Sitting of 13 July 1911

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.
PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL.
  Order for consideration of Lords Amendments read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Lords Amendments be now considered."
  Mr. MOONEY: I desire to ask whether the Government Department responsible for this Bill are entitled to put it down for consideration of the Lords Amendments in view of the fact that those Amendments are not printed and are not to be found in any part of the House. I have inquired at the Private Bill Office and the Library in this House, and they have not been received. I inquired at the Private Bill Office in the Lords, and they are not in print there either.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member can object, and the Bill will be held over.
  Mr. MOONEY: I wish to know whether it is in order to put these Amendments down for consideration when hon. Members have had no opportunity of seeing them?
  Mr. SPEAKER: This Bill, I understand, came down from the Lords last night, and when a Provisional Order Bill comes down from the Lords it is put on the Paper as a matter of course for the next day. If the hon. Member or any hon. Member is dissatisfied with these Amendments and desires that they shall not be taken now, of course, he can object, and they will go over.
  Mr. MOONEY: I do not know whether I am satisfied or not. I do not know what the Amendments are, and I have no way of finding out. What I submit is that before a Bill is set down for the consideration of Amendments hon. Members ought to have an opportunity of seeing those Amendments.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The best way is for the hon. Member to object, and then the Bill can stand over until to-morrow, and then the Amendments may be available. The hon. Member will see that I and the Clerks at the Table have no option in the matter. The Bill comes down from the House of Lords. It is sent by the Clerk of the House of Lords, and as soon as it is received it must be put down. We have no option of delaying the Bill even if we desired to delay it. It must be put down, and it appears on the Paper the next day. It is always open for hon. Members to object.
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Then I object.
  Consideration of Lords Amendments deferred until to-morrow (Friday).
  Severn Fisheries Provisional Order Bill,
  Read the third time, and passed.

  CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL.
  Reported, with Amendments, from the Local Legislation Committee (Section B); Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
  GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY BILL [Lords]
  Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

COMMONS.
Third Report from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence, brought up, and read.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

COPYRIGHT BILL.
Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee A.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed.
Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Monday next, and to be printed.

COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.
Return ordered, "Showing the number of Annual and other Reports received from (1) His Majesty's Diplomatic and

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Consular Officers; and (2) His Majesty's Trade Commissioners in the Dominions and British Possessions, which have been dealt with by the Commercial Intelligence Branch of the Board of Trade, and published or communicated to Traders during 1910."—[Mr. Sydney Buxton.]

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Pacific Sealing.
  Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether an agreement regarding Pacific sealing has been completed between the Powers concerned; and, if so, whether he will communicate its terms to the House?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey): The Convention has been signed. It will be laid before Parliament as soon as the Powers who are parties to it have agreed upon a date for its publication.

