the trusts. But these very details would fall under well-defined principles. The notion that this Commission would have to sit for forty or thirty-six years was a fantastic ide Even if it were supposed that the Commission might find itself blocked, what was the best part of the Bill to deal with the difficulty? Surely that part which related to the powers, constitution, and duties of the Commission. They could then adopt some proper form of words

  1175
  dealing with the case of schools, the schemes of which were not settled before the period appointed by Clause 1. There was nothing inconsistent or illogical in making in Clause 8 or Clause 10 some exception or provision with regard to Clause 1. The Opposition appeared to think that there must be some rigid iron logic which after having once passed Clause 1 made it impossible to make provisions with regard to this clause. In some senses the whole of the succeeding Bill might be regarded as a provision or modification of Clause 1. There was nothing at all impracticable or impossible in saying that when they came to deal with the work of the Commission they might make such provision as would meet difficulties which arose.
  MR, WYNDHAMasked whether the Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman said might be moved on Clause 8 or Clause 10 affected the operation of the date mentioned in Clause 1. That was the point. In Clause 1 the maximum penalty was mentioned, but if through no fault of the owners of the schools no arrangement was come to with the local authority before January 1st 1908, what was to be done if that penalty was not to be inflicted.
  LORD MORPETHappealed to the right hon. Gentleman on behalf of the local authorities who would have to work the Act. The right hon. Gentleman had said that although he hoped they would have time to do the work he did not himself expect it. He thought that was the meaning of the words used by the right hon. Gentleman the other night. The President of the Board of Education had been long enough in office to know that whatever might be the merits of local authorities quickness was not one of them. The local authorities had to consult committees which could not meet from day to day as this House did, and they had to meet the owners of voluntary schools, who were, generally speaking, boards of trustees, and even if they had the best will in the world to hand over the schools there must be delay and difficulty. When they were not anxious to deliver over the schools they, instead
  1176
  of making haste, might be able to cause delay. They had heard a great deal about the length of time the Commission would take to deal with the cases, and whether they could get through their work expeditiously or not. It seemed to him that the President of the Board of Education ought to be anxious that the bulk of the agreements should be come to directly with the local authorities and without the aid of the Commission, and yet the right hon. Gentleman proposed that the local authorities should only have three months in the present year and the whole of next year in which to complete these agreements. The time was totally inadequate. The right hon. Gentleman must know how long it took under the present law to turn a voluntary school into a provided school. Under the Act of 1902 fresh arrangements had to be made with regard to endowments. The right hon. Gentleman's office was not expeditious, and under the Act of 1902 there were countless schemes proposed by the local authorities which had not been carried out. If it took so long to alter endowments which were sometimes small and unimportant, how much longer it would take to alter the whole foundation on which these schools had been based. The right hon. Gentleman had given the local authorities a task which he knew they could not accomplish in the time allotted to them, and if he persisted in refusing to accept the Amendment it must be because he wished to force these agreements out of the hands of the local authorities into the hands of the Commissioners. The right hon. Gentleman had ended most of his speeches by threatening that if the voluntary schools did not make agreements the local authorities would provide schools. If the right hon. Gentleman knew more of the bodies who administered education he would know-that they were not quite so regardless of expense as to build a second school when there was already a school in the parish. If the Government were willing to give £1,000,000 of the ratepayers' money to build schools, he thought those who administered education had enough regard for economy to say that it would be absurd and extravagant to build another school

  1177
  where there was one already. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would afford time not to the Commission but to the local authorities to enable them to come to amicable arrangements with the owners of voluntary schools in as many cases as possible.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsubmitted to the. Solicitor-General that a great many laymen like himself had asked a plain question to which they
  had not yet received an answer. The question was how far the Government were going to amend Clause 8 and give it a retrospective effect on Clause 1. Would the Amendment to be made in Clause 8 have practically the effect of repealing Clause 1?
  Question put.
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 190; Noes, 361. (Division List No. 90.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Lowe, Sir Francis William

  Acland-Hood, Rt. Hn. Sir Alex. F.

  Du Cros, Harvey

  Lundon, W.

  Alison, Sir William Reynell

  Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Anstruther-Gray, Major

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.

  Arnold-Forster, Rt Hn Hugh O.

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  MacVeigh, Chas, (Donegal, E.)

  Ashley, W. W.

  Farrell, James Patrick

  M'Calmont, Colonel James

  Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

  Fell, Arthur

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Balcares, Lord

  Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey

  M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinb'gh W.

  Baldwin, Alfred

  Ffrench, Peter

  M'Killop, W.

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J (City Lond.

  Field, William

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Marks, H. H. (Kent)

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  Baring, Hon. Guy (Winchester)

  Fletcher, J. S.

  Meagher, Michael

  Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Meehan, Patrick A.

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Forster, Henry William

  Meysey-Thompson, E. C.

  Beach, Hn. Michael HughHicks

  Gardner, Ernest (Berks, East)

  Middlemore, John Throgmorton

  Beckett, Hon. Gervase

  Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

  Mooney, J. J.

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

  Gilhooly, James

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Blake, Edward

  Ginnell, L.

  Muntz, Sir Philip A.

  Boland, John

  Gordon, J. (Londonderry, South

  Murnaghan, George

  Bowles, G. Stewart

  Haddock, George R.

  Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield)

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Halpin, J.

  Nield, Herbert

  Bull, Sir William James

  Hambro, Charles Eric

  Nolan, Joseph

  Burdett-Coutts, W.

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

  Burke, E. Haviland

  Hammond, John

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Butcher, Samuel Henry

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'd

  O'Brien, William (Cork)

  Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.

  Harrington, Timothy

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Harrison-Broadley, Col. H. B.

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Hayden, John Patrick

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Hazleton, Richard

  O'Doherty, Philip

  Cavendish, Rt. Hn. Victor C. W.

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

  Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey.

  Heaton, John Henniker

  O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

  Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

  Hervey, F. W. F. (BuryS. Edmds

  O'Dowd, John

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm.

  Hill, Sir Clement (Shrewsbury)

  O'Hare, Patrick

  Clarke, Sir Edw. (City London)

  Hill, Henry Staveley (Staff'sh'e.

  O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

  Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham)

  Hogan, Michael

  O'Kelly, James(Roscommon, N

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

  Houston, Robert Patterson

  O'Malley, William

  Cogan, Denis J.

  Hunt, Rowland

  O'Mara, James

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Joyce, Michael

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Kennaway, Rt Hn. Sir John H.

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Kennedy, Vincent Paul

  Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)

  Courthope, G. Loyd

  Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hn. Col. W

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Craig, Capt. James (Down, E.)

  Kilbride, Denis

  Pease, Herbert Pike(Darlingt'n

  Craik, Sir Henry

  King, Sir Henry Seymour(Hull)

  Percy, Earl

  Crean, Eugene

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  Lane-Fox, G. R.

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Delany, William

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)

  Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

  Devlin, Chas. Ramsay (Galway

  Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

  Ratcliff, Major R. F.

  Dillon, John

  Lee, A. H. (Hants., Fareham)

  Rawlinson, Frederick Peel

  Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford

  Dolan, Charles Joseph

  Liddell, Henry

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham)

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Doughty, Sir George

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

  Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

  Thornton, Percy M.

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

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Valentia, Viscount

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

  Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton)

  Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. Howard

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

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

  Waldron, Laurence Ambrose

  Young, Samuel

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

  Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)

  Younger, George

  Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk

  Walrond, Hon. Lionel

  Starkey, John R.

  Warde, Col C. E. (Kent, Mid)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Salter and Mr. Evelyn Ceci

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Talbot, Rt, Hn. J. G. (Oxf dUniv.

  Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

  Thomson, W. Mitchel-(Lanark)

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Cairns, Thomas

  Fullerton, Hugh

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Cameron, Robert

  Furness, Sir Christopher

  Adkins, W. Ryland

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Gardner, Col. Alan (Hereford, S.

  Agnew, George William

  Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight

  Gibb, James (Harrow)

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Cawley, Frederick

  Gill, A. H.

  Alden, Percy

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert Jn.

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Cheetham, John Fredericck

  Glendinning, R. G.

  Armitage, R.

  Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Glover, Thomas

  Armstrong, W. C. Heaton

  Clarke, C. Goddard (Peckham)

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Clough, W.

  Grant, Corrie

  Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry

  Clynes, J. R.

  Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

  Astbury, John Meir

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

  Greenwood, Hamar (York)

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

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

  Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

  Baker, Joseph A.(Finsbury, E.)

  Cooper, G. J.

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

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

  Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Hall, Frederick

  Barker, John

  Cory, Clifford John

  Harcourt, Right Hon. Lewis

  Barlow, J. Emmott (Somerset)

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r)

  Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

  Cowan, W. H.

  Hart-Davies, T.

  Barnard, E. B.

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  Barnes, G. N.

  Cremer, William Randal

  Harwood, George

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Crombie John William

  Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

  Beale, W. P.

  Crosfield, A. H.

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Beauchamp, E.

  Cross, Alexander

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  Beaumont, Hubert (Eastbourne

  Crossley, William J.

  Hazel, Dr. A. E.

  Beaumont, W. C. B. (Hexham)

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Hedges, A. Paget

  Bell, Richard

  Davies, David (MontgomeryCo.

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Bellairs, Carlyon

  Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Belloc, Hilaire Joseph Peter R.

  Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

  Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.)

  Benn, J. Williams (Devonport)

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Henry, Charles S.

  Benn, W. (T'w'r Hamlets, S. Geo.

  Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.

  Herbert, Colonel Ivor (Mon. S.)

  Berridge, T. H. D.

  Dickinson, H. W. (S. Pancras, N.)

  Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)

  Bertram, Julius

  Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

  Higham, John Sharp

  Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Bilson, Alfred

  Dobson, Thomas W.

  Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

  Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

  Dodd, W. H.

  Hodge, John

  Black, Alexander Win. (Banff)

  Duckworth, James

  Holden, E. Hopkinson

  Black, Arthur W. (Bedfordshire)

  Duncan, C. (Batrow-in-Furness

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Bolton, T. D. (Derbyshire, N. E.)

  Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley)

  Hooper, A. G.

  Boulton, A. C. F. (Ramsey)

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Hove, W. Bateman (Somerset, N.

  Brace, William

  Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Brigg, John

  Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

  Horridge, Thomas Gardner

  Bright, J. A.

  Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Brocklehurst. W. D.

  Edwards, Frank (Radnor)

  Hudson, Walter

  Brodie, H. C.

  Elibank, Master of

  Hutton, Alfred Eddison

  Brooke, Stopford

  Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward

  Hyde, Clarendon

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

  Erskine, David C.

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Brunner, Sir J. T. (Cheshire)

  Essex, R. W.

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  Bryce, Rt. Hn. James (Aberdeen

  Evans, Samuel T.

  Jackson, R. S.

  Bryce, J. A. (Inverness Burghs)

  Eve, Harry Trelawney

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Johnson, John (Gateshead)

  Buckmaster, Stanley O.

  Faber, G. H. (Boston)

  Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Fenwick, Charles

  Jones, D Brynmor (Swansea)

  Burnyeat, J. D. W.

  Ferens, T. R.

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  Buxton, Rt. Hn. Syndey Chas.

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Kearley,. Hudson, E.

  Byles, William Pollard

  Fuller, John Michael F.

  Kekewich Sir George.

  1180

  1181

  Kelley, George D.

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs. Leek)

  Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

  Kincaid-Smith, Captain

  Pearce, William (Limehouse)

  Stuart, James (Sunderland)

  King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

  Pearson, Sir W. D. (Colchester)

  Sullivan, Donal

  Laidlaw, Robert

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

  Summerbell, T.

  Lamb, Edmund, G. (Leominster

  Perks, Robert William

  Sutherland, J. E.

  Lamb, Ernest, H. (Rochester

  Philipps, J. Wynford (Pembroke

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Lambert, George

  Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke)

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid

  Pollard, Dr.

  Tennant, E. P. (Salisbury)

  Layland-Baratt, Francis

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

  Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

  Lea, Hugh Cecil (S. Pancras, E.)

  Price, Robert Jn. (Norfolk, E.)

  Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

  Lehmann, R. C.

  Priestley, Arthur (Grantham)

  Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich

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

  Thomas, D. Alfred (Merthyr)

  Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral)

  Rainy, A. Holland

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

  Levy, Maurice

  Raphael, Herbert H.

  Thorne, William

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

  Tillett, Louis John

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro'

  Tomkinson, James

  Lough, Thomas

  Rees, J. D.

  Torrance, A. M.

  Lupton, Arnold

  Rendall, Athelstan

  Toulmin, George

  Luttrell, Hugh Fownes

  Renton, Major Leslie

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Lyell, Charles Henry

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

  Verney, F. W.

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Richardson, A.

  Villiers, Ernest Amherst

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Vivian, Henry

  Mackarness, Frederic C.

  Ridsdale, E. A.

  Wadsworth, J.

  Maclean, Donald

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Wallace, Robert

  M'Crae, George

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Walsh, Stephen

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Robertson, Rt. Hn. E. (Dundee

  Walters, John Tudor

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

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Walton, Sir John L. (Leeds, S.}

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Robinson, S.

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Maddison, Frederick

  Robson, Sir William Snowdon

  Ward, W Dudley Southamp'n

  Mallet, Charles E.

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Wardle, George J.

  Manfield, Harry (Northants)

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

  Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln

  Rose, Charles Day

  Wason, J. Cathcart (Orkney)

  Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)

  Rowlands, J.

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Marnham, F. J.

  Runciman, Walter

  Watt, H. Anderson

  Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

  Russell, T. W.

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

  Massie, J.

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Whitbread, Howard

  Masterman, C. F. G.

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  White, George (Norfolk)

  Menzies, Walter

  Scarisbrick, T. T. L.

  White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)

  Micklem, Nathaniel

  Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde)

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Molteno, Percy Alport

  Schwann, Chas, E.(Manchester)

  Whitehead, Rowland

  Mond, A.

  Scott, A. H. (Ashton under-Lyne

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax

  Money, L. G. Chiozza

  Seaverns, J. H.

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Montagu, E. S.

  Seddon, J.

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Montgomery, H. H.

  Seely, Major J. B.

  Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

  Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

  Shackleton, David James

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Williams, W. L. (Carmarthen)

  Morley, Rt. Hon. John

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

  Williamson, A. (Elgin & Nairn)

  Morrell, Philip

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

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

  Morse, L. L.

  Silcock, Thomas Ball

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

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Simon, John Allsebrook

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Murray, James

  Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

  Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

  Myer, Horatio

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

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

  Napier, T. B.

  Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

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

  Nicholls, George

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Nicholson, Chas. H. (Doncaster

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Winfrey, R.

  Norman, Henry

  Spicer, Albert

  Wodehouse, Lord (Norfolk, Mid

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Stanger, H. Y.

  Woodhouse, Sir J.T. (Huddrsfld

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.

  Yoxall James Henry

  Nuttall, Harry

  Steadman, W C.

  O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

  Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

  Paul, Herbert

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  LORD BALCARRESrose to move—
  " In line 8, after the word 'school' to insert the words 'other than any marine school or any school which is part of or held in the premises of any institution in which children are boarded.'"
  THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. CALDWELL, Lanarkshire, Mid.)said the Amendment was out of order, because if the hon. Member would look at Clause 38 he would find that marine schools, etc., were expressly dealt with.
  LORD BALCARRESsubmitted that the Amendment was in order. It was true that Clause 38 would reserve to the Board of Education the power to give a Parliamentary grant to marine schools, but he wished to except them from the operation of Clause 1. When they came to Clause 38 he would be unable to except them and these schools would ipso facto become provided schools.
  THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMANsaid that the question would properly arise under Clause 38, which dealt with the exception of these very schools.
  LORD BALCARRESasked for a further ruling as to whether an Amendment to Clause 38 excluding such schools would be in order.
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMANsaid that any rulings with regard to Clause 38 would have to be considered by whoever was in the Chair when that clause was reached.
  SIR WILLIAM ANSONthought it right to ask the Deputy Chairman whether this question could be raised hereafter, and whether it should not now be dealt with.
  THE DEPUTY CHAIRMANsaid he could express no opinion as regards the future. All he could do was to rule as regards the present, and, in his opinion, the proposed Amendment was not in order in this place, for the reason which he had stated.
  MR. RAWLINSONrose to move an Amendment the effect of which was, he said, that instead of fixing a date at which the Act should come into force, they should insert words to say that the school should continue to be a public elementary school until a date when either an arrangement had been come to with the trustees or the Commission had sat and completed the scheme. Such an Amendment would meet the objection which had been entertained on both sides of the Committee as to the fixed date, and it would meet the justice of the case.
  MR. SAMUEL EVANSrose to a point of order. This Amendment had not been put upon
  1184
  the Paper and it was difficult to follow, but he gathered that it sought to make certain exceptions for certain schools. He submitted that the proper place to do that was at the end of this clause. They had in the clause the word "unless," and as he understood it, if the words proposed were inserted, the section would not read. It would be absolutely bad drafting and would make the clause rubbish.
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked as a point of order whether a question of good or bad drafting was a question of order.
  MR. SAMUEL EVANSsubmitted that that was not a point of order.
  THE CHAIRMAN(who had resumed his place) said he had looked very carefully at this Amendment when it was handed in, and it struck him as being an Amendment which raised the question of delay in another form from that recently decided. Therefore he concluded that it was in order and that the hon. Member should be allowed to move it. He would, however, look at the other matter of whether it read or not.
  MR. LOUGHsubmitted that the point of order was a substantial one. If the Amendment was inserted, the clause would not read.
  MR. RAWLINSONsubmitted that his Amendment was in order and that with it the clause would read perfectly.
  THE CHAIRMANthought the objection raised by the hon. and learned Member was correct. If these words were put in he thought the words at the end of the clause would not read properly.
  SIR HENRY CRAIK*SIR HENRY CRAIK (Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities) moved to insert after "not" in line 8 of the clause the words "except with the sanction of the Board of Education." His object, he explained, was to raise the very serious and important question whether they were to confine schools entirely to one uniform cast-iron system or to continue on educational grounds that variety which had hitherto been found so beneficial. The Act of 1870 laid down the principle that the Department should not give any preference or advantage to any school on the ground that it was or was

  1185
  not provided by a school board. The Amendment was proposed with the intention of allowing schools to relieve themselves of the control of the local authority by ceasing to participate in the rates. He thought that such an arrangement would be fair and legitimate and it certainly was not an alarming one. It was quite possible that there might be schools where the managers might prefer to have freedom from interference by the local elected body, in consideration of giving up the assistance they received from the rates. Was it anything but fair that such an arrangement should be allowed to prevail in cases where the option was chosen by the local managers wild confirmed by the Board of Education? In that case they had the security of inspection by a Board responsible to the House of Commons, and who found that the school was thoroughly efficient and was producing an article which the State wanted and for which it had paid hitherto. The opportunity of earning; grants without receiving rate aid and at the same time preserving independence had hitherto been open to these schools and it was still open to schools in Scotland and Ireland. The State took a very different attitude from the local authority towards a school. The grant by the State was a fixed one, and was given for work actually done, but the local authority made good any deficiency there might be in the revenues of the school. What they were desirous of preserving was the complete independence of the managers of the control of the local body; and if the Board of Education considered that a school might be sanctioned, that its efficiency was such and its work was such that it was really worth what the State offered in return, he thought it should be allowed to continue as heretofore to earn the grant. The local authority assumed a very different position. It entered into the management of a school, and had to supply all deficiencies. The Parliamentary grant was strictly limited in amount, and did not affect to supply all deficiencies. It was only paid, as it was earned, in return for work actually done. The local authority might assume some return for its payments, and with some justice, because it paid not only a limited amount for work done, but it paid any deficiency
  1186
  there might be in the revenue of the school. It might be said that, even with the sanction of the Board of Education, to continue to recognise those schools as State-aided schools was a contravention of one of those mandates so frequently referred to—the mandate in favour of public control. But he did not recognise the mandate except in the strictly limited sense. Public control was perfectly fair, and no doubt was approved by the constituencies, but at ground for public control was given in the public grants. In return for the Parliamentary grant they had the only control which Parliament ever had, namely, a right to have inspection as to efficiency. What he asked for by his Amendment was that with the sanction of the Board of Education, where the efficiency of the school had been thoroughly ascertained, where the managers were prepared to carry on their school as an independent institution they should be allowed to do so. He asked for this on the further ground, and all educational experience would prove it, that it would be a real educational benefit. It would be an injury to the education of this country, and contrary to the tendency of our national genius, if we forced upon the country a single type of school under the public authority. No one who had dealt with these schools and had seen how well they met the requirements of the particular districts in which they were, would be ready to see them entirely replaced by one single mould of school. He was not sure that it would not be well for the country to have a type of school in which economy was to a certain extent studied. Over and over again they had had to remonstrate with local bodies who spent freely, and as they thought extravagantly, in the building of schools. It would not be a bad thing that they should have a type of school which should show that thorough efficiency could be attained with strict economy. Economy was found combined with efficiency in many of the voluntary schools of Scotland. There were many Roman Catholic schools in Scotland which, although they could not indulge in the lavish architectural structures which sometimes evoked their protests, did the utmost good. He

  1187
  wished to plead for the amount of freedom which had worked well in a country where they were not troubled with the religious difficulty, which did not seek to cheek free elasticity, and which did not force the schools to adopt a cast-iron form of school.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 1, line 8, after the word 'not' to insert 'except with the sanction of the Board of Education.' "—(Sir Henry Craik.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be inserted."
  DR. MACNAMARAsaid that this was the most vicious and reactionary proposition that they were likely to hear during the course of these debates. He was amazed that such a proposition should come from an hon. Member so long engaged in the education of the best educated country in the world. It was no good to quote the voluntary schools of Scotland, because the system as understood in England did not exist in Scotland. In this case they were dealing with a system under which more than half the schools of the country were voluntary schools, and this was a proposal to allow them to contract themselves out and to go back to the days prior to the Act of 1902. If the hon. Gentleman knew anything about the inside of the voluntary schools of this country, whatever they might be north of the Tweed, he would not have made this proposal. He had never denied that whatever the faults of the Act of 1902, it accomplished a great reform when it put the voluntary schools upon the same level as the other public elementary schools of the country. Did the hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment know the conditions of the voluntary schools in this country before they were to some extent put under public control? Did he know that in the fabric of the schools, in the size of the classes, in the ill-qualified condition of the teachers and their pay, most of these school were practically starved? They knew voluntary schools that were in such a condition that people had said; they would not keep their horses and dogs in them. The Act of 1902 did this good. It dragged them out of the
  1188
  obscurity of private management and brought them into the arena of public concern. It made their teachers in a measure public servants and their children the care of the public authority. Now the Committee was asked to go-back to the vicious principle of Parliamentary grants and voluntary subscriptions which had been in force before 1902. It was retrograde and pusillanimous to the last degree. There were grave difficulties in trying to render popular control compatible with denominational teaching; but they had to face those difficulties, and it would be the greatest weakness on their part to dodge those difficulties and say they would throw off their responsibility and let these schools go back to the condition of things under which they starved prior to 1902. It would put these schools back entirely into the hands of the clergy and destroy the small measure of public control given by the Leader of the Opposition in the Bill of 1902 and the full control provided for by this Bill. Did the hon. Gentleman seriously think they could keep those schools up to their present level of efficiency? It was part of the theory that there should be the same inspection. That was part of the theory before the Act of 1902; that the same inspectors examined the Board schools and the voluntary schools and that they would see that the value of the income from voluntary subscriptions was made up in some way and that the schools were brought up to the same level as the Board schools. But in the old days the Board of Education inspectors had a double standard of efficiency, and the presumption was that a double standard would be set up again by the Board of Education. It was a reactionary proposal which he hoped the Committee would deal with now once and for all in the most unmistakable manner by saying that they could not go back, but must go forward in the direction of a public and national system of education. They must not go back to the starved and parsimonious system formerly carried on under the name of piety. The voluntary system, to a large extent simply enabled parsimony to masquerade under the guise of piety.

  1189
  In the great bulk of the cases where people said they preferred denominational teaching they meant they preferred to dodge the School Board Rate. He appealed to the Committee to meet the difficulties as best they could and not to go back to the bad old days before the Act of 1902, when half the children of the country were educationally starved.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR,on a point of order, said he was not quite sure what Amendment the Committee were discussing. The actual words moved from the Chair were "except with the sanction of the Board of Education." The effect of accepting those words would be to allow the Board of Education to permit certain schools to go on as they were now going on under the Act of 1902, with popular control in all matters secular; but the speech of the hon. Member contained another proposition. The Committee ought to know which proposition it was discussing. Both were very important and very arguable.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid the hon. Member had one Amendment down upon the Paper, and he had handed in another which differed from that on the Paper, which he proposed to move later, and which he (the Chairman) presumed, from the hon. Member's speech, was consequential to the one just moved. The Amendment handed in was as follows—
  "Clause 1, page 1, line 9, after the word 'is' to insert 'either supported by aid from the rates or is.'"
  Ordinarily both Amendments in such a case were arguable.
  MR. DILLONsaid it was exceedingly desirable that the Committee should know what they were discussing. He entirely agreed with the latter proposition, but he was under the impression that they were discussing the first Amendment of the hon. Member, the effect of which would be to give to the Board of Education the power to allow any voluntary school to stand outside the provisions of this Bill.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid he could only take the matter put before him. The hon. Member for the Aberdeen University moved this Amendment, and then made a speech in which he dealt with the Amendment which had been read to the Committee and which he proposed to move later. Therefore he presumed that the Amendment moved by the hon. Member could be debated in its stricter sense, and also the other question raised by the later Amendment.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURasked what was; the Question upon which they were going to divide. Would those Members of the Committee in favour of exempting certain schools so that they could remain under the Act he allowed to express that opinion in the Division Lobby.
  MR. DILLONsaid that this matter must be settled before they proceeded any further. Were they now discussing an Amendment which gave the Board of Education authority to allow any school to remain under the Act of 1902, or were they bound to some subsequent Amendment.
  MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE: Have, you not put from the Chair the words— "Except with the sanction of the Board of Education?"
  THE CHAIRMAN: I have put an Amendment about which the Committee can judge for themselves. The hon. Member who moved that Amendment coupled with it another Amendment which introduces the option of going back to the Act of 1902. Hon. Members may go into whichever Lobby they prefer.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Are we taking a Division upon the additional Amendment as well.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (Sir HENRY FOWLER,. Wolverhampton): The Question put from the Chair was whether the Board of Education would or would not have a veto.
  SIR FRANCIS LOWEsaid that many hon. Members would be inclined to vote for the first Amendment but not for the second, and it was most desirable that they should be separated.
  THE CHAIRMAN: With the consent of the Committee perhaps I can relieve them from this difficulty. I think we had better take the discussion on the narrower ground of the Amendment moved, as that appears to be what the Committee desires.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURasked whether, if the Committee decided not to introduce the words put from the Chair, that would carry an adverse decision in regard to an Amendment which was not before the Committee, and would the hon. Member for Glasgow and Aberdeen University be able to raise the other question dealt with in his Amendment.
  THE CHAIRMAN: I have not paid very careful attention to this later Amendment, but if the subsequent Amendment makes the Clause read properly I shall allow a discussion upon it.
  MR. BIRRELL: Then we had better first get rid of the Amendment "except with the sanction of the Board of Education." The Government must oppose this proposal.
  MR. LANE-FOXsaid he should support this Amendment because it afforded a safeguard that denominational schools would receive fair treatment. The West Riding County Council had proved hard task-masters to denominational schools, and he had no hesitation in saying that they in the West Riding would be most grateful if the Committee would provide some alternative by which they would not be put entirely under the power of that council. There had already been serious conflict between the school trustees and the Education Authority, and these difficulties would be certain to recur. He hoped the Committee would pause before leaving these denominational schools to be swallowed up in the manner in which the West Riding County Council lad attempted to swallow them up
  1192
  before. There were large bodies in the county who had very serious grievances against the county council, and if the Bill passed in the present form they would be left without appeal. He asked the Committee by passing this Amendment to give them a chance of being heard.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid it was curious that the Minister for Education should so soon have forgotten his speech to the Jewish deputation. Of the present Amendment he had disposed in one sentence by saying he could not accept it. In his speech to the Jewish deputation he denounced these pig-headed authorities.
  MR. BIRRELL: I said an authority might be pig-headed.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Then why did he contemplate with horror the power of checking it and making it reasonable? Was the position of the Government this, that having created The extraordinary new monster which was to provide religion and education all over the I country, yet if the monster behaved pig-headedly and unreasonably to the scattered units which still had some regard for religion and some consideration for their children, they refused an appeal such as the Japanese or Chinese had in South Australia or Africa if ill-treated by the Colonial Authority? This was the Amendment to which the Catholics, he thought, looked with the most confidence. It might be thought that the authorities throughout the length and breadth of the country would act reasonably. He was confident that by nine-tenths of these authorities fair play would be extended, but was nothing to be done for the submerged tenth, the pigheaded ones? Leaving the Romans, as they were called, out of consideration, let them take the case of the Jews. Jews had been ill-treated in this country; on the Continent a fashionable system of Jewish persecution prevailed, and there had been some attempt at providing it in this country. Let them suppose that a Jewish school was unfairly treated. Was there to be no appeal to the central authority? That was an absolute abrogation of the

  1193
  power of the central authority. At present there was an appeal to the central authority in every other matter, and was there to be no appeal under the Bill, and that too at a time when the local authority was to be given a million sterling out of public moneys? Let them take the case of the West Riding of Yorkshire, would the right hon. Gentleman stand up and defend what had been done in Yorkshire? He could not do it. And let it be remembered there might be areas in which there would be Church bodies who would act as unreasonably from an Anglican point of view as the West Riding authority had acted from a secularist or Nonconformist point of view. Were the Government so satisfied with these bodies, which were elected on gusts of popular opinion on questions unconnected with religion, that from their sovereign view there was to be no appeal? Was there to be no appeal to gentlemen who would see fair play? Why did the right hon. Gentleman say that he would contemplate this with horror? He was new to office, but did he suppose that he was speaking for all time? This Bill was legislating for all time. Some day or other in the next century they might expect to see a Conservative Administration in office. The right hon. Gentleman was not legislating for the Liberal Party, but for England; he was legislating for the Catholics and the Jews as well as for Nonconformists. Therefore he respectfully appealed to the Government not to allow this occasion to pass by without showing some consideration for the aggrieved feelings existing on that side of the House. Was it supposed that they were alarmists without reason? Were all their fears invented? Was this all a political dodge? Were they more concerned in politics than in these other matters? Upon a thousand questions he voted with the Government, but upon this he should vote with the Opposition. This was the opportunity for the Minister of Education to do something to allay their fears. He therefore said that this was the time for the right hon. Gentleman to come forward, and with regard to the well-founded fears which they entertained—fears created by the action of these Yorkshire authorities—to in-
  1194
  troduce into the Bill a provision which would enable them to accept it.
  SIR HENRY FOWLERwhile sympathising with a great deal the hon. and learned Member had just said, pointed out that the question before the Committee was whether the Board of Education was to have a veto upon the application of the Act in every locality in England. The Government were legislating for the whole of England, and trying, whether skilfully or unskilfully, to put in the forefront of the Bill one principle, and one principle only—namely, that the dual system of schools in this country should cease, and that all public elementary schools—no matter with what denomination they might be connected, or what their history—so far as they received public moneys, should be subject to the provisions of this Act. There were already in the Bill provisions for protecting some of the interests that the hon. Gentleman referred to, and it was time the Committee got to the consideration of those clauses. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham had said there were 16,000 or 17,000 schools to be dealt with. Talk about four years being occupied in settling the questions which would arise ! If this Amendment were accepted it would take ten years. It was an absolutely impracticable Amendment. It could not be carried out.
  MR. EVELYN CECILremarked that the discussion might have been avoided if the Government had consented to postpone the first clause. In certain circumstances it was not impossible that many members of the Opposition might be in favour of one system of public control; but if they could not be sure that denominational schools would be safeguarded and protected in an adequate manner, he did not see how they could do otherwise than vote for the Amendment. He would rather have done as the Chancellor of the Duchy suggested, namely, have settled this question on Clauses 3 and 4 before having this discussion at all. It might then have been unnecessary to move the Amendment. But for that reason he thought it most desirable that the discussion should be conducted by the Government with more forethought

  1195
  and that a full opportunity should be given of postponing or not postponing clauses which, after all, were much more material when the discussion on other clauses had taken place.
  MR. CARLILEsaid the Chancellor of the Ducky of Lancaster had informed the Committee quite correctly that this Amendment did raise the question of the dual system. He and some hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House would appeal to the President of the Board of Education once more to admit this principle or rather to retain it as they had it at present. The hon. Member for North Camberwell had spoken in very disparaging terms of the voluntary schools; he had been an assistant master in a very large and palatial board school. It was a great mistake to suppose that the best education was always given in the largest schools. There was no commoner fallacy in this country than that the best education must be given in the £15 per place board schools and county council schools of the country. The best education was given in those schools where the personality of the teacher could be impressed on the children.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member does not seem to be applying himself to the Amendment. The question of the kind of schools would come much better on the next Amendment.
  MR. CARLILEsaid he thought it was extremely vicious that they should adopt a system in this country which would saddle them with one particular kind of school. Under the system proposed by the Amendment they would be able to continue to have efficient instruction in the small schools as well as the large schools. They wanted to have the right of appeal to the right hon. Gentleman so long as he was at the Board of Education to protect them in country places from unreasonable educational authorities. Unless this Amendment was inserted the owners of voluntary schools would have no power to protect themselves from such authorities.
  MR. SOARES: I rise to ask whether the hon.
  1196
  Member has not brought himself within Rule 19, which applies to an hon. Gentleman who persists in irrelevancy.
  THE CHAIRMAN: That is a matter which should essentially be left to the Chairman. It is usual for the Chairman to warn an hon. Member before proceeding to put that rule in operation.
  MR. CARLILEsaid that under this Act the voluntary schools would pass into the hands of the local education authority. In that way the power of giving religious instruction according to their faith would be entirely destroyed unless they had an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to protect them from that outrage.
  EARL PERCYsaid the position of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton was that the Government could not accept the Amendment because it would strike at the root principle of the Bill, which was the principle of public control. It had been the contention of his hon. friends throughout that the principle of public control, to which they did not object in the least, was fully recognised in the Bill of 1902.
  SIR HENRY FOWLER: That was not my contention. My point was that the only question before the Committee at this moment is whether there should or should not be an appeal to the Board of Education to settle whether A, B, or C in a certain place should or should not be subject to the definition in the clause.
  EARL PERCYsaid he could not understand any reason why there should not be an appeal. The position of the Opposition was that so far as secular education was concerned there was full provision for public control under the Bill of 1902, because the local authority held the purse and no school could get public money unless the managers satisfied the Board of Education that the secular education given in the school was sufficient. This Bill did not give the local authority control over religious education. It made it impossible for the local authority to grant a single penny of public money for doctrinal teaching,

  1197
  although all the ratepayers in a district belonged to the same denomination. What they were discussing now was whether consistently with the safeguard of public control, about which hon. Gentlemen opposite were so anxious, they could not give the right to some schools to stand outside the particular system contemplated by this Bill. There was nothing to prevent the Education Department from saying: "We will allow you to continue under the conditions of the Act of 1902; but we will attach to this permission or exemption some such condition as that all the managers, or a majority of the managers, shall be popularly elected." He hoped the Government would see their way to accept the Amendment.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMONDsaid he hoped hon. Gentlemen opposite would remember that this was a measure which created a very strong feeling in different portions of the Committee; and it was putting something of a strain upon the Gentlemen sitting on the Opposition and Irish Benches when speeches were delivered such as that by the hon. Member sitting on the back Ministerial bench in which the voluntary schools were referred to in a very slighting manner. If there was one thing more necessary than another at the commencement of a long discussion on a Bill of this kind, it was that good temper should be displayed on all sides; but he did not see how that was to be maintained for any length of time when observations of that kind were made against hon. Gentlemen who supported voluntary schools at a time when nothing was done for education by the State. He asked the Minister for Education whether he could not reconsider the position he had taken up. He did not think that the Amendment meant that there should be an appeal in every single case from the local educational authority, but only that the local authority should give their sanction to certain schools. There was nothing strange in that demand, and nothing against the principle of the Bill. They were all anxious to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion on this question, and he thought that the President of the Board of Education would be well advised if he met hon. Members with as
  1198
  much conciliation as possible. The right hon. Gentleman had said that this clause, was the backbone of the Bill, but it would be necessary to hear the views of those who were opposed to it.
  MR. BIREELLsaid that the words proposed to be inserted by the Amendment would throw on the Board of Education the duty of considering every school in the country unless without that sanction the school fell under Clause 4. He could only repeat what his right hon. friend had said in regard to an appeal to the Board of Education, that that would receive careful consideration on a later clause. But to insert the words of the Amendment into this clause would upset the whole Bill.
  MR. T. M. HEALYmade the suggestion that the Amendment should be withdrawn. Surely the right hon. Gentleman, the Minister for Education, was speaking with sincerity. Let them clinch the bargain.
  MR. BIRRELLsaid that Parliamentary understandings were apt to lead to misunderstandings. When he said that when this question of an appeal to the Board of Education was discussed under Clause 4, in cases where the local authority might be considered to act unreasonably, it would be carefully considered; but the word bargain must not be allowed to be used.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAINsaid he did not think that the point at issue was quite clear even now. The right hon. Gentleman said that at some later period the Government would consider the question of an appeal from the local authority in all cases. Some of the speakers had dealt with the Amendment as if it involved that. It did nothing of the kind. What was wanted was to give the right hon. Gentleman and his Department the right to take those schools out of the Bill. The Amendment provided in a very convenient way for meeting the wishes of those people for whom the extended facilities clause had been provided; and if the right hon. Gentleman accepted this Amendment it might prevent discussions on Clause 4 which otherwise

  1199
  would be very prolonged. There was the special case of the Jews and Roman Catholics, which all were agreed were exceptional. By the Amendment it would be perfectly possible for the managers of Catholic and Jewish schools to appeal to the Board of Education to relieve them from the operation of the Bill. Was not that really the object of the right hon. Gentleman himself? Was not that the simplest way of accomplishing what he designed by Clause 4? By Clause 4 the right hon. Gentleman said that if certain conditions were satisfied, including the fact that four-fifths of the parents of the children in a particular school were, agreed, they were to have a religious atmosphere in the school, secured by the appointment of their own teachers, and those teachers were to give the religious education. Why then should the right hon. Gentleman object to certain schools being exempt from the operation of the Bill? He himself was in favour of all those exemptions to Jews and Catholics and Anglicans; and when the proper time came he was going to protest in the Committee, and elsewhere, as loudly and strenuously as he could, against making a distinction between people I who occupied precisely the same position I as regarded their conscientious convictions. He did not believe in treating the conscientious objection of one man as if it were of a different character from
  the conscientious objection of another man. Therefore, he should vote for this Amendment, because it would allow the Education Department to make exemptions.
  MR. DILLONsaid that though the Amendment was somewhat obscurely drawn, it was absurd to say that it would have the effect of bringing in 15,000 or 16,000 schools to appeal against the operation of the Bill when passed. It was perfectly well known that the decisions in forty or fifty cases would rule the whole country. The effect of the Amendment would be that the Board of Education would have the power to take into consideration the cases of schools where there was no difference of opinion—schools which were homogeneous, and immediate exemption would be given from the operation of the Act if desired. And whether they desired it would largely depend on the effect of the later Amendments which would be proposed on this Bill. If they did desire to be exempted, all that the Amendment would do would be to give to the Board of Education the power to lay down a rule for their exemption.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 171; Noes, 336. (Division List No. 91.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Doughty, Sir George

  Acland-Hood, Rt. Hn. Sir A. F.