  Arrest of Miss Malecka in Russia.
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAYasked whether the right hon. Baronet had yet discovered if Miss Malecka is a British subject, and, if so, seeing that in Russia the period of preliminary investigation sometimes lasts as long as 2½ years, and seeing that this lady has already been three months in prison without trial, whether he will now take the necessary steps to get the matter dealt with and instruct the Consul-General to see that she is properly represented by counsel at her trial?
  Sir E. GREY: Miss Malecka is undoubtedly a British subject, in contemplation of English law; but whether she is a Russian subject, in contemplation of Russian law, depends on the result of certain investigations which the Russian Government have been asked to make. His Majesty's Ambassador at St. Petersburg has been instructed to represent to the Russian Government that she should not be kept in prison without trial and without furnishing particulars of the charge against her, and to urge the desirability of bringing her to a trial at which she will be allowed counsel to defend her, and at which His Majesty's Consul will be given facilities to attend, or else that she should be released and required to quit Russia.
  Mr. MORRELLasked if the right hon. Gentleman would state on what day Miss Malecka was arrested in Warsaw; whether the British Consul at Warsaw at once applied for permission to visit her; whether such permission was first granted and afterwards withdrawn; on what day the Consul was at last allowed to see her; how long the visit lasted; and whether, pending her trial or release, the Government will obtain permission both for the British Consul and her friends to have other interviews with her?
  Sir E. GREY: As regards the first point, I beg to refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply returned by the right hon. Member for the St. Rollox division of Glasgow to a question asked by him on the 11th instant on behalf of the hon. Member for North Norfolk. As regards the second point, His Majesty's Consul applied for permission to visit Miss Malecka as soon as he heard of her arrest. The answer to the third point is in the affirmative. The Consul visited Miss Malecka on the 23rd of June, but I have no precise information as to how long the visit lasted. As regards the two remaining points, I have nothing to add to the reply just returned to the hon. and gallant Member for the St. Andrews Burghs.
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: May I ask if the right hon. Gentleman will urge that the conversations between the British Consul and Miss Malecka should be carried on in English and not in German?
  Sir E. GREY: I do not know that that is very important so long as the conversations are carried on in a language which both of them thoroughly understand.
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that it is not. made a precedent in future cases?
  Sir E. GREY: If the question of nationality was decided we should insist that the conversations should be carried on in English.
  Mr. MORRELL: Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that he has received a full report of the interview from the British Consul?
  Sir E. GREY: I have received a report and I gave the substance of it on Tuesday.
  Mr. HUNT: Is the right hon. Gentleman sure that this lady knows German well?
  Sir E. GREY: The Consul in his report does not say that there was the least difficulty in communicating in German. The conversations might also have taken place in Russian or Polish. There was an interpreter present.
  Mr. MORRELL: Will further visits be allowed to this lady from her legal advisers pending her trial?
  Sir E. GREY: I can only say that I have given the purport of the representations we have made to the Russian Government on this subject, and I think my hon. Friend will find that it covers those points when he reads the answer.
  Mr. MORRELLasked whether the right hon. Gentleman has applied to the Russian Government for full particulars of the charge in respect of which Miss Malecka had now been kept for three months in solitary confinement without trial; and whether, in the event of no satisfactory particulars' being furnished to him by the Russian Government, he will press for her immediate release?
  Sir E. GREY: I beg to refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply returned to the hon. and gallant Member for the St. Andrews Burghs, showing the most recent steps which have been taken at St. Petersburg with regard to this matter.
  Mr. MORRELL: Do I understand that at present no representations have been made to the Russian Government asking for her deportation or release and that this will be asked for unless a satisfactory answer is received?
  Sir E. GREY: The hon. Member cannot have heard my answer to the hon. Member for St. Andrews Burghs. I will read the answer again. [The right hon. Gentleman repeated the answer already reported.]

  German Occupation of Agadir.
  Captain FABERasked if the right hon. Gentleman can state whether he has any official information showing that America has made any representations to Germany with regard to their occupation of Agadir, on the ground that its occupation by her would be prejudicial to the interests of the Panama Canal?
  Sir E. GREY: The answer is in the negative.

  Portuguese Republic.
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALDasked whether this country has yet given full
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  recognition to the Portuguese Republic; and, if not, will he state the reason way?
  Sir E. GREY: It would be contrary to precedent for His Majesty's Government to recognise the Portuguese Republic before a new Constitution has been definitely set up.

  Charge of Permitting Drunkenness (Kingstown).
  Mr. COTTONasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he is aware that between ten and eleven p.m. on Easter Monday a man accompanied by his wife entered the licensed premises of Mr. Thomas Cloonan, 68, Lower George's Street, Kingstown, and were both refused drink upon the ground that the man was already under the influence of drink; that they were subsequently brought back to the licensed premises by a sergeant of police, who was assured that no drink had been supplied, and that notwithstanding this assurance Mr. Cloonan was summoned for permitting drunkenness; and whether, having regard to the statement of the magistrate that the case was one which ought not to have been brought, he will cause an instruction to be issued to the police authorities instructing them to make more careful inquiries in licensing cases in future before allowing summonses to issue?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH (for Mr. Birrell): I am informed that the police found a man named Lewis, who was already under the influence of drink, and his wife on the licensed premises referred to. There was reason to believe that they had been supplied with drink. Mr. Cloonan was summoned for permitting drunkenness on his premises, and the case against him was dismissed and Lewis fined 5s. The magistrate when hearing the case did not make the statement attributed to him in the question. The police authorities were satisfied that it was a proper case to bring into court.