  Butcher, Samuel Henry

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Ambrose, Robert

  Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.

  Du Cros, Harvey

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Duncan, Robert (Lan'k,Govan

  Anstruther-Gray, Major

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. HughO

  Cavendish, Rt. Hn. Victor C. W.

  Fardell, Sir T. George

  Ashley, W. W.

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

  Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-

  Fell, Arthur

  Balcarres, Lord

  Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

  Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey

  Baldwin, Alfred

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm.

  Ffrench, Peter

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (City Lond.

  Clarke, Sir Edward (City Lond.

  Field, William

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

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

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Baring, Hon. Guy (Winchester

  Cogan, Denis J.

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

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

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Courthope, G. Loyd

  Forster, Henry William

  Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks

  Craig, Captain James (Down, E.

  Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)

  Beckett, Hon. Gervase

  Crean, Eugene

  Gilhooly, James

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  Ginnell, L.

  Blake, Edward

  Delany, William

  Haddock, George R.

  Boland, John

  Devlin, Charles Ramsay (Galw.

  Halpin, J.

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Dillon, John

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Bull, Sir William James

  Dolan, Charles Joseph

  Hammond, John

  Burdett-Coutts, W.

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'd

  Harrington, Timothy

  Meysey-Thompson, E. C.

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Harrison-Broadley, Col. H. B.

  Middlemore, J. Throgmorton

  Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Mooney, J. J.

  Roche, Augustine (Cork)

  Hazleton, Richard

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Rutherford W. W. (Liverpool)

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  Muntz, Sir Philip A.

  Salter, Arthur Clavell

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Murnaghan, George

  Seely, Major J. B.

  Hervey, F. W. F. (BuryS. Edm'ds

  Murphy, John

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Hill, Henry Staveley (Staff'sh).)

  Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield

  Smith, F. E. (Liverp'l, Walton

  Hogan, Michael

  Nield, Herbert

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

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Nolan, Joseph

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.

  Joyce, Michael

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tip'ary Mid.

  Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk

  Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H.

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Starkey, John R.

  Kennedy, Vincent Paul

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Kilbride, Denis

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.

  Sullivan, Donal

  King, Sir H. Seymour (Hull)

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxf'd Unv

  Line-Fox, G. R.

  O'Doherty, Philip

  Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich)

  O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.)

  O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

  Valentia, Viscount

  Lee, Arthur H. (Hants., F're'm

  O'Dowd, John

  Waldron, Laurence Ambrose

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  O'Hare, Patrick

  Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancash.)

  Liddell, Henry

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N

  Walrond, Hon. Lionel

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  O'Malley, William

  Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid.)

  Lundon, W.

  O'Mara, James

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.

  Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

  MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  M'Calmont, Colonel James

  Pease, H. Pike (Darlington)

  Young, Samuel

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Younger, George

  M'Kean, John

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  M'Killop, W.

  Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir Henry Craik and Sir Francis Lowe.

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Ratcliff, Major R. F.

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  Rawlinson, J. Frederick Peel

  Meagher, Michael

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford

  Mechan, Patrick A.

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Black, Arthur W. (Bedfordsh.)

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

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Bolton, T. D. (Derbyshire, N. E.

  Corbett, C.H. (S's'x, E. Grinst)

  Adkins, W. Ryland

  Boulton, A. C. F. (Ramsey)

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Agnew, George William

  Brace, William

  Cory, Clifford John

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Bramsdon, T. A.

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Alden, Percy

  Branch, James

  Cowan, W. H.

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Brigg, John

  Cremer, William Randal

  Armstrong, W. C. Heaton

  Bright, J. A.

  Crombie, John William

  Astbury, John Meir

  Brocklehurst, W. D.

  Cross, Alexander

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Brodie, H. C.

  Crosaley, William J.

  Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)

  Brooke, Stopford

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.

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

  Davies, David (Montgomery Co.

  Balfour, Robert (Lanark)

  Bryce, Rt. Hn. James (Aberd'n

  Davies M. Vaughan-(Cardigan

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight

  Bryce, J. A. (Inverness Burghs

  Davies, Timothy (Fulham)

  Barker, John

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

  Barlow, J. Emmott (Somerset)

  Buckmaster, Stanley O.

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

  Barlow, Percy (Bedford)

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

  Barnard, E. B.

  Burnyeat, J. D. W.

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Barnes, G. N.

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Dobson, Thomas W.

  Barran, Rowland Hirst

  Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles

  Duckworth, James

  Beale, W. P.

  Byles, William Pollard

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness

  Beauchamp, E.

  Cairns, Thomas

  Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley)

  Beaumont, W. C. B. (Hexham)

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Bell, Richard

  Cawley, Frederick

  Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)

  Bellairs, Carlyon

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

  Bonn J. Williams (Devonport)

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Edwards, Frank (Radnor)

  Benn, W. T'w'r H'ml'ts, S. Geo.

  Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Elibank Master of

  Bennett, E. N.

  Clarke, C. Goddard (Peckham)

  Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward

  Berridge, T. H. D.

  Cleland, J. W.

  Erskine, David C.

  Bertram, Julius

  Clough, W.

  Essex, R. W.

  Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

  Clynes, J. R.

  Evans, Samuel T.

  Billson, Alfred

  Coats, Sir T. Glen (Renfrew, W)

  Eve, Harry Trelawney

  Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Black, Alexander Win. (Banff.

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Faber, G. H. (Boston)

  1202

  1203

  Fenwick, Charles

  Levy, Maurice

  Robinson, S.

  Ferens, T. R.

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Robson, Sir William Snowdon

  Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Lough, Thomas

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Lupton, Arnold

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Fuller, John Michael F.

  Luttrell, Hugh Fownes

  Rose, Charles Day

  Fullerton, Hugh

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Rowlands, J.

  Furness, Sir Christopher

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Russell, T. W.

  Gill, A. H.

  Macdonald, J. M. (Fal'k, B'ghs

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert J.

  Maclean, Donald

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Glendinning, R. G.

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

  Glover, Thomas

  McCrea, George

  Scarisbrick, T. T. L.

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  McKenna, Reginald

  Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde)

  Gooch, George Peabody

  McLaren, Sir C. B. (Leicester)

  Schwann, Chas. E. (Manch'st'r

  Grant, Corrie

  McLaren, H. D. (Stafford, W.)

  Scott, A. H. (Ashton under Lyne

  Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

  McMicking, Major G.

  Sears, J. E.

  Gray, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

  Maddison, Frederick

  Seaverns, J. H.

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Mallet, Charles E.

  Shackleton, David James

  Grove, Archibald

  Manfield, Harry (Northants)

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

  Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln

  Shaw, Rt. Hn. T. (Hawick, B.)

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Hall, Frederick

  Marnham, F. J.

  Silcock, Thomas Ball

  Harcourt, Right Hon. Lewis

  Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)

  Simon, John Allsebrook

  Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Wore'r)

  Massie, J.

  Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John

  Hart-Davies, T.

  Menzies, Walter

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  Micklem, Nathaniel

  Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

  Harwood, George

  Mond, A.

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

  Money, L. G. Chiozza

  Spicer, Albert

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Montagu, E. S.

  Stanger, H. Y.

  Haworth, Arthur A.

  Montgomery, H. H.

  Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.)

  Hazel, Dr. A. E.

  Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)

  Steadman, W. C.

  Hedges, A. Paget

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmartl en

  Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Morley, Rt. Hon. John

  Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Morse, L. L.

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Henderson, J. M. (Aberd'n, W.)

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)

  Henry, Charles S.

  Murray, James

  Stuart, James (Sunderland)

  Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)

  Myer, Horatio

  Summerbell, T.

  Higham, John Sharp

  Napier, T. B.

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Newnes, Sir George (Swansea)

  Taylor, John W. (Durham)

  Hobhouse, Charles E. H.

  Nicholls, George

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Hodge, John

  Nicholson, Charles N. (Doner.)

  Tennant, E. P. (Salisbury)

  Holden, E. Hopkinson

  Norman, Henry

  Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Norton, Capt, Cecil William

  Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

  Hooper, A. G.

  Nuttall, Harry

  Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

  Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N

  O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)

  Thomas, David Alfred (M'th'r)

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Parkers James (Halifax)

  Thompson, J. W. H. (Som'r't, E

  Horridge, Thomas Gardner

  Paul, Herbert

  Tillett, Louis John

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Tomkinson, James

  Hudson, Walter

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

  Torrance, A. M.

  Hyde, Clarendon

  Pearce, William (Limehouse)

  Toulmin, George

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Pearson, Sir W. D. Colchester)

  Trevelvan, Charles Phillips

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

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

  Verney, F. W.

  Jackson, R. S.

  Philipps, J. Wynford (Pemb'ke

  Villiers, Ernest Amherst

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke)

  Wadsworth, J.

  Jardine, Sir J.

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)

  Johnson, John (Gateshead)

  Pollard, Dr.

  Wallace, Robert

  Johnson, W. (Nuneaton)

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Walsh, Stephen

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

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

  Walton, Sir John L. (Leeds, S.)

  Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.

  Radford, G. H.

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Rainy, A. Holland

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southam'n

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Raphael, Herbert H.

  Wardle, George J.

  Kincaid-Smith, Captain

  Rea, Russell (Gloucester)

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  King, Alfred John (Knutsford)

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro'

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan

  Laidlaw, Robert

  Rees, J. D.

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney

  Lamb, Edmund G. (Leom'ster

  Rendall, Athelstan

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)

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

  Watt, H. Anderson

  Lambert, George

  Richardson, A.

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Weir, James Galloway

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Ridsdale, E. A.

  White, George (Norfolk)

  Lea, Hugh Cecil (St. Pancras, E

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire

  Lehmann, R. C.

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Whitehead, Rowland

  Lever, W. H. (Cheshie, Wirral)

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  1204

  1205

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Wood, T. M'Kinnon

  Wiles, Thomas

  Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)

  Woodhouse, Sir J.T. (Hud'rsf'd

  Wilkie, Alexander

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

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

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

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Whiteley and Mr. J. A. Pease.

  Williams, W. L. (Carmarthen)

  Winfrey, E.

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

  Wodehouse, Lord (Norf'k, Mid.

  Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report progress; and ask leave to sit again"—(Mr. J. Ramsay Macdonald)—put, and agreed to.

  SIR HENRY CRAIKsaid he had understood when moving his last Amendment that it would be more convenient to explain the object then of the further Amendment which he now proposed to move. He therefore did not think it necessary now to do more than to read the Amendment which he had handed in. It was—
  "In Clause 1, line 9, after 'is' to insert 'either supported by aid from the rates or is.'"
  The object of that was to make it certain that a school might be considered elegible for the Parliamentary grant which was either supported without aid from the rates or was a school provided by the local education authority. The object of the Amendment was that a school, although it might withdraw itself from the control of the local education authority, dispensing at the same time with the benefit of the rate aid it might receive from the local authority, might preserve its independence and be eligible for Parliamentary grants, so long as it was approved by the Board of Education, and after the inspectors of the Board had shown it to be doing thoroughly efficient work and in all its conditions complying with the requirements necessary to obtain a Parliamentary grant. Those conditions could not be complied with by inefficient schools, insanitary schools, or such schools as were described by the hon. Member for North Camberwell. He was quite convinced that there were many schools doing good work, and not open to the obloquy cast upon them by the hon. Member, and if those schools were able to prove that they satisfied the conditions laid down by the Board of Education he saw no reason why they should be deprived of the recompense for their work, which was their right as taxpayers, and which the Act of 1870 secured for them. He begged to move—
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 1, line 9, after 'is' to insert 'either supported by aid from the rates or is,'"—(Sir Henry Craik.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. BIRRELLsaid the effect of the Amendment, if acceded to, would be to set up two kinds of schools, one of which would receive both State aid and rate aid, and the other of which would receive simply the Parliamentary grant and no assistance from what had been described as the bottomless purse of the ratepayer. Although he thought there was a bottom even to that, he quite agreed with all that had been said in favour of diversity in our schools. He did not advocate any hard and fast and rigid curriculum or anything like the system adopted in France, where the Minister for Education could look at his watch and thank Heaven that he could tell which subject every teacher in every class in every single part of France was teaching at that time. That was not the uniformity that appealed to him. But there was a type of uniformity which every educationist must aim at, and that was that there must not be any marked difference between one public school or another with regard to the qualification of the teachers, either through the training they had received or through the size of the class room, sanitation, or the like. They must all strive after a system which would secure for all the public schools of this country uniformity of excellence of provision, whatever diversity they allowed themselves in the curriculum. He had no objection to diversity in education as long as there was uniformity in the provisions made for education. With regard to the statement of the hon. Gentleman that there need be no difference between the two kinds of

  1207
  schools supposing the inspection established by the Board of Education was sufficiently satisfactory in both cases, and that the same kind of pressure was put forward in both classes of schools, he was afraid it was impossible to hope for any such kind of inspection. The inspectors, without showing any partiality, would have to strike a distinction between a school which had two great sources of revenue to supply it and the school which had not any or, at most, only one. They had found in the past that inspectors—although it was wrong to charge them with partiality—had been making a distinction as to what they considered necessary at the old board school and in the old voluntary school. He was not speaking of all schools. In the large towns there had always been voluntary schools, some of which were excellent, but let them look at some of the schools in the country. Nobody could go into the country with his eyes open without seeing that there was a different standard of excellence required from one school from that which was required from another. He had been reminded that he was new to his office. That was true, but he would be very much surprised if there was any gentleman in the Committee who had had active acquaintance with Whitehall who would not support him in saying that from an educational point of view it was eminently undesirable to have two systems of schools, two sorts of standards, and two kinds of ideas. That was the very dual system which he thought they were all agreed in condemning. Obviously it would be a desirable thing, if it could be managed, that we should have in this country what they had in others, public elementary schools forming, not a hard and fast curriculum, but one standard of excellence, so that the children in one part of the country should not be deprived of that which they would have enjoyed had they lived in another part of the country. They did want to see the public grants, which were now assuming such gigantic proportions, wisely spent. All educationists were thoroughly satisfied that if the dual system could be got rid of it would not only be a great saving in time, temper, and expense in the administration of the education laws, but would also secure to the children of this
  1208
  country the equal benefit of a good education in good schools at the hands of well-trained teachers. The question of training teachers was a most important one. The better they were trained the more they would be in demand at the schools to which they carried their talents, and therefore it was most important that they should be well trained. With regard to the voluntary schools, he could not look forward with anything but grief to the continuation of the dual system in any way. He still hoped that the provisions of this Bill, much abused as they had been, nevertheless contained the means of securing an unbroken excellence in our educational work, and that the children of the country, irrespective of the religious faith of their parents, would be able to be educated in public elementary schools of that degree of excellence which could only be obtained by means of assistance derived from both State and rate aid; and that there would be no necessity for a return to the condition of things as it was before 1902. He could only say that the Government were bound to oppose the Amendment, thinking that in so doing they were doing the best for the children of the country.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid that nothing gave him greater pleasure than to hear the eulogies on the Act of 1902 of the Minister for Education and the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Camber-well. He thought the hon. Gentleman had said more of the great educational reform of that Act than any of his friends around him, possibly because he knew more of the actual working of the school system of the country than those who approached the question not from an educational point of view, but solely, so far as he could understand, from a partisan or denominational point of view. While they might therefore for the moment agree that the Act of 1902 was a great educational reform, one question was whether the Amendment of his hon. friend really required them to go back to the pre 1902 days, and whether the schools he desired to see preserved were open to the criticisms justly passed on the system before the late Government took the question of elementary education

  1209
  seriously in hand. The right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Camberwell appeared to assume that the schools which his hon. friend desired to spare from the operation of the Bill were going to be schools ill-equipped, ill-built, inadequate in point of accommodation, and insufficiently provided with funds to give the teachers proper salaries. He gathered, however, that his hon. friend did not desire that the schools he wished to spare should be in any sense less well-equipped, less well-provided than those which the public authorities provided. His object was not a denominational one; it was an educational object. He sympathised with that object, and he still hoped that, under the Act of 1902, they would see produced a greater measure of that variety which his hon. friend rightly desired should form an essential part of our educational system. He had not been in a position to follow closely the work of the educational authorities throughout the country, and he did not know whether they had taken advantage of the liberty given by the Act of 1902. He sometimes doubted whether that was the case, and whether the education authorities set up by that Act really had endeavoured to make the schools under their charge vary according to the particular districts or parishes in which the schools were situated, and whether they had not been too much bound by a cast-iron system which every authority, local or Imperial, had the strongest tendency to fall into. But on that point the right hon. Gentleman had greater knowledge than he had, and he could only express the hope that the influence of the Board of Education would be used as much as possible to induce the local authorities to exercise the power of decentralisation which had been given them. Then came the question how under the Amendment would that variety be obtained, and would it be obtained at the cost of educational efficiency? Both the Minister for Education and the hon. Member for North Camberwell had assumed that his hon. friend desired to see the pre-1902 system revived. He did not gather that that was his view. As far as he understood his policy, it was that, where there existed a school which,
  1210
  either by the magnitude of its endowments or the liberality of the population in which it was situated, possessed funds beyond those provided by the State, and was in a position to carry on, in competition with schools with rate-aid behind them, the education of the population on terms not less generous, not less excellent to the children, not less worthy in every way of their admiration, that school should be spared and that the ratepayers should not be asked to bear an expense that somebody else was ready to take on his shoulders. He saw no abstract objection to that proposal, but he felt that, as the Amendment stood, his hon. friend provided no machinery by which schools carried on on a scale as liberal as those that were rate-aided were to be selected from those schools which were not so carried on. He did not think it would have been impossible for the Board of Education to find a plan for differentiating the schools if it had been understood that only one standard of efficiency was to be allowed, and that that standard was not to fall below that provided by the rate-aided schools in the district. The hon. Member for North Camberwell appeared to think that that was an impossibility, and that they would never get the inspectors to be as severe in the judgment they passed upon voluntary schools as upon rate-aided schools. That was so under the old system. It was so before 1902, because the inspectors, and the Board of Education whom they served, recognised that if they were to screw up the standard of the equipment of voluntary schools to that which was provided, and which could be provided by the rate-aided schools they would have destroyed part of the educational machinery in the country, and naturally and properly they shrank from a policy which would have had such disastrous results to education. Whether it would be impossible now to make a selection he did not like to pronounce, because they must have machinery before them by which that selection could be carried out. As his hon. friend did not propose that machinery, they were not in a position to judge whether a machinery could be provided or not, and he should not feel justified in supporting the Amendment until he saw whether or not there was a method suggested by which

  1211
  the onerous responsibility of determining between the fully efficient voluntary schools and those that were something short of fully efficient could be discharged. Though he entirely sympathised with the object of his hon. friend, and though he did not go to the length of saying that the object was unattainable, he had not yet found the machinery for attaining it, and he would therefore suggest that, at the present stage of their discussions, he should not press the Amendment to a division.
  MR. BUTCHERsaid that one of the chief needs of our educational system was greater flexibility, diversity, and variety. Before the Act of 1902 there was variety, but it was chaotic. The Act of 1902, however, had this great merit, that it retained variety subject to a controlling unity. The authors of that Act must have been pleased at hearing the eulogy passed upon it by the hon. Member for North Camber-well for merits which were entirely deserved, but which had been greatly lost sight of in most of the debates in this House. Shortly after the Act of 1902 was passed a gentleman of his acquaintance, the secretary to an education committee, was asked, "Are you one of those who believe in education?" His friend replied, "Yes, I am one of those who do venture to believe in education." "Well, I am a believer in ignorance and common sense," was the retort. The Act of 1902 brought the reign of ignorance and common sense to a close. But if there was variety without unity before 1902, and if after 1902 there had been a unified system combined with variety, one of the marked defects of this Bill was that the variety was done away; at least the aim of the Bill was to produce a rigid uniformity of type, although it did not entirely carry out that aim. From that point of view the Bill seemed to him to deserve sharp criticism. It was not as if we had arrived at any kind of an ideal system, or at any type of education which represented perfection. We were just at that stage when it was necessary to strike out and make new experiments in all directions, and adapt ourselves as far as possible to the
  1212
  varieties of local needs and the varieties of human minds and human beliefs.
  THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Order, order! The hon. Member must not make a Second Reading speech.
  MR. BUTCHERsaid he would proceed to address himself very closely to the Amendment. His point was that the power of contracting out of the Bill had this in its favour, that it might bring back some of the variety which we were now in danger of losing. He himself had a Resolution very similar to this on the Paper, but he had taken it off. The effect of it was that there should be a power enabling voluntary schools to get back to the position they were in before 1902. In; that case they would still retain their own managers; they would be bound to maintain their own buildings; they would be entitled to the same State grant as a provided school under this present Bill, but they would receive no aid from the rates; and so there would be no need for passive resistance. Under such a power, certain schools, especially in the more wealthy localities, might be maintained by the denominations at a high state, of efficiency; and a good deal could be said in favour of such a proposal. The danger was that if the system were to become normal and regular instead of exceptional, it would, educationally, be a retrograde movement. He did not, however, think that it would necessarily, or in all cases, lead to the results anticipated by the hon. Member for North Camberwell. Still he felt the risk of many of the Church schools falling back into the position from which they were just emerging, and dying by a slow process of inanition. An amendment of this kind, although it might be a useful supplement to Clause 4, could not be a substitute for it. He hoped his hon. friend the Member for Glasgow would not press the Amendment to a division, in spite of the sympathy which he felt for the views he had expressed in support of it.
  THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Does the hon. Member withdraw his Amendment?
  SIR HENRY CRAIK: No, Sir.
  SIR FRANCIS POWELLsaid he felt great difficulty in accepting the Amendment on account of its impracticability. His right hon. friend the member for the City of London had spoken of the intolerable strain. He was one of those who suffered under the intolerable strain, and he did not wish to place himself in a position which would produce a renewal of that evil. He had no doubt that if a clause of this kind was placed on the Statute book great pressure would be employed by zealous friends of religious education on those who were willing and able to give, support, and the result would not be advantageous to education. Each of these schools would be conducted under circumstances of great difficulty. Their condition would be at best uncertain, because they would depend on contributions which would always be doubtful and always collected under circumstances of great difficulty, and they would by no means be secure of that permanence which the endowment of every educational institution essentially required. He did not believe that if they had schools of this class they could staff them efficiently. Teachers would not be willing to link their future or their prosperity with schools of such precarious character. With reference to the argument in favour of variety, he admitted that the schools now existing had not that variety which he for one would desire. It was impossible that they could have that change in a few years. They must have new arrangements, with managers and teachers with new ideas, and it was only by a process of evolution they could secure this variety. In going through different schools he had been gratified at finding a beginning of this improvement, and he believed that there was much less of the stereotyped system than in 1902. He was not by any means certain if they had schools of the character which would be established under this clause that they would secure greater variety. He very much doubted it. The difficulty would be greater in the case of non-provided schools under the proposed plan, because there would be less inducement to embark on a new and perhaps a costly
  1214
  system. Therefore he could not view this proposal as one that would give them those great advantages which they were eager to pursue, and under these circumstances he could not support the Amendment, although he was glad the discussion had been raised. He joined in the appeal that the Amendment should be withdrawn.
  LORD WILLOUGHBY DE ERESBYsaid he had no doubt that many Members were of the opinion that it would be a great mistake to go back to anything like the state of affairs that existed before the Act of 1902, but he was extremely doubtful whether that opinion was shared all over the country, or at any rate in the rural districts of England. He was one of those who, even at the risk of being called reactionary by the hon. Member for North Camberwell, infinitely preferred the system as it existed before 1902, and he could safely say that of all the votes he had given in the House— as far as the question of gaining or losing the votes of his constituents was concerned—the votes he gave on the Education Bill of 1902 were those he regretted most. He voted for that Bill, and it cost him a lot of votes. Personally he considered that Bill was a fair Bill, and he voted for it, but the present Bill he considered unfair, and he had no hesitation in saying that those Members who supported it would find that it would cost them a lot of votes. If there was one thing the people of the country desired it was to get rid of the control of the councils. The thing that went down so much with the electors at the general election in many villages was that local control was taken away under the Bill of 1902, and handed over to the county council.
  THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Order, order ! We cannot go into such matters upon this Amendment.
  LORD WILLOUGHBY DE ERESBYsaid that the Amendment, if accepted, would restore the right of control to certain parishes where the people were prepared to pay for their own schools out of their own pockets aided by any endowments they had. He believed

  1215
  that an Amendment of this kind would be exceedingly popular, especially in the rural districts, because it would have the effect of enabling the parishes to retain their schools in their own hands, provided they were able to find the money without appealing to the rates. The Amendment practically restored the old conditions that existed before 1902. One of the causes of the unpopularity of the Act of 1902 was that the late Government took away the control by the different parishes, and in the present Bill they should have some method by which the people in the parish —if they were prepared to put up the money—would be allowed to retain their schools, and get rid of the county councils, which, alike to landlords, farmers, and labourers in the counties of England in regard to education matters, were exceedingly unpopular.
  DR. MACNAMARAsaid he was amazed that the Member for Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities had brought forward this reactionary and pusillanimous proposal, but he was still more amazed to find it supported by the hon. Member for Cambridge University.
  MR. BUTCHERsaid he did not support it. He asked his hon. friend to withdraw the Amendment.
  DR. MACNAMARAsaid the hon. Member stated that he saw a great deal that was attractive in a proposal which would enable some voluntary schools to contract themselves out of the Bill. Would the hon. Member say that large classes and dilapidated buildings were attractive?
  MR. BUTCHERsaid the reason he gave for not being in favour of the Amendment was that he was afraid there might be these, results in the poorer districts.
  DR. MACNAMARAsaid the hon. Member was not in favour of the Amendment because of the contingency of its working evil. He hoped the Committee would not allow the Amendment to be withdrawn. It was a vicious proposal, and he hoped it would be negatived. The hon. member for East Clare had accused him of saying that piety had
  1216
  been masquerading in the guise of parsimony. What he did say was that under the voluntary system in a great many cases parsimony had masqueraded as piety. That he believed to be the fact, but it was quite different from the statement attributed to him by the hon. Member.
  MR. YOXALLobjected to the withdrawal of the Amendment. He hoped a division would be taken, by which they might settle this important question. There was something to be said for the view expressed by the hon. Member for Cambridge University; his point of view was different from that of the mover of the Amendment. He preferred the view of the representative of an English University to that of the representative of the Scottish Universities, who had gone into the domain of English education with which he was very slightly acquainted. During the eleven years he himself had been a member of the House he had never opened his mouth in a Scottish education debate.
  SIR WILLIAM ANSONsaid the mover of the Amendment had spoken with an educational experience which they must respect, and he had in view an object which the Board of Education must needs have at heart—namely, that there should be no dead uniformity in our elementary school system. But he doubted whether the Amendment would attain a variety of the sort that they all desired. The Board of Education ought to impress on the local authorities the importance of observing local conditions, but the variety which would be attained by the Amendment would be denominational variety rather than adaptation to surroundings. He took exception, however, to some of the arguments advanced against his Amendment. In particular he denied that the voluntary schools were in the inferior condition described by the hon. Member for North Camberwell. He had heard the hon. Member say that on many occasions; but he was sometimes apt, to generalise largely and liberally on very few instances. It having been his duty during the last few years to go into a great many voluntary schools in the country, he quite admitted that the condition of some of

  1217
  them was not all that one would wish but he entirely denied that they were as a whole unhealthy, unsuitable, and unfit for the occupation of children during school hours. Nor was he prepared to admit that the teaching was so inefficient as the hon. Member for North Camberwell said it was. The Committee had often been misled by these large generalisations, and many hon. Members were not in the habit of visiting voluntary schools. Therefore, to say that to support this Amendment would be to condemn half the schools in the country to an insanitary and ill-ventilated condition, and that the children were badly taught, was a gross exaggeration. The suggestion that "parsimony masquerading as piety "was the motive which had in the past led to the maintenance of voluntary schools at great sacrifice and expenditure of money by charitable persons was unworthy of one possessing the great educational experience of the hon. Member for North Camberwell. But as against the Amendment he felt bound to say that in following the working of the Act of 1902 he had been greatly impressed with the value of uniformity of control— he did not say uniformity of management —as regarded secular instruction. It enabled the local authorities, where they threw themselves heartily into the matter, to build from the foundation a complete educational system for the areas which they controlled; and he confessed he should be sorry to see a small group of exceptions established in these areas—fragmentary units of schools free from the control of the local education authority. He did not say that it was impossible to attain a standard of uniformity between the excepted schools and the other schools in the area, but his hon. friend had not suggested the machinery by which it might be done, and the difficulty of maintaining such a standard would throw a heavy responsibility on the Board of Education. He ventured to think that the Amendment of his hon. friend would be found to apply only to a small group of schools richly endowed or surrounded by a wealthy neighbourhood. Although he desired to see variety of character and interest in the schools, he could not think that any of these
  1218
  objects would be attained by the Amendment, and he advised his hon. friend to withdraw it.
  LORD R CECILsaid he would not have taken part in the discussion on this Amendment had it not been for the rather truculent speeches of the hon. Members for North Camberwell and Nottingham. He acknowledged that these hon. Gentlemen were educational experts, and he did not join as a rule in the vulgar outcry against experts; but experts hid a tendency to look at only one side of a problem. He therefore could not follow them in their condemnation of the Amendment now before the Committee. It was not a re-establishment, as those hon. Members seemed to think, of the system which prevailed before 1902. No doubt that system had great defects. The increasing expense of education had made the voluntary system incapable of meeting that expense without further assistance either from the rates or from the State. He was sure that his hon. friend the Member for Oxford University would forgive him if he said that he had attached too much weight to the difficulties, and too little weight to the advantages, of variety in education. He could assure the hon. Member that the present cast iron uniformity of education in public elementary schools was a very serious grievance to many people, who thought with the greatest regret of the old system where there was diversity and different schools from which they could select one to which to send their children. That was a very serious loss, which had been occasioned by the otherwise beneficent measure of 1902. He confessed that he would be very glad to see the re-establishment, as was proposed by the Amendment, of a certain amount of diversity, particularly for those, localities which were able to afford the luxury of having a public elementary school not bound down by the iron rule of bureaucracy.
  SIR HENRY CRAIKsaid he recognised the careful consideration which had been given to the Amendment which he had moved. He did not think it necessary to occupy the time of the Committee for more than a few minutes; and he scarcely thought it

  1219
  worth while to defend himself from the strictures of the hon. Gentleman on the Ministerial benches. Apart altogether from his long service in the Scotch Education Department, his fifteen years experience in the English Education Department surely gave him a right to use the ordinary privileges of a member of the House to express his views on education questions without falling under the dire condemnation of the hon. Member for North Camberwell. He denied that his Amendment was intended as a means of enabling denominationalists to contract out of the Bill. He had only suggested that some schools might be so placed—whether there was a difference of religion or net did not matter—that by the means at their disposal they might be encouraged to carry on the work of education as independent institutions apart from the assistance of the rates. He was sorry to find from the words of the right hon. the President of the Board of Education that he could not trust the officers of his own department to give an independent judgment which would restrict abuses of that privilege. From his experience in both the Scotch and English Education Departments he denied that the responsible heads ever gave any encouragement to their officers to present an unfair or unduly flattering report upon denominational schools. He had never proposed that under the Amendment there should be a general dispensation of any kind, but he thought that if there were schools, however small their number, able to carry on the work of education free from local control, it was an unfair thing to refuse them the payment from the Imperial Exchequer to which they contributed and which they earned by work honestly done. Satisfied with having elicited expressions of opinion he desired to withdraw the Amendment. [Cries of "No."]
  Leave to withdraw the Amendment having been refused,
  Question put, and negatived.
  MR. MADDISON*MR. MADDISON moved to add at the end of line 10 the words—
  " And unless provision is made that religious instruction shall not be given therein during school hours nor at the public expense."
  1220
  He said that whatever might be the views of hon. Members about the merits of this Amendment, there would be no difference of opinion as to the desirability of its being discussed at the present time. There was a large volume of public opinion in its favour, and therefore it was an advantage that an expression of those views should be given in the Committee and recorded in the Division Lobby. There were other Amendments on the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Leicester and others which he should have been delighted to support, but his Amendment happened to be first, and that was why he moved it. He said at once that he had no special qualification to move this Amendment. He was not an expert in teaching, and if he could in any sort of way find a qualification it would be that of a parent. All his children had attended board and council schools, and, after all, there was some little advantage when one approached this question from the standpoint of the parent of children who attended the board schools and were subject to the advantages or disadvantages of those institutions. To that extent only had he any qualification for this task. He wanted to say at the outset that he had no hostile intention so far as the Bill was concerned. He recognised that it was an honest attempt to solve a very difficult problem—a problem which could find in his opinion no solution which would give immediate peace; because, whichever policy was adopted there would be left behind a good deal of angry feeling. But he did submit that while the peace would not be immediate the justice would be ultimate. He claimed for this Amendment that it would give effect to the two fundamental principles of the Bill, full popular control and the abolition of tests for teachers. There was, in his opinion, no other way of carrying out that policy, and if the Committee did not adopt the Amendment Clause 4 or something similar was inevitable. The form of religious instruction attempted by the Bill was what was known as simple Bible teaching. He thought right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition side of the House were wrong when they described that

  1221
  instruction as being merely Nonconformist religion. That appeared to him to be unfair from their own point of view, and already the Front Opposition Bench had realised that they could not afford to follow the bishops, and they had dropped the hue and cry against simple Bible teaching. But one had to admit this, and it was a-very awkward admission, that simple Bible teaching was Protestant. It was Protestant because the Roman Catholic Church, as he understood it, would not trust simple Bible teaching unless they had a divine interpreter to say what was the interpretation to be put upon the sacred volume. Therefore he said that in moving this Amendment so far from being hostile to the principles of the Bill, he was proposing the only way in which those principles could be given effect to. In his opinion the simplest form of religious teaching did need some qualified person to impart it, and in that there was directly or indirectly some kind of test to be applied. He did not think that this argument could be carried quite so far as right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition side of the House seemed to think, but yet it had some force. It seemed to him that there were only two alternatives apart from this Bill. The first was what he would call universal sectarianism. That was impossible. He had heard hon. Members argue as though we could in this country allow every parent to have his child taught at the public expense the religion of his own Church. He denied altogether that that was possible. What would happen would be that the Roman Catholics, the Anglicans, the Wesleyans, and other great denominations would alone enjoy this right. Did the noble Lord opposite mean to say that the Unitarians and the Swedenborgians, and all those who were outside the orthodox denominations would get them? That must be dismissed altogether. It was physically impossible. Then there was the secular system, which could not be better described than it was by the present Prime Minister on November 1st, 1902, at the Alexander Palace when he said—
  "If we had our way there would be no religious difficulty at all. We should confine
  1222
  ourselves, I believe nine-tenths of the Liberals would confine themselves, to secular education, and such moral precepts as would be acceptable to all and would not be obnoxious to anyone who did not come within the range of Christianity."
  That was acceptable to all because it embodied what they all desired when speaking of the secular system. If his Amendment was incorporated in the Bill he was quite aware that there could not be any cast-iron rule of what secular instruction was to be, it would vary in different districts. Even the Bill provided that the Local Authority might prohibit religious instruction altogether. In practice the secular system would mean that instruction would be given in the subjects that were now known as grant-earning subjects, and no grant was now given for religious education, so that already they had the distinction drawn between secular and religious instruction. Of course, on this Amendment the charge of Godless schools would be raised, and they would be asked, "What about the Bible?" That great book was justly held in high regard in this country, but the secular system would be supplemented by a code of moral instruction which some county councils had already adopted with great advantage to the scholars. And in such moral instruction, so far from there being any desire to chase the Bible out of the schools, there would be a very real place for the Bible, from which selected passages, could be read. But in no case should it be taken as a textbook for the teaching of theology or religious belief. Was moral instruction the poor paltry thing that hon. Members appeared to think; was there not the essence of religion in moral instruction? If children were taught to be kind to their playfellows and to dumb animals; to be merciful; to be courteous to strangers, reverent to old age, and to have a great and overwhelming belief in truth, were those things very far apart from the religion of Jesus of Nazareth? There could not be any religion which had not morals for its essence. There could not be a religion which was not moral, and he was not sure that there could be any morals in which there was not religion. But they could have a great deal of dogma which was not moral. When he spoke of religion he spoke not of its

  1223
  form but of its spirit. He said that where morality was there was also the spirit of religion. He wished to assure hon. Members, and he knew they would accept his assurance, although they might say the effect of this proposal was contrary to it, that in moving this Amendment they had no hostility to religion. In his impressive speech the other day, the hon. Member for North Louth stated in eloquent language and with that evident sincerity which always commanded respect in this House that he placed the eternal welfare of the children above all else. He shared the view of the hon. and learned Member, and though they were as wide as the Poles asunder in their religious beliefs, he also said that the deep things of the soul were paramount, and that to him the thought of God was a supreme source of abiding satisfaction. But he denied that the eternal verities depended on rates and taxes. Children were in safer hands than those of any Church; they were in the hands of the Almighty Father himself. When hon. Members told him that the secular system was irreligious he would refer them to that great champion on religion, than whom there had never been a greater in this House, Mr. Gladstone, behind whom he and those with him on this matter were content to shelter themselves. He would say to the Roman Catholics and those who supported them, that their position, their claim for a Catholic atmosphere in their schools, bewildered and dismayed many who sympathised with them and who never parted from them except on this question. He was no Orangeman, for he thought that in Orange Lodges reason and religion were equally absent. But he endorsed, as every free democracy in every part of the world endorsed, Gambetta's famous declaration that clericalism was the enemy. France, that great country of liberal ideas, that gave to the world the first modern thought of enlightened human liberty, the great progressive country of Europe when they had disestablished the Church, met with unprecedented triumph at the polls. He said to hon. Members opposite that this Amendment offered to them neutral ground in the schools, but they demanded a Roman Catholic atmosphere.
  MR. DILLON: In our own schools.
  MR. MADDISONsaid he desired to protect all religious denominations; to do what was done in the United States at the present time. There was a world movement in this direction. The Amendment he had proposed showed no preference to any church, imposed no religious belief on any parents' child, and violated no conscience. The schools were thus left to do their proper work free from the iron grip of outside authorities. And so the future of education would be with the children, the most precious of all our treasures, and not with sects, great or small, struggling for supremacy. Whatever was the future of this Amendment, the future was theirs. He moved.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 1, line 10, after the word 'authority' to insert the words 'And unless provision is made that religious instruction shall not be given therein during school hours nor at the public expense.'"—Mr. Maddison.
  Question proposed: "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. LOUGHthought everyone would agree that his hon. friend had moved this Amendment in such an admirable tone of sincerity that the strongest advocate of religion in the Committee could not be in the least offended by what was said. He had presented a most difficult problem, and he would not in the least misunderstand him if he said that in some parts his hon. friend gave the Committee the idea that he was labouring hard to substantiate his case. He had said that the method he recommended to the Committee was really the only method of securing full popular control of the schools and the absence of religions tests. The Bill itself was the best evidence that the Government were totally unable to agree with this opinion. There was full popular control over the schools in Scotland, and yet religion was taught in all of them. They might, therefore, secure that end without abolishing the teaching of religion from the schools. Then with regard to religious tests they drew the clearest line between the new system to be established, providing that religious

  1225
  instruction should be given in a proper and fit manner, and the system that existed at the present time where the majority of the teachers were selected and subjected to tests by the representatives of one denomination. To supplement secular instruction by moral teaching and passages from the Bible, as his hon. friend suggested, would carry the Committee a long way in their consideration of the question. It was not so easy to select passages from the Bible. His hon. friend had said that he would leave the sacred interests of the children in the hands of the Almighty. But if so why not leave their temporal interests also? The hon. Member believed in Gambetta's phrase, that "clericalism is the enemy." which he deplored at the time it was uttered and which he deplored now How did they know that clericalism was the enemy? They could not always be sure about these things. Those who wanted to see a national system of education peacefully established, as attempted in this Bill, would do their best not to use hard words, but to approach its settlement in a spirit of conciliation. The idea of the hon. Member was that religious teaching might be safely left to the influence of home discipline and the Sunday school. It was an attractive idea, but the proposal should be considered, in these days at any rate, as it bore on the realities of life and established custom. We had raised high the standard of teaching in secular subjects, and it would be scarcely appropriate in these circumstances to neglect religion altogether. No one would admit more readily than he did that all the teachers in national schools were not skilled, but they were becoming more skilled every day, and they knew the way to a child's mind better than anyone else. What would the child have to look to if the teacher did not help it? There was the parent of the child. Many of them had to acknowledge the help they had received from their parents, but all children were not so fortunate. It was not every parent who had the facilities or the knowledge to give a child instruction in a religious or any other subject. They might as well put aside humbug and admit that in a great many of what were called the homes of the country there was no facility whatever for giving religious instruction.
  1226
  He went a long way with those who said the State ought to come in and supply the gap if the parents failed to do it. No child was properly equipped for the battle of life who did not get somewhere simple religious instruction. He should be the last to say anything against the Sunday schools, for he was a great admirer of the great work they carried on, especially the Nonconformist schools of this country. But looking at the matter from the standpoint of the present discussion they would have to admit that the Sunday schools did not entirely fill the gap in England at all events. In Wales the Sunday school was an historic institution. All classes went to the Sunday school. The whole family attended, and the adults who did not teach the children met in Bible classes, and discussed religious problems in a way of which English Sunday schools had no experience. He did not wish to speak harshly of the work done, but all people did not go to Sunday school, and discipline was lax as compared with the day school.
  They ought to look at this subject not from the standpoint of the House of Commons, but from the standpoint of the child, who now saw great palaces built for him where he met a friend in his teacher, who loomed large in his mind. If no religion was taught there, it would occur to him some day that there was a strange laxity in this arrangement —that there was something wanting. He would become acquainted after school life with religious institutions and with literature largely modelled by the Christian religion. Why not instruct him in a simple way to understand the life he was afterwards to lead? He did not think that simple Bible teaching would do† The study of that book could no more be simple than that of any other book. He did not think that the moral lesson would do either. The religious motive in which their ideas must be embodied would be wanting, and they would have to go a little further. There
  † During the next day's debate on this Amendment, Mr. Lough explained that he intended to say "simple Bible reading"—not "simple Bible teaching." [Vide Mr. Lough's statement in the course of Mr. Macdonald's speech on Wednesday, May 23rd.]