  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Mr. BOLANDasked what reply has been received from the owner of the F. G. Williams estate, near Mastergeehy, county Kerry, with respect to the negotiations for the purchase of the property by the Congested Districts Board?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The Congested Districts Board are in correspondence with the owner regarding this estate, and they understand that the documents necessary for a sale are being prepared for lodgment with them.
  Mr. BOLANDasked when the Estates Commissioners propose to inspect the farm of Thomas Gill, an evicted tenant, on the Orpen estate, Kilgarvan, and to make an offer of purchase to the landlord who has the holding at present in his own hands, and who is willing to sell it to the Estates Commissioners, with a view to the reinstatement of this evicted tenant?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply to his question on this subject on 6th April last. This estate is on the Principal Register of Direct Sales, and the Estates Commissioners are not in a position at present to say when it will be reached.
  Mr. FFRENCHasked whether the Estates Commissioners have been communicated with regarding the Boyd estate, at Duncormack, South Wexford, which is lying derelict; and whether any negotiations have been entered into with the owner with a view to purchase the estate and divide it amongst the labourers and persons in that neighbourhood with uneconomic holdings?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The Estates Commissioners are unable to identify this estate as the subject of proceedings for sale before them under the Land Purchase Acts, nor from the particulars given can they trace any correspondence on this subject.
  Mr. HAYDENasked whether the Estates Commissioners are in possession of about 1,000 acres of untenanted land on the St. George estate, Cam, near Athlone, county Roscommon; whether they have prepared a scheme for the redistribution of this land; whether according to this scheme the whole of this land will be divided amongst about fifteen persons; whether possession has yet been given to any of these persons; whether there is dissatisfaction in the district in connection with this scheme, especially considering that there are several occupiers of uneconomic holdings in the immediate vicinity whose names have been forwarded to the Estates Commissioners; and whether, in view of these facts, the Estates Commissioners will take local feeling into consideration in connection with their scheme or, as an alternative, transfer this land to the Congested Districts Board?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The owner of this estate has accepted the formal proposal of the Estates Commissioners to purchase 840 acres of untenanted land for the sum
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  of £5,800, but the Commissioners have not yet acquired possession of the lands. The Commissioners have approved of a scheme for the allotment of these lands, and as at present advised see no reason for altering it. They are not prepared to discuss the details of a scheme prepared in the exercise of the discretion vested in them. If the Congested Districts Board desire to purchase this estate, and the owner consents, the Estates Commissioners will place no obstacle in the way of this being done.
  Mr. HAYDEN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the statement contained in the question, that nearly 1,000 acres are to be divided amongst fifteen people, is a fact?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: I can only say 848 acres is the amount of land the owner has agreed to sell to the Estates Commissioners?

  Currigbyrne National School.
  Mr. FFRENCHasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the assistant mistress of Currigbyrne national school, South Wexford, has been notified that the salary is withdrawn in consequence of the average attendance for the quarter ending 31st March falling two below what is considered sufficient, whilst the average attendance for the year ending 31st December, 1910, was up to the requirement; and whether, as a swing of ten in the average attendance has been allowed with reference to assistant masters, he will see that a swing of at least five shall be allowed in the case of assistant mistresses, as many of them are at present losing their employment?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The Commissioners of National Education inform me that the grants to the junior assistant mistress of the school mentioned, which were withdrawn from 31st March, 1911, owing to the decline in the number of pupils in average attendance, have now been restored, as it appears from the returns for the June quarter, 1911, that the attendance has recovered, and is again sufficient for the continued recognition of the teacher in question. The restoration of the grants takes effect from 1st April, 1911, and as the teacher has continued to serve in the school no loss of salary has occurred. With regard to the last paragraph of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the question of the hon. Member for North Westmeath on this subject on 15th June.