  1227
  were those splendid council schools with the religious syllabus of which a catalogue was about to be prepared, in which it would be seen that the greatest care was taken in the selection of the passages. Then the question arose whether they could do this in an unsectarian way as was proposed in the Bill before the Committee. [Cries of "Where?" from the OPPOSITION Benches.] In the council schools. Could they give the child this teaching without dogma? It was perfectly practicable. The difficulty had also been solved in the secondary schools. Why then could it not be solved in the elementary schools? He did not think the dogmas about which they had quarrelled so much were as clear to a child's mind as to the minds of those who carried on the quarrel. A child needed simple instruction suited to its years. That could be given under the Bill. In the Case of minorities, special provision should be made. If hon. Members on that side of the House asserted their own rights in this respect, they ought to respect the rights of minorities. There were provisions in the Bill intended to do away with the difficulties presented by the cases of Jews and Roman Catholics. These provisions would enable them to receive what he considered to be justice and what he hoped they would consider justice themselves.
  MR. WYNDHAMsaid he thought that all hon. Members who had heard the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Education would feel that he had placed the Committee under a deep debt of obligation to him. Unfortunately, the House was now much more full than during the earlier parts of the hon. Member's speech. The speech was an impressive one, and its tone must have won its way into the hearts of all who had listened to it. What was most significant about it was that it contained the first declaration of principle they had yet heard from the Government upon this Bill. Why was it not made at the beginning instead of at the end of Clause 1? How much time and temper—[An HON. MEMBER: Whose temper?]—might have been saved had the Committee known before that the rights of minorities were to be respected and were not to suffer. He would re-
  1228
  call what the Parliamentary Secretary had told them. He had said that if it was right for the State to look after the temporal welfare of the children it was no less their duty to see to their spiritual welfare. He had also stated that in connection with the general system of education throughout the country it was impossible to avoid the question of religious views. The Parliamentary Secretary had pointed out that religious instruction must be a part of the general system of education in this country, and that if anything was to be taught it must be taught by skilled teachers. He had admitted that some process must be gone through in order to discover, not whether a teacher held a particular set of doctrines, but whether he was a competent and fit person to give some kind of religious instruction. The hon. Gentleman had also laid it down that if that teaching was to be given the teacher was the right person to give it. That might, indeed, not always be possible—the conscience of the teacher had to be taken into account—but as a counsel of perfection it was worthy of note. In the House they could not agree on these matters of religious instruction, and if any one stated that he attached importance to a particular kind of religious teaching it was the duty of the Government to respect his rights as a member of a minority. He agreed with the Parliamentary Secretary that in the homes of many children there wore not facilities for giving religious instruction. That was quite true, and in saying that it was true he was not bringing any charge against the parents. Those who knew anything of the conditions under which parents in the great towns lived, or knew anything of life in the country, must be aware that the parents had seldom the opportunity of giving to the children that religious instruction which they desired in no less degree than any other people in the country. Particularly in England it had become a matter of practice and tradition to leave these questions very largely to teachers in schools and to the clergy. [Cries of "No" from the MINISTERIAL Benches.] That might be a bad or a good habit, but it had become almost a national habit. [Renewed cries of "No, no" from the MINISTERIAL

  1229
  Benches.] He knew that in many homes the greatest care was given to these matters, but surely hon. Members knew enough of English life to be aware that in all classes and in regard to great masses of the population it was quite true that the parents were indifferent, and they thought that religious instruction would somehow be provided for their children by other people. The whole system of compulsory education throughout the country could not be suddenly revolutionised without taking note of these facts. They must recognise that facilities did not exist in many cases at home, and they must recognise that the teacher was the person who could best give religious instruction to the child. When they went so far as that what next could be said? The Parliamentary Secretary had also pointed out that, excellent though the work of the Sunday Schools was, too much weight should not be given to it. Therefore, they were bound to recognise that religious instruction must be given in the schools. The logical conclusion of the speech of the hon. Gentleman was that the Government intended to meet this difficulty by amending and extending what he might call the Clause 4 policy. He and his friends hoped that was so. The Committee had had many shadowy announcements from the Government Benches, when Amendments of Clause 1 were asked for, that it would be all right when they came to Clause 4. They must believe in the spirit of what the hon. Gentleman had said, and they ought confidently to count that minorities would be respected when they came to discuss Clause 4. When the Parliamentary Secretary spoke he was replying to the hon. Member for Burnley, who had a different solution. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment felt, as he and his friends did, that if they passed Clause 1 they were confronted immediately with the religious question, and that they could not go on discussing
  1230
  details of arrangements which might, or might not, be arrived at, and appeals from these arrangements to the legal machinery which was to take the place of voluntary agreement. It was not possible to deal seriously with the Bill so long as they were in doubt in this matter. Under Clause 1, what was called the Cowper-Temple system was to be established as the regular and normal form of religious instruction in the schools. That system was not satisfactory to large sections of the community. Moreover, it need not be given at all, at the discretion of the local authority. The solution of the difficulty, in the opinion of the mover of the Amendment, was the abolition of all religious instruction in the schools. The hon. Gentleman was at least right to the extent that if religious instruction was to be given at all it must be made mandatory by Parliament. It should not be left for decision to the local authorities The responsibility was with Parliament, and they ought not to shirk it. Many of the local authorities were excellent bodies, but they consisted of men occupied in other pursuits who gave their time to the work at great cost to themselves. In each county they came, it might be, to the county town once a month. They had to deal with matters which were accumulating from year to year, and now they were breaking down under the local work they had to perform. [An HON. MEMBER: Who gave it to them to do?] That was not quite a fair interruption. If hon. Members opposite had passed a self-denying ordinance which prevented them from speaking, he did not think they should interrupt others who desired to speak. The increase of work thrown on the local authorities was not all due to the Education Act of 1902 but to all recent legislation. These bodies ought not to be asked to deal with and decide upon questions of religious controversy; their election ought not to turn on such.

  1231
  Whatever the solution at which they arrived, they ought to have the courage and determination to make the plan mandatory. He agreed on these two points with the hon. Member for Burnley—that they must face the situation and be responsible for it. He appealed to the Parliamentary Secretary to accept the Amendment because it led up logically to a mandatory clause, which was the only solution of this question; and he hoped that would be the solution at which the Committee would ultimately arrive.
  MR. MASTERMANsaid he had listened with much pleasure to the speech of the right hon. Member for Dover, but he would have listened with still greater pleasure had the right him. Gentleman applied himself to the Amendment before the Committee. The issue now raised was of very great importance in the country and was not a matter of verbal play between the Front Benches on either side. He would have thought that the speech of the right hon. Member for Dover would have led him to accept the position adopted by himself and his friends. The right hon. Member seemed to hanker after a solution which he was sure the majority of the Committee thought impossible, and which the country had declared to be impossible. [OPPOSITION cries of "No."] He would not go back on what he had said, because he was perfectly certain in his own mind that the majority of the Committee considered that the country had decided in favour of Clause 1, that was to say, in favour of popular control. Under these circumstances, only two alternatives were open to the Committee—the alternative of the Bill in its main outlines presented by the Government with certain Amendments, or the alternative of the hon. Member for Burnley. He had suggested on the First Reading of the Bill that the latter solution was in sight, and everything which was going on in the
  1232
  Committee and in the country pointed to the fact that they were rapidly getting nearer to it. What were the facts? Different members of the different organised religions had each stated dogmatically and quite sincerely in this House that they preferred the secular solution to the solution offered by members of other religions. That had been stated for the Anglian Church by the hon. Member for Marylebone, by the Bishop of Birmingham, who hid some right to speak on the question, and by a large number of other ecclesiastics. His hon. friend the Member for East Mayo stated that, although he profoundly disliked the secular solution, he preferred it to simple Bible teaching. The hon. Member for Central Hackney had stated that a vast majority of members of the Free Churches would sooner prefer the secular solution than allow denominational teaching to be given at the public expense in school hours.
  LORD R. CECILsaid he did not think the hon. Member was correct in the reference to himself. What he had said was that the main reason why he deplored the Bill was that it would lead to secular education.
  MR. MASTERMANsaid he apologised to the noble Lord. Perhaps he had identified the noble Lord too closely with other members of his family. At any rate, it was an accepted position with a very large number of representative leaders in the country that they would prefer no religious teaching to religious teaching given by the State by untested teachers as at present in the council schools. When they got agreement such as that, he thought they were not very far from the solution which he advocated, especially when they added the practically unanimous support of the labour party, and the support of a very large section of

  1233
  the public outside all religions. Hon. Members should realise that the plain man was sick at heart of these theological storms which were raging over the heads of the children. There could be no content so long as these theological controversies continued. The Amendment declared two fundamental principles: first, that no religious teaching should be given in school hours, and second, that no religious teaching should be given at the expense of the State. The Amendment, if carried, and supplemented with a number of Amendments which would be proposed later on, did not of necessity imply that the simple reading of the Bible was not to be allowed. That simple reading was given as secular instruction in the United States and in most of the English Colonies. He himself had an Amendment on the Paper which would define "secular education" as not excluding the simple reading of the Bible. Members who accepted the secular position but who disliked to be accused of turning the Bible out of the schools, by voting for this definition could appease both their consciences and their constituencies. The proposal did not of necessity include, though it might be made to include, that simple moral teaching which some hon. Members on the Opposition side seemed to find so repugnant, but which most of those on his side earnestly desired. That could be settled after the main principle had been settled. Meanwhile they pleaded for this main principle because they wore convinced that it was the only method by which they could obtain a just and final solution.
  He wished to ask that in subsequent discussions there might not be raised against them the cry that they were against the Bible and against religion, Nothing could be further from the truth than that. It was unwise to give any personal testimony, and he did not want to drag his personal religious convictions before the Committee; perhaps
  1234
  they had had too much of that already, but he might say that this movement which they represented went back far into the nineteenth century. It owed its origin to Dr. Dale and Charles Spurgeon —men of intense devotion to the Bible and religion. It was accepted by Mr. Gladstone. In this House it was supported by men of all religions: Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Free Churchmen, Unitarians, Agnostics. All united on an agreement to tolerate each other's opinions and not to demand the public funds for the propagation of their particular beliefs. He thought the Minister for Education would agree that this was not an Amendment which should not have been raised. It was a vital question, and one which the Committee must settle one way or the other. It was one on which they were compelled to test the judgment of the Committee, and he hoped they would be allowed to test the unbiassed and impartial judgment. It was said that the system of what was called simple Bible teaching had worked well for thirty-six years. Was it necessary to answer such an argument as that? It had worked well because they had bought off all who were opposed to it, because they had gathered them into separate schools and subsidised them. Now they were going to cease to subsidise them, and to say that everybody in this country must either have this religion or no religion, that they could take it or leave it. That was a complete rearrangement of the old controversy, and under that rearrangement they had a right to say they would not have that religion, or they would not support a religion taught by the State and paid for by all members of the State, which was abhorrent to the consciences of a large number of the members of the State. Another argument was that simple Bible teaching—Cowper-Temple teaching—was the only religion which I could be given under present circumstances to a very large number of the children in our elementary schools, and

  1235
  that it was better that these children should receive this religious teaching than no religious teaching at all. What was the actual fact in this Bill? Every one of those children, in less than a few years, would be receiving no religious instruction at all. Under Clause 6 of the Bill any child could be altogether withdrawn without any explanation from the religious teaching in the school. He thought that clause was necessary, vital to the Bill, and that the Government would be reluctant to give it up, because it seemed to him part of the foundations of the whole fabric, and if it was taken away the whole fabric would fall. But what did it actually mean in a poor district? It meant that in the weeks, months, and years to come there would be a steady and continuous pressure by which first one child and then another would be withdrawn from the religious teaching; and they would never come back again. This condition of things would not be remedied by any law against child labour, because they could not make a law against children playing in the street or girls washing up after breakfast. That pressure operated directly they removed State compulsion or the ecclesiastical compulsion of the conscience clause. Under these circumstances, it was really no good to tell them that the children who were withdrawn from the schools would at the same time receive the simple Bible teaching which it was suggested should be provided for them. In a very few years, if this Bill passed, no child would be receiving religious instruction in the schools except those children whose parents were really and eagerly desirous that they should receive it. And those parents would get religious instruction for their children even if the State withdrew it. He would say one final word about what was called simple Bible teaching. He did not want to say a word against Bible teaching. He believed it was excellent teaching, excellently given. It was definite religious teaching,
  1236
  definite dogmatic religious teaching. It was absurd to state that you can teach children religion except in the form of dogma, taught dogmatically. It was given according to a syllabus. It was the utilisation of the Bible by the teachers, who taught as best they could, and with what guidance they could, what they thought was the simple Protestant religion which the majority of the people believed in this country. He thought that religion had changed in this country in the last ten or twenty years, and he thought it would also be profoundly changed in the next ten or twenty years. To say that the teaching of it did not leave a religious test seemed to him a misuse of words. They were really asking teachers to give a definite religious teaching. And when they asked them to do that they were depending upon their honor to believe what they taught. It was perfectly true that the teacher could withdraw from that teaching, but he would like to know what young boy or girl just out of the training colleges, eager for promotion, would brand themselves wrongly as atheistic or eccentric by refusing to give the State religious teaching. That was a very severe religious test, the more severe because it was not defined. Those who thought that there should be no religious tests had a right to say that no Bible teaching should be given in the schools paid for by the State. Bible teaching was excellent religious teaching, but while it was an excellent religious teaching, it offended the consciences of Roman Catholics, a large number of the Anglican Church, a large number of Unitarians, a large number of those who were indifferent to religion, as well as a large number of agnostics and atheists, against whom apparently all classes of denominations were willing to combine, as always was the case when it came to squeezing an unpopular minority. His hon. friend the Member for Tyneside had spoken for

  1237
  hundreds of thousands of people in this country who believed that the teachings of the Book of Genesis and Joshua and certain other parts of the Bible were not only untrue, but immoral. What right had Parliament to outrage the consciences of the hon. Member for Tyneside and those for whom he spoke in compelling them to support teaching which they thought was untrue and immoral. There were many persons in the Committee who had acquiesced in what was called the passive resistance movement, and he was surprised to find how many of them were now prepared to vote for this measure. The passive resistance movement was a movement which was subjected to great ridicule, which was called silly and foolish, but it was a movement which he believed had led to the great changes in this Bill. He hoped by their votes in the lobby that night hon. Members would vote for freedom of conscience—not freedom of their own consciences. If they voted merely for freedom of their own consciences, and laid on others a burden which they themselves had found intolerable, it would be a rather squalid ending to a movement which had been full of heroic elements. It had been said that the English people would not accept this solution; he did not believe that. He believed the English people were more and more prepared to receive it. If he had been in the exalted position of the Minister for Education he certainly would have been reluctant to propose at the beginning the solution of the Hon. Member for Burnley, but he would not be reluctant now to accept it: The members of the Churches had been told that this was the last effort that could be made to preserve religious teaching in the schools; and members of all the Churches had united to reject the solution. Prominent Nonconformists declared that, if one clause of the Bill wore passed, they would find it hard
  1238
  to give up passive resistance. Bishops of his own Church were for rejecting the compromise, and were opposing it with an almost united voice, or proposed such Amendments as would make this a different Bill. Under these circumstances might it not be possible for the Government to adopt a position which they knew a large number of those who supported them were in favour of, and obtain the only solution that would be just and equal to all, and which would be final? Anything that he had tried to say imperfectly, haltingly, as it had been said inside this House and out of it, was entirely, or almost entirely, an effort to express those fundamental principles of Liberalism which they had learned from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India. If the right hon. Gentleman would only re-publish in a compact form his thoughts on national education, and present every member of the Committee with a copy, he would not be surprised if all would be found to accept the logic of the right hon. Gentleman's argument, and accept the solution proposed by the hon. Member for Burnley. He had been driven to his conclusions not by logic—hard dry logic was the correctJterm—but by the logic of facts; the logic which had drawn to a similar position every State in America, Upper Canada, most of the States of Australia, New Zealand, and indeed practically every English-speaking community, who had all been confronted with the same difficulty. He was pleading for this solution because he believed it would really help the religious movement in this country, and that was a thousand times more to him than any political movement. It would make them work together. There were now Churchmen, and Nonconformists, and Roman Catholics all fighting one against another; they were charging each other with indulging in a game of grab at the public expense. If this religious educational difficulty