  North Louth Election.
  Mr. AUGUSTINE ROCHEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the fact that in twenty-five cases at the recent Louth Assizes, in which persons were charged with corrupt and illegal practices at the last North Louth election, the trials were adjourned on the application of counsel for the Crown, and without any previous notice to the persons charged or their advisers; whether he is aware that one of the results of such adjournment, which was granted after considerable expense had been incurred by the accused in payments to counsel and otherwise in preparation for their defence, will be to compel them to incur all such expense afresh, though many of them are poor men; and whether, under these circumstances, he proposes to take any, and, if so, what, steps to prevent such avoidable oppression?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: I am informed that the cases referred to in which bills of indictment were found by the Grand Jury were adjourned on the application of the Crown made on the ground that a fair and impartial trial could not be had at the Assizes. Notice of the application was given at the first possible moment, namely, when the bills were found by the Grand Jury. The application was unavoidable on the part of the Crown, and the course taken was the usual and proper one. There is no foundation for the suggestion that the proceeding was either harsh or unfair.
  Mr. CLANCY: Is it not the usual practice, when an application of this kind for adjournment has to be made, to give private notice to the persons concerned for the defence, although notice cannot be formally given?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: Notice was given at the first possible moment.
  Mr. CLANCY: The hon. Gentleman has not answered the question I put to him. Under the circumstances mentioned here is it not the usual practice to give private notice to the persons concerned for the defence, and that not having been done has not an injustice been inflicted on these persons?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: Notice could not be given until Bills were found by the Grand Jury, and immediately Bills were found notice was given.
  Mr. CLANCY: The hon. Gentleman has not answered the question. Perhaps he does not understand it, and, if I am not trespassing on the time of the House, I will ask it again.
  Mr. SPEAKER: Perhaps the hon. Member will put it down. It is evident the hon. Gentleman who has undertaken to reply cannot be expected to know.

  Old Age Pensions.
  Mr. DORISasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland upon what grounds the Local Government Board (Ireland) have decided that James Farrell, of Spencer Street, Castlebar, is not entitled to an old age pension; is he aware that no record of Farrell's age can be found in the Census returns or parish registers of his native place, but that according to his Army papers he was seventy years old in 1910; can he state why the Local Government Board have impounded Farrell's Army papers, and will he direct that these documents shall be returned to Farrell forthwith?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The only evidence put forward by the claimant to show that he fulfilled the statutory condition as to age were the Army papers referred to, but the Local Government Board asked him for a baptismal certificate, which they understood could be obtained from the parish records. Farrell made no effort to obtain a certificate, choosing to rely solely upon the record of his statement to the Army authorities regarding his age made when he enlisted in 1859, which statement was presumably accepted without verification. He also mentioned two different places for his birth, and as he could not be traced in the Census Returns, and as the pension officer reported that he did not appear to be seventy years of age, the Board were not satisfied that he had attained the statutory age, and disallowed his claims. In the event of a fresh claim coming before the Board on appeal, further investigation will be made into the case. In the meantime his papers have been returned.

  Roscommon County Council (Extra Police).
  Mr. HAYDENasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he has received a resolution from the Roscommon County Council in which a claim for the removal of extra police stationed in that county has been based on the very peaceable con-

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  dition of all parts of that county; and whether, in view of this fact and of this expression of opinion from the elected representatives of the ratepayers, immediate steps will be taken to relieve the people of the liability incurred owing to the presence of extra police?
  Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The resolution referred to has been received. The police authorities hope shortly to be able to effect a substantial reduction in the number of extra police employed in the county.

  Government of India (Political Department).
  Colonel YATEasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the Secretary of State in Council has yet decided in regard to the scheme for the reorganisation of the Political Department of the Government of India; and, if so, whether that decision has been communicated to the Government of India, and when its details will be made known?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Trevelyan): Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to answer this question. The Secretary of State in Council has approved general lines of reorganisation for the Indian Political Department, and his decision has been conveyed to the Government of India, who are now engaged in working out the details. I hope that it will be possible to make these public at an early date.

  Trial of Hon. Galbraith Cole.
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALDasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to the trial at the Nakuru High Court, British East Africa, of the Honourable G. Cole for murdering a native; whether he has observed that the accused person admitted having shot the man, in spite of which the jury, after a few minutes' deliberation, returned to court with the verdict of not guilty; and whether he has received any communication from Nairobi or has made or proposes to make any representations to the British East African Government on the subject?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Colonel Seely, for Mr. Harcourt): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which the Secretary of State for the Colonies gave yesterday to the hon.
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  Member for West Leeds, stating that a report was coming from the Governor.
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: Has not the Report been actually received, and has it not been in the hands of the Colonial Office for some considerable time?
  Colonel SEELY: I do not think that can be so, according to the answer of my right hon. Friend. The answer was:—
  "The Governor of the East Africa Protectorate is sending a full report on the matter, and pending the receipt of his despatch, I think it would be premature to make any statement."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th July, 1911, col. 368.]
  That answer was only given yesterday, so it cannot have been "in the hands of the Colonial Office for some considerable time."
  Mr. ASHLEY: May I ask whether he questions the justice of the jury's decision?
  Colonel SEELY: It is not for me to say. I could not possibly answer a question of that kind.
  Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware Mr. Cole admitted he killed the man?
  Colonel SEELY: I think we had better wait for the Report.

  Trinidad Working Men's Association.
  Mr. POINTERasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has received a copy of the loyal address to the King from the Trinidad Working Men's Association, in which they pray for extended powers of self-government for the people of Trinidad; and whether he can show his appreciation of their professions of loyalty by taking the necessary steps to grant a more representative system of government?
  Colonel SEELY: The address to which my hon. Friend refers has not yet been received.

  Malta (Representative Government).
  Mr. POINTERasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that both the elected members of the Malta Executive Council and six out of the eight elected members of the Legislative Council have again resigned their seats; whether, in face of this latest evidence of the dissatisfaction of the people of Malta with their system of representative government, he will now consider the desirability of some alteration?
  Colonel SEELY: Six of the elected members of the Legislative Council of Malta (including one member of the Executive Council) have resigned. As to an alteration in the Constitution, I would refer my hon. Friend to the Secretary of State's reply to his question of the 4th instant.
  Mr. POINTER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when his right hon. Friend is going to cease replying in this stereotype manner? Is there never going to be a time when we get a satisfactory answer?
  Colonel SEELY: I saw the reply that the right hon. Gentleman gave, and I do not think there is anything to add to it.

  Governorship of Mauritius.
  Mr. STEWARTasked whether a military officer holding the rank of major has been appointed to the Governorship of Mauritius; if so, is the appointment caused by a lack of officials in the Colonial Service of sufficient character and ability to fill the appointment; and what are the emoluments attaching to the office?
  Colonel SEELY: Yes, Sir. After most careful consideration the Secretary of State for the Colonies recommended to His Majesty an officer whom he considers in all respects fitted for a very difficult and responsible post. It must be understood that a Governorship lies quite outside of the ordinary course of promotion in the Colonial Service. The salary of the office will be in future Rs.50,000, of which Rs.10,000 are to be an entertainment allowance, drawn by the officer Administering the Government in the Governor's absence from the colony.
  Mr. STEWART: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if the Colonial Office considered the disappointment that an outside appointment of this sort causes among all the senior officers in the Colonial Service who have given the best years of their lives to the Service and also the discouragement to good men from entering a Department where seniority counts for so little?
  Colonel SEELY: I will represent to my right hon. Friend what the hon. Gentleman has said. I cannot say more myself.
  Sir GILBERT PARKER: Has the Governorship any relation to the ordinary official work of the Colonial Office, or any connection whatever with the course of promotion?
  Colonel SEELY: The answer I read says, "a governorship lies quite outside the ordinary course of promotion in the Colonial Service."
  Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Mr. Clifford Lloyd—not a member of the Civil Service, but an ex-Irish Resident Magistrate—was appointed to a Governorship in the Mauritius, and hon. Members above the Gangway did not object to that.
  Mr. KING: Does the salary, as stated, represent a reduction on the former salary, and are the recommendations of the Royal Commission in regard to economy going to be carried out?
  Colonel SEELY: Speaking from recollection, I believe the salary does represent a large reduction on the previous salary, and the presumption is that that means that economies are to be effected.
  Colonel YATE: Is the statement that Governorships lie outside the scope of the Colonial Service to be accepted as a recognised dictum in future?
  Colonel SEELY: It is not outside the scope of the Colonial Service; it is within it. The words I have read out are that it lies outside the ordinary course of promotion. I think a Governorship must be so regarded.