  1239
  were only removed, the different religious communities would begin to come together to work for a common end. It was this festering sore of national injustice, first to one side, then the other, which more than anything else prevented them attaining that end which they all longed for at the present time. Its removal would at once produce common action amongst those who were now hopelessly divided. They might unite on a single syllabus. They might unite in providing a simple Bible teaching but single Bible teaching to be given by the united religious community at their own expense and out of school hours, which was a very different thing to simple Bible teaching organised by the State to which all were compelled to contribute. The solution would at once produce common action against those large social diseases with which, after all, it was the greatest mandate to this House to deal, and the remedy for which, by this intolerable controversy, was being so mournfully delayed.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAINthought he need hardly state, after what he had said already on this subject, that he was in sympathy with most of what had fallen from the hon. Member who had just sat down. He agreed they had now reached the real root question of the Bill, because this was not a Bill for education, but for settling the religious difficulty. The hon. Member for West Ham had said there were only two solutions of this question—the solution proposed by the hon. Member for Burnley and the solution proposed by the Government. The hon. Member had expressed the strongest objection, which he fully shared, to the alternative proposed by
  1240
  the Government. But there was an Amendment to the proposal of the hon. Member for Burnley, which might bring them even more closely together than they were now. The hon. Member for West Ham wished to achieve justice and equality—justice to minorities and to all consciences. With that object he proposed to separate religious from secular instruction. Upon secular instruction they were all agreed. But upon religious instruction they were, and must remain, at variance. Let, therefore, the professors of every religion, independently of assistance from the State, undertake this great duty. So far he entirely agreed. That was the view taken a day or two ago by the National Education League and by the late Dr. Dale, who, he continually regretted, was not still with them to give his wise counsel. He now came to the admirable speech of the Secretary to the Board of Education, who had stated in eloquent language his sense of the importance of religious and moral education for the children. He said it was impossible for them to divest themselves of this responsibility and throw it entirely upon the parent or upon the Sunday school. But this Bill, which had been propounded in order to carry out that principle, could not be accepted by those who, like the hon. Member for West Ham, desired a system which would be just and equal to all. The hon. Gentleman and the Government were trying to find a common religion. If they were dealing with this matter for the first time he should be sanguine of success in bringing together the representatives of the different denominations, and trying to find something of eminent value on which they could all be agreed. It was absolutely impossible now. The hon. Member for West Ham had pointed out that even so

  1241
  limited a religious teaching as the reading of the Bible with note and comment would constitute definite religious teaching, which was not acceptable at all events to a considerable minority. He did not wish to enter upon a theological disquisition, but was it possible to read certain books of the Bible, for instance Genesis and Joshua, to young children with no comment whatever? It was impossible. Without some instructive comment mere reading of the Bible would perhaps be a worse solution than reading the Bible with note and comment, which the hon. Member had shown to be impossible if they were to do justice to all consciences. The solution of the Government, then, was not one which could be accepted universally. They were dealing, not with small minorities, but with a great section of the population, with influential and important minorities, which if put together might constitute a majority of the people. It was absolutely impossible to do justice to all on the principle of the Bill. But if he accepted the alternative proposed by the hon. Member for Burnley, he did not see how they could achieve the objects desired by the hon. Gentleman the Secretary of the Board of Education. If they were going not merely to say that there should be a separation between religious and secular instruction, but practically to establish secularism, which would really be the result of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Burnley, he believed that not only would they be opposed be overpowering instinct on the part of the whole population, but in the mere attempt to produce what would then become almost aggressive State secularism they would be doing injustice to many consciences to whom they desired to, allot absolute equality.
  MR. MADDISONsaid that if the right hon. Gentleman attributed to him a desire to endow or establish secularism as something which was antagonistic to religion he was mistaken. He did not desire to do so.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAINsaid he would not attempt to interpret the mind of the hon. Gentleman, but he would point out that if they prevented a child in school hours from receiving under any circumstances any religious instruction, even although it was not given at the expense of the State, then he should describe it as an endowment of secularism, because it was perfectly clear that there were great numbers of children who would receive no religious instruction. He need hardly dwell upon that point, because it had been fully explained by the Parliamentary Secretary. In pursuance of the opinions he had expressed in previous speeches he desired to say that he wanted to follow the hon. Member for Burnley and the hon. Member for West Ham into the division lobby upon this question. He was with him as to the absolute and entire separation of religious and secular instruction in the State schools. But when he came to consider how that might be made a practical arrangement which would secure to the children that religious and moral instruction which the hon. Member for West Ham had so eloquently advocated, then he said they could not do it under the Amendment. They must consent to allow the instruction to be given in school hours by the ordinary teachers if they were willing to give it. [Cries of "No, no," from the MINISTERIAL Benches.] He need hardly dwell upon what he had said before. He would require no test upon the appointment

  1243
  of a teacher, but when a teacher had been appointed he saw no reason for putting upon him an exclusion and declaring that he should not in his own time and at the expense of other people give religious instruction if he was willing to give it. He would test the matter by moving an Amendment to the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Burnley. The hon. Member did not deal with the question of the teacher, and that might arise at a later stage of the Bill. The only thing which he took exception to in the Amendment were the words "during school hours." If those words were omitted it would then read "and unless provision is made that religious instruction shall not be given at the public expense." If those words were omitted, he should then be in agreement with hon. Members who had spoken so far as their main object was concerned, and he only differed from them upon a point of detail. He desired that this education should be given, but not at the public expense, and he did not believe that it could be given unless they allowed the facilities which the Amendment as it stood would prevent being given. He begged to move.
  Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment—
  "In line 2, to omit the words 'during school hours nor.'"—(Mr. J. Chamberlain.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the proposed Amendment"
  Committee report progress; to sit again to-morrow.

  METROPOLITAN POLICE (COMMISSION) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  And, it being Eleven of the Clock, the debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed to-morrow.

  IMPERIAL REVENUE (COLLECTION AND EXPENDITURE) (GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND).
  Return ordered, "relating to Imperial Revenue (Collection and Expenditure) (Great Britain and Ireland) for the year ending the 31st day of March, 1905 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 233, of Session 1905)."— (Mr. John Robertson.)
  ALKALI, ETC., WORKS BILL.
  As amended, considered; an Amendment made to the Bill; Bill read the third time, and passed.

  COMPENSATION (LICENSING).
  Order [16th May] for an Address for a Return relative thereto, read, and discharged.—(Mr. Courthope.)
  On the Motion for the adjournment of the House.
  MR. GEORGE WHITELEYgave notice that the suspension of the Eleven o'clock rule would be moved to-morrow in order to take the financial Resolution relating to expenses under the Workmen's Compensation Bill.
  Adjourned at five minutes after Eleven o'clock.

Preamble
The Earl of Aylesford took the Oath.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
The LORD CHANCELLOR 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: Corporation of London (Black-friars and other Bridges).
The same was ordered to lie on the Table.
Great Eastern Railway Bill. The King's consent signified; and Bill reported, without Amendment.
Manchester Churches Bill [H.L.]. Bombay, Baroda, and Central India Railway (Purchase) Bill [H.L.]. North East Lincolnshire Water Bill. Scottish Union and National Insurance Company Bill [H.L.]. Warboys (Union of Districts) Drainage Bill [H.L.]. Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Electric Supply) Bill [H.L.] Reported, with Amendments.
Crellin's Patents Bill [H.L.]. Reported, without Amendment.
New Mills Urban District Council Bill. The King's consent signified; and and Bill reported, with Amendments.
London and North Western Railway Bill [H.L.]. Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
Cumberland Electricity and Power Gas Bill [H.L.]. Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
County of Durham Electric Power Supply Bill [H.L.]. The King's consent signified; and Bill reported, with Amendments.
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Bill [H.L.]. The King's consent signified; and Bill reported, with Amendments.
Ascot District Gas Bill; Brixham Gas (Electric Lighting) Bill. Brought from
1074
the Commons; road 1a; and referred to the Examiners.
Accrington District Gas and Water Board Bill [H.L.]. Returned from the Commons agreed to, with Amendments.
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill. Brought from the Commons and read 1a; to be printed, and referred to the Examiners. (No. 97.)
Marriages Provisional Order Bill. Brought from the Commons, and read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Friday next (The Earl of Beauchamp). (No. 98.)
Metropolitan Police Provisional Order Bill. House in Committee (according to order). Bill reported without Amendment. Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read 3a on Friday next.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.

  BOARD OF EDUCATION.
  Statement of the moneys expended on education under Part I. and Part II. respectively of the Education Act, 1902, by each local education authority for the year 1904–1905, and, so far as can be estimated, for the year 1905–1906, showing the amount provided from Exchequer grants and from local rates respectively, and in each case the amount of the rate in the £.
  Statement as to the age at which compulsory education begins in certain foreign countries.

  SOUTH AFRICA.
  Customs Union Convention provisionally agreed to by the representatives of the South African Colonies at a Conference held at Pietermaritzburg in March, 1906.
  Correspondence relating to an agreement for lease of pearl fisheries on the coast of Ceylon.
  EMIGRATION.
  Report on the Emigrants Information Office for the year ended December 31st, 1905.
  POLLING DISTRICTS (COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX).
  Order made by the council of the county of Middlesex reconstituting the parliamentary polling districts in the county. Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.
  UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) ACT.
  University Court Ordinance No. XV. Edinburgh No. 6). Regulations for the Degree of Bachelor of Science in Forestry. Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and to be printed. (No. 96.)

  TRADE REPORTS: I. ANNUAL SERIES.
  No. 3595. Portugal (Azores).
  No. 3594. Greece (Cephalonia and Zante).
  No. 3595. Italy (Sicily).
  No. 3596. Netherlands (Rotterdam).

  II. MISCELLANEOUS SERIES.
  No. 650. Arms Industry of Liége.
  FISHERIES (SCOTLAND).
  Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland, being for the year 1905. Part I. General Report.

  LONDON TRAFFIC.
  Report of the Royal Commission appointed to enquire and report as to the means of locomotion and traffic in London. Vol. IV. Appendices with Index.
  Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  PATENTS, DESIGNS, AND TRADE MARKS (REGISTRATION OF PATENT AGENTS) BILL [H.L.]
  Report of Amendments to be received on Monday next.
  ELECTIONS (MEETINGS IN SCHOOL ROOMS) BILL [H.L.]
  Reported from the Standing Committee with Amendments. The Report of the Amendments to be received on Friday next; and Bill be printed as amended. (No. 99.)
  POLICE (SUPERANNUATION) BILL.
  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. 100.)

  CRIMINAL APPEAL BILL [H.L.]
  Moved, "That the House resolve itself into Committee on this Bill."—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  LORD ALVERSTONE: My Lords, before the House resolves itself into Committee, I think we are entitled to ask from the Lord Chancellor some further explanation of the intentions of His Majesty's Government in regard to one portion of this Bill. I apologise to your Lordships for not having been present on the occasion of the Second Reading, when I should have made some of the observations that I feel it my duty to make this afternoon, but I was absent on circuit in South Wales, and it was not possible for me to attend. I am quite sure that, whatever may be the view of your Lordships on this matter, you will feel that there are certain considerations that ought to be borne in mind before we undertake the Committee stage of the Bill.
  I am in no way opposed to the constitution of a Court of Criminal Appeal within certain limits, and, to clear the air, I will state at once that which I think would be a desirable amendment of the law in connection with criminal appeals. There should, I think, be a Court of Criminal Appeal, to which persons convicted should have free access upon the question whether there was any evidence to go to the jury, upon all questions of misdirection, upon all questions of non-reception or misreception of evidence, upon any question of law raised at the trial, and upon any question as to the illegality of the sentence. I postpone for the moment the question of appeal with regard to the severity of the sentence, because that raises different and subordinate considerations. Whether or not proceedings, in error should be abolished is a matter not of great importance. I should have

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  no objection to a Court of Appeal dealing with those. I pass it by only with this word of notice, in order that there may not be any idea that I wish in any way to fetter the jurisdiction of the new Court of Criminal Appeal, if established, in matters of law.
  I now come to that part of the case on which I shall venture to detain your Lordships for a few minutes, because it is a matter of the very greatest importance and one which affects the administration of the criminal law. I notice that my noble and learned friend Lord James of Hereford, in supporting the Second Heading of this Bill, said, and said truly, that judges are not reformers. My Lords, they are not, because when one is honoured with judicial office one considers that as far as possible one should keep clear from anything approaching to Party politics, and I should not intervene in this afternoon's proceedings if the question we had to discuss was one which involved any matter of Party politics I am quite sure that my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack will agree that the administration of the criminal law should be kept free from any question of Party politics.
  I speak, of course, solely for myself. His Majesty's judges have no representation in this House, and it is a mere accident that I have the privilege of a seat hero. I will indicate to your Lordships how far in some opinions of mine I am supported by my brethren, but I alone am responsible for what I say, and it must not be thought that His Majesty's judges desire in any way to interfere in that which may be thought to be the policy of the Government. Having said this, I wish to make one further observation, and I make it in consequence, partly, of what was said during the Second Reading discussion on this Bill. Whatever may be the decision of your Lordships' House and the other House of Parliament on any question of reform in the administration of the law, be it in civil of criminal procedure, I can assure the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack that His Majesty's judges, whatever their experience may be, be it little or be it great, will place it most unreservedly at the disposal of any Government who may introduce such a measure in order to make the measure workable and effective.
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  The main objection which I raise to this Bill is that it contemplates a right of appeal on fact in all cases of conviction on indictment. That is a momentous change, and it will, in my judgment, so defeat the object of those who promote this Bill that it is absolutely necessary that I should make my meaning perfectly clear. I do not intend to refer to previous Bills. I do not intend to quote the opinions of others, however eminent. I am aware that it will be thought that I am thereby to a large extent cutting away from myself a strong argument which might be used in support of my position, but I feel that when a measure of this character has been introduced on the authority of His Majesty's Government, when it has been moved in this House by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, I ought to consider it on its own merits. I ought to consider how far its proposals commend themselves to my experience, and I ought not to shelter myself, or support my arguments by reference to any preconceived opinions of others who have studied this subject before.
  The main argument used in support of this Bill by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, in moving it, was the analogy of appeals in civil cases. It was suggested, quite truly, that in certain cases in the High Court, however small might be the matter at stake, and even if it be only a question of change of venue and of procedure, there is an appeal to the Court of Appeal and ultimately to your Lordships' House. I do not dispute that. In ninety-nine out of every hundred cases in which amounts under £100 are involved, there is, however, no appeal on the question of fact. But I am not going to base my argument on, any comparison for the moment. I say, and I say it advisedly, that the whole system of our criminal procedure is contrary to any such proposal as is made in this Bill for an appeal on fact, and I hope to satisfy your Lordships that, instead of being an advantage to innocent persons, it would create a danger for them which no Court of Appeal could protect them against.
  I would remind your Lordships what the essential difference is. In civil disputes you have two parties. One party does not know the details of the evidence to be given by the other party,

  1079
  sometimes not even the substance. That is entirely absent from the administration of criminal law. There are no two parties. It is the duty of the prosecution to make out their case to the satisfaction of the tribunal on fact, and that distinction affects the whole of our criminal procedure. Not only is there preliminary inquiry before magistrates and grand juries, but, if the prosecution propose to call any fresh evidence, they have to give notice to the person charged of what that fresh evidence is; and it is only in the very rare instance of some point being developed in the course of the trial by the defence that any evidence is heard of which intimation has not previously been given. So that in a criminal trial the accused goes into court with full knowledge of the details of the evidence to be given against him.
  What is the chief objection to the proposed change? It is my distinct conviction that such a procedure as is contemplated will undermine altogether the responsibility of juries, and will make them feel that it is not with them that the decision on the facts is ultimately to rest. They will feel that they have got behind them this Court of Appeal, so that they will be able to say, "We think the man is guilty. We are not quite sure on the evidence, but if we are wrong the Court of Appeal will set us right." That is a direct and serious danger as regards an innocent man. What is it that we now say—I have to say it a great many times a year—to juries when we are dealing with these matters? We have to tell them that theirs is the responsibility on matters of fact. We have to tell them that there is, in this respect, no appeal from their decision, and we have to tell them that unless they are as satisfied as they would be in any important event of their lives they ought to give the accused the benefit of the doubt and return a verdict of acquittal. The whole of that observation would be cut away from us.
  I know, and there are many here who know perfectly well, what has been the effect on men of far greater learning and far greater experience than jurymen of the knowledge that there is an appeal. It has at times led judges of the highest position short of your Lordships' House to approach their duties without the same feeling of responsibility as they otherwise
  1080
  would, and it has in times past been pointed out that cases have been allowed to be conducted rather slackly because they were going to the Court of Appeal. If this Bill becomes law in its present shape, I am satisfied that juries will know and feel that the responsibility is no longer theirs, and that it will make them less careful how they deal with questions of innocence and guilt. At present juries do err; they err on the side of acquittal. There are many cases in which people are acquitted by juries who, if justice was done, ought to have been convicted. The tendency, if this Bill passes, must be for juries to feel their responsibility much less.
  Will your Lordships for a moment consider what is the danger to an innocent man? What is the position when the verdict goes before the tribunal of three or five judges? Are your Lordships to be satisfied with the standard which now prevails in every case where the jury have decided the question of fact? The only circumstances under which the Court of Appeal may now order a new trial when there has been a verdict of a jury, is when the court have come to the conclusion that the verdict was one which no jury could reasonably have found. In criminal cases not only will there have been previous investigation, but in ninety-nine eases out of 100 no judge will allow a case to go to a jury unless there is substantial evidence against the prisoner. What will be the position of the Court of Appeal? They will have before them the verdict of a jury who have seen the witnesses; they will have before them the verdict of a jury presumably on a proper direction, because if there is misdirection there ought to be an appeal.
  But I ask your Lordships to consider the peril of an innocent man who may have had a verdict of guilty against him, the jury feeling less responsibility in their verdict. When he gets to the Court of Appeal it will be urged that that verdict was given in sight of the witnesses and under the proper direction of the judge. If that were the only difficulty, if I were to stop at this objection, I would submit that this Bill, giving a general right of appeal, creates a danger which threatens those we are most anxious to protect— the innocent. What is this appeal? The appeal which is now suggested does not exist in any other tribunal, civil or

  1081
  criminal. It is absolutely new. The Memorandum on the Bill points out what is perfectly true, that there is an appeal to quarter sessions in cases of summary conviction; but that appeal to quarter sessions is a rehearing. The witnesses are recalled, and the court has the same opportunity of judging of their demeanour as the court of first instance had. This Court of Appeal is to have no such opportunity which, in my humble judgement, is absolutely necessary in order to come to a correct conclusion as to whether or not people are telling the truth in a criminal matter.
  On what evidence is the Court of Appeal to act? Is it to act on the depositions? They are admirable as a prima, facie case, but over and over again most important points in favour of the prisoner or of the case for the prosecution are not brought out until the witness is examined and cross-examined at the trial. The judge's note, though it may be quite sufficient and well adapted to enable the judge to direct the jury who have heard the witnesses, would be wholly insufficient for the Court of Appeal. Are they, then, to act on a shorthand note? I enter my emphatic protest against the guilt or innocence of any man being determined by a tribunal which has not the witnesses before it. It is suggested in this Bill that some report is to be given by the judge who has presided at the trial. How is that to work? How are reports to be obtained after quarter sessions have separated? That is a very important matter. When it falls to my painful lot to preside at a trial for murder the report I send to the Home Office is prepared with care, and the note I take is one which will be of some assistance to the court; but the system of appeal contemplated by this Bill, of remitting to three or five judges the determination of questions of fact, is a complete innovation. It is tried for the first time in criminal law, and in my judgment it is fraught with the greatest danger to innocent persons. It astounds me that it should be thought that a Court of Appeal in a criminal case should hear the case in the absence of the prisoner. I do not know why his presence is to be unnecessary.
  Further, it is generally recognised, and in support of this statement I might cite passages from the Report of the important Commission presided over in 1879 by Lord
  1082
  Blackburn, that if there is to be an appeal in criminal cases there must be a new trial, and it is because this is an innovation in, and a fundamental departure from, our criminal procedure that I think it right to enter my protest against it. I do not for a moment refer to the probable number of appeals. If this Bill were passed in its-present shape there would be many hundreds of appeals, but I am not going to argue the question from that point of view. If it is right, it ought to be passed whatever may be the burden put on the country. But, as this Bill is framed, it gives an appeal to the rich which the poor cannot avail themselves of. This is no claptrap argument; it is the fact. If these appeals are to be of any use, there must be counsel, and solicitors, and all the documents and other matter must be put properly before the Court. Such a costly appeal may be for the benefit of the company promoter with any amount of money who has been charged with fraudulent conspiracy, but it will not benefit the poor man in the event of there having been some miscarriage of justice. The procedure is wholly insufficient, to meet that difficulty. Moreover, the difficulties in the way of the practical working of this scheme are almost, insuperable as the Bill is now framed.
  I feel my responsibility so gravely in this matter that I do not hesitate to ask your Lordships to hear me on another part of the question. If I am right in saying that there has not been thought in past times necessity for this reform, has anything happened in the last few years to call for this particular amendment of the law? As was to be expected, reference was made in the course of the debate on the Second Reading of this Bill to the Beck case. I wish noble Lords who may have to deal with this matter would do what I have had to do—namely, very carefully study the Beck Report. I assert without fear of contradiction that an appeal on fact would have been no good whatever in the Beck case. No Court of Appeal on a question of fact could possibly have reversed that finding. The miscarriage of justice in the Beck case was due to a misdirection on the part of the learned judge, a misdirection so grave that now that attention has been called to it one

  1083
  wonders how it ever could have taken place. But it was a misdirection which would have been set right by the Court of Appeal on the matter of law. Therefore, I say the only case that has been mentioned in order to suggest the pressing necessity for appeals on matters of fact is one which would have been met by an appeal on matters of law, by an appeal on the question of misdirection, and which in no way calls for this provision for appeal on questions of fact. It was from that point of view that I had the honour of assisting my noble and learned friend, Lord Halsbury, in preparing the Bill which passed your Lordships' House last year, to increase the facilities for appeals in matters of law.
  There is a matter which is not sufficiently recognised in this House or in the country, to which attention has recently been called by a very great lawyer, and which I have for a long time determined that I would bring to the notice of your Lordships when I had an opportunity. I refer to the enormously improved condition of the innocent man, due to the fact that he can now give evidence on his own behalf. For many years I pressed that measure on the House of Commons. My noble and learned friend, Lord Halsbury—it will for ever live to his honour—took the matter up, and the present Act was passed under his auspices. I have watched the practice of that Act most carefully, inasmuch as it bears directly on the point I am endeavouring to argue, the necessity for an appeal on fact, and I have found that in many cases a verdict of acquittal has been given on the evidence of the accused person alone; and I go so far as to say that if an accused man will tell the truth at the early stages before the magistrate, so as to give time for inquiry, his ultimate conviction, if he is innocent, is almost an impossibility. I will not say an impossibility, because I do not wish to exaggerate. I have never pretended in all my advocacy of the Prisoners Evidence Act that it was any protection to the guilty. Your Lordships do not wish to pass an Act of Parliament for the protection of the guilty, but this particular Act has been a great protection to the innocent.
  I will give your Lordships three of many cases. I tried at Ipswich an indictment against three men
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  for grievously assaulting a poor sailor. On the evidence of the prosecution, all three assaulted him, and he did not know which one injured him. From the evidence of the prosecution there was not the slightest possibility of distinguishing between the three men. One of them, an ex-soldier, asked to give evidence. He gave his evidence extremely well. He admitted he had been there. He said he joined the other two men, but after a few minutes became ashamed of himself and asked the other men to desist, but as they would not he left them. That may or may not have been the true fact, but my point is that the defence could not possibly have been put before the jury except by the prisoner being allowed to give evidence.
  To give more recent cases I will quote two that I tried at the Cardiff Assizes two weeks ago. One was a charge of murder and the other of manslaughter. The former case was one in which a wife had been killed in a particularly brutal manner. Evidence of the circumstances under which the injury was done to the deceased woman was given by the prisoner himself in a way which commended it to the jury, who reduced the crime from murder to manslaughter; and nothing but the prisoner's evidence could have done it. At the same Assizes a man was indicted for manslaughter, for stabbing another man in the eye with an umbrella, which led to his death. Upon the evidence of those who saw the affray and of the doctors called for the prosecution no other verdict but one of manslaughter could be given. That man went into the witness box and described that the deceased, who was a friend of his, was drunk at the time and that in a slight quarrel he stumbled on to the point of the umbrella, which went through his eye to his brain and killed him. That man was acquitted, and in my opinion rightly acquitted, by the jury. It may be contended that cases of acquittal such as this may be wrong, but that does not touch my point; they demonstrate the absolute necessity of allowing the accused to give evidence.
  I must now say a word or two upon the other part of the Bill to which I take exception; but I am free to admit that this is not so much a matter of principle with me as is the topic on which I have addressed your Lordships. I refer to the tribunal for the consideration of the

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  severity of sentences. I am aware that in the year 1892 a resolution was passed by the then judges of the Queen's Bench in favour of there being such a tribunal. The circumstances were very peculiar. At that time there were certain excessive sentences which very much troubled the Home Secretary. That is all that need be said about them; but it must be remembered that every one who has had the courage to propose this has always given a free hand to the tribunal as to how the sentence was to be dealt with, and I think it would be a lamentable thing that men should be allowed to appeal on the ground of severity of sentence without the possibility of the Court of Appeal increasing the sentence. Again the position has been changed. The judges of the High Court now work upon a memorandum to which we are all agreed, and during the last eight or ten years no one can say that High Court sentences have erred on the side of severity. I have a very strong feeling that, if there is to be reduction in the severity of a sentence, which is, after all, part of the prerogative of mercy, it would be better that it should be brought about by an administrative act of the Home Secretary than by a Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal can only deal with the ease. The Home Secretary may properly have on such a matter put before him statements having no direct relevance to the particular case. But that is not all. I would take your Lordships' minds back to what happens in a court of assize. On a person being convicted the judge asks the police to give the fullest information with respect to the prisoner, his antecedents, and his recent mode of life. I believe it to be quite impossible to reproduce in a Court of Appeal what I may call the atmosphere of that Court. If it should be thought desirable, let the Home Secretary have increased facilities for consulting the judges of the King's Bench Division. I shall not say one single word against that, but I do seriously say that this is a matter which scarcely merits or renders necessary the proposed amendment of the law.
  The case must be made out for these changes. I am sure that my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack will not suggest that your Lordships ought to make this great change in the law merely
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  on his ipse dixit or on the statement that it is the Bill, of His Majesty's Government. It is only a compliment to my noble and learned friend to say that his lot has fallen in pleasanter places than in the criminal courts, but I support myself by what I know to be the opinion of my noble and learned friend Lord Halsbury, than whom there is no one in this country whose opinion on a matter of criminal law is entitled to greater weight. The views I have expressed are entertained by all my brethren in the King's Bench, who daily throughout the whole course of the year administer the criminal law, and your Lordships know from the public Press that they are the views largely shared by recorders, who have a very large share in the administration of the criminal law and are very learned and experienced men, and also by chairmen of quarter sessions, many of whom have had long practical experience of this question.
  The certainty, the expedition, and, above all, the justice of our criminal procedure has been the admiration of jurists of all civilised nations; but the bedrock and foundation of that system is the recognised duty of the prosecutor to make out his case upon the facts so as to satisfy a jury, and that from the verdict of that jury there is no appeal on questions of fact. This Bill undermines that principle. In my opinion it will lead juries in cases of doubt to shelter themselves under the authority of a Court of Appeal, and that will involve the greatest danger to an innocent person which no safeguard in the Bill can diminish. I feel as certain as I stand here that it will create a very great danger to him, against which no Court of Appeal that does not have the witnesses before it can protect him. I have endeavoured, feebly I know, but still from conviction, to pat this view before your Lordships. I speak with some experience of the administration of the criminal law and with six years experience as Chief Justice, and I say make this change if you will, but make it only with full knowledge of the issues involved; and I hope it will not be made unless the arguments I have put before your Lordships are answered to your Lordships' satisfaction.
  LORD ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I should like to say a few words at this

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  stage of the Bill, as circumstances prevented my taking any part in the discussion on the Second Reading. It is impossible for any of your Lordships not to he profoundly impressed by the weighty statement that has just been made by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chief Justice of England. My noble and learned friend speaks with the weight of his high character, his wide experience, and his close connection with the administration of the criminal law. It is impossible to overstate the importance, the difficulty, and the complexity of this Bill. It practically seeks to work an absolute revolution in the whole criminal law.
  I have every sympathy with the good intentions of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. I am sure that he has applied himself most earnestly to working out this reform in the best possible way, but anyone who, speaking generally, is in favour of the principle of a Court of Criminal Appeal will, when he comes to put his ideas into a Bill, discover the vast difficulties and complexities that surround an apparently simple task. Juries in returning their verdicts are actuated by a deep sense of their responsibilities. It is perfectly obvious that that is the great central fact to be borne in mind, and anything that strengthens that feeling is good, whilst anything that weakens it is bad and detrimental to the administration of justice.
  This Bill, in my opinion, is both excessive and incomplete. It gives without restriction an appeal in every criminal case where the conviction is one on indictment. I say at once, with all deference to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, that that is impossible. It would be impossible to administer the criminal law with such a gigantic change as that. I am told that in the year 1904 there were over 9,000 such prisoners convicted. Why should they not all appeal? Would not any prisoner who was not a fool at once appeal? This Bill does not even say that a man who has pleaded guilty should not appeal. Such a man might say, "I will appeal and try my chance." That is a very grave and serious matter. The first great blot I find on the Bill is that which was commented on by my noble and learned friend—namely, the essential weakening of the responsibilities of juries if they
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  know that any errors they commit can be at once reviewed by the Court of Appeal on the service of a notice by the prisoner.
  I agree with what my noble and learned friend said as to the false analogy on which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack largely rested his case—the analogy of civil cases. No analogy that I can see could justify the wide extent to which that argument was pressed. If a jury in a civil case gives what is known as a clean verdict on sufficient evidence, without the judge expressing dissatisfaction, no one would be so silly as to dream of thinking that an appeal could lie. There is another circumstance to destroy the analogy. In civil cases a person appeals subject to the peril of costs. That is an immense and obvious check. But under this Bill a prisoner, without consideration of, and it may be against, advice, can appeal by the mere service of a notice. Then I have to point out that this is obviously a rich man's Bill. Any one who has money will always appeal, and there is no vestige of check. He would not have to run the risk of paying the costs as in a civil case.
  Again, under no circumstances can the sentence be increased. I am sure the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack feels as much as any one that the Bill in its present shape cannot be passed without limitations. That is manifest from the discussion which has taken place. The unanimous opinion in the Press is that without a limitation of some sort the Bill is unworkable and must break down. The question is, what check should be applied, whether it should be necessary to obtain leave to appeal. This is a matter well worthy of consideration. The Bill gives power to the Court of Appeal, without a retrial, without hearing or seeing the witnesses, without, it may be, hearing or seeing the prisoner, to recast the sentence. It does not mention from beginning to end that there should be a power of granting a new trial. New trials have been suggested as a possible direction to be given by the Court of Criminal Appeal I admit that it must be after very great consideration. If should be thought right to have new trials it is obvious that then the question has to be considered how many new trials are to be allowed, and how it is to apply in a murder case.

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  I see great difficulty in going so far as the Bill goes in regard to the revision of sentences. It is very easy to say that sentences are unequal and unevenly distributed and that there should be some uniformity; but can anyone who has listened to the speech of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chief Justice conceive anything better than the action which has apparently been taken by the judges themselves in bringing about interchange of opinion so as to arrive at common views as to the way in which certain crimes should be punished? I see difficulty in handing over to any Court of Criminal Appeal the power of measuring sentences. The judge who passes sentence sees the prisoner; he sees his demeanour through the trial; he sees and hears all the witnesses, and he has every opportunity of examining into the guilt or innocence of the accused. Assuming his capacity, which we must assume, a judge of the High Court is the best conceivable person to decide what would be a proper sentence for a particular crime in all the circumstances of the case.
  What is the necessity for interfering with the present system and embarking on this great departure? At present any prisoner who is dissatisfied can appeal to the Home Secretary, and I understand that many thousands of cases go to the Home Secretary. It may be necessary that the jurisdiction of the Home Secretary should be strengthened, and that he should be assisted by more legal aid; and it is obvious from what the Lord Chief Justice said that there would be no reluctance on his part to seeing very adequate legal assistance given to the Home Secretary. Although it may be wise to sot up a Court of Criminal Appeal, and to increase the facilities for the hearing of appeals on questions of law, I see great difficulty in going as far as the Bill goes in regard to the revision of sentences. Having regard to the attention which the Bill has attracted, and to the vast changes which it proposes, would it not be prudent, if not to postpone the Committee Stage, at least to enter upon it only pro forma.
  LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD: My Lords, I am sure your Lordships have listened with great interest to the weighty arguments of the two noble and learned
  1090
  Lords who have, addressed you this evening, but I think their speeches must have left you in some doubt as to the course that is intended to be pursued. I was under the impression, after listening to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice, that he was opposing the Motion that the House resolve itself into Committee on this Bill. I now gather from Lord Ashbourne the course he will take when the Bill gets into Committee. I think it would be better that we should have some intimation from my noble and learned friends as to the course which it is intended to pursue. I earnestly hope your Lordships will allow the Bill to go into Committee. We have had practically a Second Reading debate, though I fully appreciate that my noble and learned friends were prevented by their judicial duties from being present at the previous stage. But my noble and learned friends have both spoken as if the Bill now before the House were the only Bill that could emerge from Committee
  I am not committed to the Bill as it stands. I admit that there is a great deal of force in what has been said by my noble: and learned friends, but while they admit that some Court of Criminal Appeal is necessary, even if only in the direction of further powers being given to the Home Office, they are resisting the only possible means of fashioning this Bill into a good and workable measure. I do not, of course, know what the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack is going to say. But he has not said that he will accept no Amendment. If he should take that course I should not be able to support him, because I think the Bill can be improved in its practicability and in its utility. Let me give an instance of what I mean. The noble and learned Lord who spoke last dwelt eloquently upon the fact that every criminal should have a right of appeal, but he said that if that right were given there should be power to increase the sentence. I think that has to be remedied. How is the remedy to be effected? If it is to be effected at all, it must be done in Committee. My noble and learned friend Lord Cross, who has had great experience in the criminal law, was the author of the Commission which reported in 1879. The learned judges selected by my noble friend to-form that Commission, who were presided

  1091
  over by Lord Blackburn, reported in favour of a Court of Criminal Appeal.
  LORD ALVERSTONE: Not on fact.
  LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD: Yes. I refer my noble and learned friend to Section 544. They reported in favour of an appeal on fact. But I admit that the recommendation was not in the terms of this Bill, for they recommended that there should be a preliminary application for leave to appeal. The recommendation of that Commission is now embodied in the Amendments which stand on the Paper in the name of Lord Cross, which neither of the noble and learned Lords who have spoken has referred to. That is the Court of Criminal Appeal which I shall support in Committee. I do not know what course my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor will take, but I do hope that the Amendments standing in the name of Lord Cross will be inserted, thus getting rid of the principal objections which have been made to-day. If you refuse to go into Committee on this Bill you will be shutting out the power of discussing these Amendments.
  LORD ASHBOURNE: I have not said that I was against the Bill going into Committee.
  LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD: But I gathered that that was the attitude of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chief Justice.
  LORD ALVERSTONE: I made my speech in order that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack might tell us how he proposed to deal with appeal on fact. I did not at all object to the House going into Committee on the Bill.
  LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD: Then if we are to go into Committee on the Bill I do not think it is advisable to continue this debate on the Motion to resolve into Committee.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord LOREBURN): My Lords, I entirely agree with the Lord Chief Justice that this is not, and cannot be, in any sense what is called a political question. So far as I am concerned, I am unaffected by the slightest tinge of Party feeling in intro-
  1092
  ducing the Bill. The Lord Chief Justice said, very truly, that the Prisoners' Evidence Act has worked admirably in the cause of justice. I did my best to forward the passage of that measure through the House of Commons, and I remember well the prophecies that were indulged in as to the disastrous effect it would have on the administration of justice, not by obscure persons, but by men of great judgment and authority on law. There is an ingrained predisposition on the part of members of the legal profession to resist reforms affecting the law. I do not mean that their motives are anything but the best. I will recall one instance. Lord Campbell, who was a great authority, resisted to the last the proposal some fifty years ago which allowed parties in civil actions to give evidence. He declared that it would be the ruin of the administration of justice, but four or five years afterwards you will find recorded in his note-book the confession that he had been entirely wrong, and that the reform had not only proved useful but had been absolutely necessary for the administration of justice. Therefore I desire to point out that when we hear warnings of the terrible consequences that will flow from the passing of this Bill it is desirable to recall that prophecies of the same kind have been made before and have rarely been realised. The Bill, in the first instance, proposes that there shall be an appeal on the point of law. There has been no criticism of that section.
  LORD ALVERSTONE: I spoke in favour of it.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Secondly, it proposes that there shall be an appeal in regard to the sentence. With regard to that, is it rash or presumptuous on my part to make a proposal substantially the same as one that was made fourteen years ago by that most august body the Council of Judges? The part of the Bill that has been most criticised is the section allowing an appeal on fact. But all the proposal amounts to is that a prisoner who is tried and convicted shall have the right to appeal to the Lord Chief Justice and three or five other judges, and that they shall have the power, not of increasing sentences, not of rendering a man guilty who has been pronounced innocent, but of declaring innocent a man who has

  1093
  been pronounced guilty. Is there anything inherently unjust or unreasonable in saying that three or five Judges shall have the opportunity of applying their practised and powerful intellects to sifting the evidence on which a man had been convicted and if they find him innocent, extending to him, not mercy or pardon, but acquittal? That may be right or wrong, the difficulties may be overwhelming, but it is not a subject for ridicule or derision.
  LORD ALVERSTONE: I was not guilty of ridicule or derision. The matter is far too serious for that.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I should be the last to reflect on what the noble and learned Lord said. I am quite sure be desires to act in a perfectly friendly way. It is said that the Bill is a Bill for the rich and not for the poor. If every prisoner is to be entitled to an appeal— to have the report of the Judge and the evidence taken at his trial sent foward to the Court of Criminal Appeal for consideration—how can it be said that it is a Bill for the rich and not for the poor? I think some proposal of this kind is necessary because of the fallibility of Judges. There is an appeal, substantially, in all civil causes, both on the law and on the fact; and it is a significant thing that miscarriage of justice has been not infrequently proved in civil causes, even when they are tried before special juries and eminent Judges. I agree that the administration of the criminal law in this country is deservedly lauded throughout the world. What I desire is to make it as perfect as it can possibly be. Is it to be said that Judges and juries who are fallible in civil cases are infallible in criminal cases? Surely if there is a liability to error in the one Court there is a liability to error in the other Court also; and as there is nothing more dreadful than an innocent person convicted and sent to gaol, an effort should be made to establish some sort of appeal in criminal as well as in civil cases.
  My noble and learned friend the Lord Chief Justice said that juries would lose their sense of responsibility by reason of there being a Court of Appeal. Can anybody really believe that, when a jury are sworn in a grave matter or even in
  1094
  a trifling matter, they will not trouble as much about whether a man is guilty of murder or of stealing as they otherwise would do because there is a Court of Criminal Appeal? I do not really believe that men who were engaged in the serious duty of trying a man for his life or his liberty would for a moment pay the slightest attention to any consideration of the kind. I hope I am not an unreasonable person, but I did think, and I still think, that there ought to be as free a right of appeal in criminal cases as there is in civil cases. I do not think it would involve such a tremendous expense as is supposed. But even supposing we were to add three new Judges, who would constitute a Court sitting all the year round, the expenditure would only amount to £15,000 a year, and that is nothing to be considered in comparison with so important a reform in the administration of the criminal law.
  I have expressed my own view, but I recognise the weight of the representations made by the Lord Chief Justice, whose opinion I most sincerely respect, and by others, and I am prepared to accept the suggestions made by the noble Viscount Lord Cross in the Amendments which he has placed on the Paper. The substance of those Amendments is that appeals shall be allowed only where the Judge at the trial thinks there ought to be an appeal or where the Court of Criminal Appeal itself thinks there ought to be an appeal. That is substantially what was recommended by the Royal Commission of 1879; it is the same proposal that was made by a Committee of the House of Commons in 1883, and one which has been recommended to me by the Association of Chairmen of Quarter Sessions.
  I regret very much that that does not dispose of all the Amendments, because the noble and learned Earl, Lord Halsbury, has put down Amendments which would forbid any appeal under any circumstances on questions of fact. I hope the noble and learned Earl will not persist in that proposal to the practical wrecking of the Bill. I do not think my original proposals were either ludicrous or unreasonable, but I have done, as I always will do, my best to meet reasonable criticism and reasonable Amendments.
  THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, the conciliatory manner in which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has met the criticisms that have been made disposes us to see whether we cannot, in some way or another, meet him. I confess, however, that if the question of fact is to be disposed of by any Court that does not see or hear the witnesses, I shall be compelled to adhere to my Amendments. But if the concession which the Lord Chancellor is prepared to make goes so far as the possibility of a new trial in criminal cases, I should like an opportunity of considering the matter with a view of seeing whether we cannot meet the noble and learned Lord. I want to make it distinctly plain that, if an attempt is made to abolish the right of a man to be tried by a jury, and by a jury alone, I shall persist in my Amendment. Nothing will induce me to agree to a departure from the right of trial by jury, which I believe to be the foundation of our system of jurisprudence.
  LORD ASHBOURNE: My Lords, may I, with the indulgence of the House, say a further word? Papers were circulated this morning containing Amendments to be moved by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, but not making any suggestion of this kind. The matter is a very important one, and I would repeat the suggestion I made at the close of my observations, that the Bill should be committed pro forma today. This would enable the noble and learned Lord to have it reprinted, with the Amendments that he is prepared to accept inserted.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: So far as I follow the noble Earl, what he wishes is that, if there is no evidence to go to the jury, a verdict ought to be entered for the defendant. That is what I mean also. But if there is evidence which the Court thinks ought to be submitted to the jury—evidence which in the opinion of the Court would or might justify a conviction—then they might order a new trial. If there is any confusion about it, I would much rather that the further consideration of the Bill should stand over in order that we might be able to meet and consider it.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I feel sure your Lordships will
  1096
  be grateful to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack if he will give us an opportunity of considering this important question further. It is one not very easy for the lay mind to follow, although I am bound to say that, if the matters had been left where the speech of the Lord Chief Justice left them, I should have felt constrained to vote with my noble and learned friend Lord Halsbury, in favour of the Amendment which he has put down. But I understand that the Lord Chancellor accepts in substance, although not necessarily in the same-words, the Amendments which have been; put on the Paper by my noble friend Lord Cross: and I would venture to suggest to him that it would be convenient to the House if the Bill were reprinted in the form in which it is proposed to accept my noble friend Lord Cross's Amendments.
  VISCOUNT CROSS: My Lords. I should1, like to explain that the Amendments of which I have given notice are the outcome of a consideration of the Bill by the Association of Chairmen of Quarter Sessions, which body has been in existence-for forty years, and of which I have been chairman for tire past twenty years When this Bill was introduced I thought it necessary that a special meeting of the association should be called in order to consider the terms of it. I may mention that it was the largest meeting that I have had the honour to preside over, and it was attended by men of the highest possible experience. They were unanimously against criminal appeal on fact unless it was subject to certain restrictions, and in compliance with their Resolution I have placed an Amendment on the Paper providing that on the ground of fact or of mixed law and fact an appeal shall be allowed if—(a) the Judge or chairman who heard the case is dissatisfied with the-verdict or gives his consent to the appeal; (b) the Secretary of State thinks that the appeal should be allowed; or (c) the Court of Appeal, on application to it, gives leave to appeal; but in no other case. Those are restrictions to which I do not think anybody can object.
  The great difficulty in the Bill as it originally stood was that you ware taking away from the jury the final decision of fact and giving that decision to three or five Judges who had not heard the

  1097
  evidence, who had not seen the prisoner, and who would not hear the witnesses again. The Association of Chairmen of Quarter Sessions came to a Resolution upon that which I think the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack is also willing to accept—namely, that the Court of Appeal should not have power to reverse the finding of a jury on questions of fact otherwise than by ordering a new trial.
  THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The Earl of ONSLOW): My Lords, I am afraid it can hardly be claimed that the regularity of your Lordships' proceedings Constitutes an example to the other deliberative assemblies throughout the world. We have had what amounts to both a Second Reading debate and a discussion on Amendments which are on the Paper though we are not yet in Committee. It has been suggested that the best course for your Lordships to pursue would be to go into Committee pro forma. I am sorry I cannot agree with that suggestion. I think we should get into considerable difficulty. There seems to be a certain amount of agreement between the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack and my noble friend who has these Amendments on the Paper, and I suggest that it would be better to adjourn the debate on the Motion now before us to allow the Amendments to be put into such a shape as my noble friend wishes the Committee to deal with them.
  THK EARL OF HALSBURY: I beg to protest against the statement as to the irregularity of making Second Reading speeches on the Motion to go into Committee. On many occasions Second Reading speeches have been made on this Motion, and they are perfectly regular.
  THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (The Marquess of RIPON): My Lords, I do not at all intend to object to the debate that we have listened to. We have heard very remarkable and interesting speeches. But I agree with the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees that it would be hotter that the debate on the Motion to go into Committee should be adjourned rather than that the Bill should be committed pro forma. I think the adjournment of the debate would be a preferable course, because then there would be no
  1098
  question as to the Amendments until they were brought forward properly for discussion. Although we have had a most interesting debate, I venture to say that we have heard, as we occasionally do in this House, noble Lords speak several times notwithstanding that we are not in Committee.
  Moved, "That the further debate be adjourned."—(The Earl of Halsbury.)
  Agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

  POISONS AND PHARMACY BILL [H.L.]
  Order of the day for the Third Reading read.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Crewe.)
  On Question, Bill read 3a.
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The Earl of CREWE): My Lords, the first Amendment I propose to move is on Clause 4. Clause 4 is the clause which was dealt with by the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Ebury relating to the use of the title of chemist and druggist. Since the last stage of the Bill in this House we have had the advantage at the Privy Council of the presence of my noble friend, and we pointed out to him that the terms of his Amendment were not entirely satisfactory, that it would not in all respects carry out what he wanted, and that the clause, in fact, ought to be recast. The only difference between this Amendment and the noble Lord's Amendment consists in this, that the titles "pharmaceutical chemist" and "pharmacist" are reserved to the actual chemist, but companies are at liberty to use the description "chemist and druggist" or "chemist" or "druggist." That is a minor concession to the Pharmaceutical Society to which I understand my noble friends opposite do not object. Therefore I beg to move my Amendment in that form to Clause 4.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 3, line 10, to leave out the words 'No body corporate shall' and to insert the words 'A body incorporate may'; in line 11, to leave out the word 'unless' and to insert the words 'and may use the description of chemist and druggist or of chemist or

  1099
  of druggist if'; in line 15, to leave out the words 'nor unless' and to insert the words 'and if': and in line 17, to leave out from the word 'business' to the end of the clause and to insert the words 'Subject as aforesaid, Sections 1 and 15 of the Pharmacy Act, 1868, shall apply to a body corporate in like manner as they apply to an individual.'"—(The Earl of Crewe.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  THE EARL OF CREWE: My Lords, on Clause 7—the clause relating to Ireland—I have one or two Amendments of a drafting character. These Amendments are required in order to bring this Bill into conformity with the existing Acts relating to pharmacy in Ireland.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 4, line 29, to leave out from the word 'Acts' to the end of the sub-section; in page 5, line 1, at the beginning of the subsection to insert the words 'The person appointed to conduct the business in any shop under Sub-section (1) of Section 3 or Sub-section (1) of Section 4 of this Act may be a licentiate apothecary, and'; in line 2, to leave out from '1890' to the end of the sub-section, and to insert the words 'is hereby repealed.'"—(The Earl of Crewe.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  THE EARL OF CREWE: The only remaining Amendment is in the Schedule. It was pointed out to us that the preparations of the ordinary red poppy (the English poppy) used for colouring medicine and for other purposes in chemistry are of a perfectly harmless character. They do not contain morphine, and there is no reason why they should be subjected to the restrictions to which the opium poppy (the foreign poppy) is subjected.
  Amendment moved—
  "In the Schedule, Part II., page 6, line 10, to leave out the words 'compositions prepared from' and to insert the words 'preparations of, excepting red poppy petals and syrup of red poppies (papaver rhœas).'"—(The Earl of Crewe.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Moved, "That the Bill do pass."—(The Earl of Crewe.)
  On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons

JUVENILE SMOKING BILL [H.L.]

  SECOND READING
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  LORD REAY: My Lords, this is a very modest measure designed to carry out the former part of the unanimous recommendations of the Physical Deterioration (1904) Committee The Committee recommended that a Bill should be brought before Parliament at an early date, having for its object (1) to prohibit the sale of tobacco and cigarettes to children below a certain age; (2) to prohibit the sale of tobacco and cigarettes, in sweet and other shops frequented by children.
  There is among medical men and teachers a general conviction that the evil of juvenile smoking has gained alarming dimensions, especially among small boys from ten to fourteen, years of age, and it seems to have considerably increased of late. Sir William Broadbent states that—
  "The worst mischief worked by smoking is done before the age of twenty-one. Tobacco affects the heart, nerves, and digestion most seriously in the young, and early smoking tends to establish habits of self indulgence which, with the enervating influence of the tobacco, are fatal to efficiency and strength of character."
  Sir William Broadbent would like—
  "To make smoking before the age of twenty-one a punishable offence."
  I could multiply the evidence of medical men, teachers, and employers of labour, but I will not weary your Lordships by a number of quotations. I do not think there can be any doubt about the reality of the evil. Smoking affects the eyesight and the teeth, and the prematurely aged and weary appearance of the children in one of our largest cities has been attributed to cigarette smoking.
  There is already legislation on this subject in several of our Colonies. In, Newfoundland it is forbidden to sell tobacco to children under, the age of fifteen, in New Zealand under fifteen, in New South Wales under sixteen, in Tasmania under thirteen, in Bermuda under sixteen, and in South Australia, under sixteen. As regards Canada, Ontario, and New Brunswick the age

  1101
  limit is eighteen, in Quebec, in Nova Scotia, in Prince Edward Island, in British Columbia, and in the North West Territories it is sixteen. In Cape Colony it is unlawful for a dealer to sell, supply, or give tobacco, cigars, or cigarettes to a child under the age of sixteen, except on the production of a written order signed by the parent, guardian, or employer of the young person. In Japan there is a law prohibiting persons under twenty from smoking. Parents and guardians who allow their charges to smoke are punished with a fine not exceeding 2s., and tobacco dealers who sell smoking instruments or tobacco are liable to a fine not exceeding £1.
  In the United States a large majority of the State Legislatures have passed laws against juvenile smoking. In one State the age limit is fourteen, in three it is fifteen, in a score it is sixteen, in three it is seventeen, in eight it is eighteen, and in ten it is as high as twenty-one. In thirty-five States the evil results of smoking are taught in the common schools. In the State of Pennsylvania there is a law prohibiting the sale of cigarettes to minors. There is a precedent for this legislation in regard to the consumption of spirits on the premises. The sale of spirits to a child under sixteen for consumption on the premises is prohibited by 35 and 36 Victoria, Cap. 94. This Bill is on parallel lines with the Act passed with regard to liquor. There can be no doubt that cigarette smoking is an impediment to the formation of character which, as J. S. Mill said, is "a completely fashioned will." Habit is a second nature, or as the Duke of Wellington said, "ten times of nature." This Bill will contribute to preserve the moral, mental, and physical fibre of boys. I trust that your Lordships will see your way to giving this measure a Second Reading. There is a considerable demand for this Bill, which the Home Office, after it has been read a second time, wish to be referred to a Select Committee, to which I have no objection.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(Lord Reay.)
  THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, if the noble Lord is going to insist on the Bill in its present form I shall certainly feel compelled to move its
  1102
  rejection. It is provided in this Bill that—
  "No person shall sell, give, or supply tobacco in any form to or for the use of any person under the age of sixteen years."
  In the corresponding Act dealing with the sale of spirituous liquors to children it is very properly provided that no person shall "knowingly" sell, which, of course, makes all the difference. It would be a monstrous provision without this qualification. I notice that further on in Clause 2 it is provided that—
  "The onus of proof of age shall lie on the person charged with a breach of the provisions of this Act."
  If these words are insisted upon it seems to me that it would be a monstrous and improper Bill. Otherwise, I have no objection to it.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord FITZMAURICE): My Lords, I was chairman of the Standing Committee on Law in another place when the Bill dealing with the sale of intoxicating liquors to children was considered, and I can inform the noble and learned Earl that the word "knowingly" was inserted after long discussion. I quite appreciate my noble friend not having inserted the word in the Bill himself, but, remembering as I do that ultimately it had to be inserted in the Liquor Bill, I can understand the question being raised here. But what I would submit to the noble and learned Earl is that these are really points which might be left to the Committee stage.
  EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, I hope what I have to say will quite satisfy the noble and learned Lord opposite. The Secretary of State intimated in another place that he would be glad if this matter could be referred to a Select Committee, and I have no doubt that they would there deal with the question which was raised by the noble and learned Lord. I understand that one of the reasons why this was suggested by the Secretary of State is that the form of the Bill does not altogether commend itself to the Home Office, and he was anxious that there should be further consideration. The speech of the noble Lord in moving the Second Reading contained a great deal of very interesting matter, which I hope will be placed before the Select.

  1103
  Committee. The Committee might also have information as to the effect of a similar prohibition in force in the Isle of Man. I think it would be advisable that the Select Committee should be appointed without delay, so that it could meet before the Whitsuntide adjournment and proceed after that regularly with its meetings.
  THE LORD BISHOP OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I am glad that this Bill has been introduced, but I cannot help seeing great difficulty in carrying it out owing to the wide use of what are called penny-in-the-slot machines. I do not know whether the noble Lord has considered that point. I have observed small boys obtaining cigarettes from these machines, and unless that means of supply could be stopped the consumption would not be checked.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I hope those in charge of the Bill will also remember the extreme difficulty of obtaining proof of age. We experienced that difficulty in regard to our recruits. Noble Lords will remember that it was sometimes quite impossible to prove whether a youth was eighteen or not. We were frequently told that we took a great many youths who were not eighteen, and we ended by some ingenious arrangement which enabled Army doctors to consider each individual youth and determine whether he had what was called the physical equivalents of eighteen. I cannot conceive any ingenuity that would restrict the use of such a machine as the right rev. Prelate has mentioned to a certain age.
  On Question, Bill read 2, and referred to a Select Committee.

  SCHOOL REPAIRS.
  THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLYrose to ask the Lord President of the Council whether the Board of Education could furnish a Return showing the amounts expended in repairs and improvements by each local authority since the adoption of the Education Act (1902), upon (1) Provided schools; (2) Non-provided schools, under the "wear and tear" clause; also the amounts expended by the managers of non-provided schools in
  1104
  repairs and improvements on these schools in each local authority during the same period.
  The noble Marquess said: My Lords, since I put this question to the noble Earl I have furnished him with a return from my own county giving this information. I have ascertained that it is quite easy for the local authorities to give the Return I ask for. Each educational Budget shows at the end of the year exactly what has been spent by the local authority on provided schools, and what has been given towards non-provided schools under the "wear and tear" clause. I ask for this Return because there is abroad, and I think even at the Board of Education, a very hazy notion as to the amount which has been spent since the passing of the Act of 1902 upon provided and non-provided schools. Take my own county, Huntingdonshire, as an instance. There the amount that has been expended is equivalent to more than a penny in the £ on the rates of the county. That shows what an enormous sum is already coming out of the rates for the repairs of these schools. I have seen various amounts quoted in the course of discussions, and I think we ought to have some Return showing distinctly what sum has been paid.
  THE EARL OF CREWE: My Lords, I have to thank the noble Marquess for his kindness in postponing this question until a day when I was able to be in the House. I wish I could give a more favourable reply to his questions, because as I stated the other day in reply to the most rev. Primate, we are only too pleased to give any statistics or figures which can throw light upon the question. I am sorry to say, in answer to the noble Marquess, that the Board of Education have no statistics in their possession which would enable them to give him the information he requires. As to obtaining it from the different local authorities, I am afraid that any such information we could get from them would be so incomplete as to be actually misleading and therefore valueless.
  In the first place, the noble Marquess is not accurate in saying that it is the custom generally to separate the expenditure on council and voluntary schools in the accounts of the local authorities. It is done, I know, in Huntingdonshire,

  1105
  but it is not done in a great many counties, and not by some of the most important and largest local authorities. As to the wear and tear repairs, it is a very common practice to include them in a general contract, and in a certain number of cases the repairs are carried out by the workmen in the employment of the local authority. In that case the noble Marquess will see that to provide figures distinguishing between the different kind of repairs it would be necessary to make a detailed examination of the time books of the various workmen employed, which, as your Lordships will see, would be a very troublesome business.
  Then as regards the amounts expended by the managers of non-provided schools, I am afraid that in order to find the amount it would be necessary to send a circular to every one of the 14,000 voluntary schools in the country, which would be a very expensive and tedious matter. There is a further point. A considerable number of the schools are privately owned. I daresay many of your Lordships own schools. In these cases the repairs are often executed by the estate workmen in the employ of the owner, and similarly in that case the amount would have to be taken out of the estate books, which I think is almost more than one could expect a private owner to do. I fear that, looking at the matter in all its bearings, the information which could be obtained from the local authorities would be of so thoroughly partial and incomplete a character that it would be misleading. I am afraid, therefore, I am not able to comply with the request the noble Marquess has made.
  THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, I agree with the noble Marquess that it would be of great advantage if it were possible to find out the amounts expended in repairs and improvements by the local authorities since the adoption of the Act of 1902. I sympathise with what the noble Marquess said as to the increase in the rates in most parts of the country, and it is by such inquiries as this that we can get an idea as to why the rates are so burdensome. Having occupied the position of President of the Board of Education I can recognise the difficulty of obtaining statistics from the local authorities, but the amount spent on
  1106
  repairs and improvements in provided and non-provided schools should be obtainable because the local authority is bound to keep the accounts of all the expenses of all schools within its area. But I admit the difficulty of differentiating the "wear and tear" expenses in non-provided schools, and I do not see how the Board of Education could find out the amount expended by the managers of non-provided schools on repairs and improvements. It would be very interesting to know what has been spent on these voluntary schools; but I think the only body that could supply the information would be the National Society.
  THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: I have been endeavouring, as regards schools connected with the Church of England, to obtain such statistics as are available of the sums spent from voluntary sources since 1892. The investigation is not quite so simple in all cases as the noble Marquess thinks. I do not, however, mean that it is not forthcoming, and any information we ultimately get will be entirely at the service of the House.
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: My Lords, my noble friend behind me has stated that His Majesty's Government will be most happy to give all possible information to the House in connection with the subject of education. We quite agree that it is most desirable we should do so; but the information ought to be full and not partial, or there will be a danger of all kinds of inaccurate conclusions being drawn from it. It is quite possible that the National Society may be willing to give the information, but there are many denominational schools which are not under the National Society at all. I have several schools of my own that are in connection with the Established Church because the majority of the parishioners are connected with the Established Church, but they are none of them under the National Society. The Return would, therefore, be a very imperfect one. I am afraid many private owners of schools would find it extremely difficult to make out those accounts, and I do not think they would be willing to give themselves the trouble. Do not let us have inadequate and unsatisfactory information. If we do

  1107
  we shall have all sorts of contradictory conclusions drawn from it, and it will be practically of no use at all. As to the information asked for, there is no possible chance of its being obtained in time for the discussions on the Education Bill. I therefore hope the noble Lord will not press for the Return.
  THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLY: I beg to withdraw my request for the Return.
  House adjourned at a quarter before Seven o'clock, to Friday next, half-past Ten o'clock.