  Portuguese Tariffs on British Goods.
  Mr. DAVID MASONasked what progress has been made by His Majesty's Government in their communication with the Government of Portugal with regard to the incidence of the Portuguese tariff on British goods, more particularly with regard to pneumatic tyres, cycles, and motorcycles of British make?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. McKinnon Wood): Communications are still proceeding between His Majesty's Government and the Portuguese Government, but no-conclusion has yet been reached.

  Bristol Post Office (Date Stamping).
  Mr. GIBBSasked the Postmaster-General what is the practice at the Bristol post office with regard to date-stamping letters received there; and whether the practice at the Bristol post office differs from that obtaining in London and elsewhere?
  The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): The back stamping of inward letters received at Bristol is sus-

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  pended from the time of the last delivery at night until after the first delivery in the morning. The arrangement is a common one.

  POST OFFICE ADMINISTRATION.

    SOUTH WESTERN DISTRICT.
    Mr. TYSON WILSONasked, in view of the delay in dealing with public correspondence at the South-Western District Office, when the promised revision will take place at that office?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The work at the South-Western District Office has been exceptionally heavy recently, owing mainly to the Coronation. The pressure was temporary, and is now abating; and no permanent addition to the staff is warranted on the ground of pressure of work.

    OVERTIME IN THE PARCELS OFFICE.
    Mr. TYSON WILSONasked, seeing that the amount of extra duty performed at the General Post Office Parcel Office during the week ending 27th May was 5,138½ hours, when the 107 men granted in the revision will be called upon to take up duty?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Steps are being taken to obtain the additional force granted under the recent revision at the Mount Pleasant Parcel Office as quickly as possible, and the men will take up duty as soon as the necessary preliminary training is completed.

    TELEPHONE RATES.
    Mr. TOUCHEasked if in June of this year the Post Office quoted a rate of £37 6s. 3d. a year on a four years' agreement to provide Colonel Le Roy-Lewis, D.S.O., with a telephone at Westbury House, near Petersfield; that in August, 1907, the National Telephone Company were willing to put a telephone into the house for an annual subscription of £12 4s., covering 900 outward calls, all inward calls being free; and why the Post Office charge should be approximately three times that of the National Telephone Company, especially in view of the expressed intention to develop the telephone convenience in agricultural districts?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The Post Office quotation given to Colonel Le Roy-Lewis was for a telephone line for his exclusive use and connected with the Peters-field exchange, which is about seven miles
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    distant from his residence, and is the nearest exchange on the Post Office system. I understand that the quotation given in 1907 by the National Telephone Company was contingent on the establishment of an exchange by the company in the immediate neighbourhood of Colonel Le Roy-Lewis's residence, and that the company abandoned the scheme owing to the absence of local support.

    LETTER DELIVERY DELAYS.
    Mr. TYSON WILSONasked the Postmaster-General if he is aware that in the East Central section, General Post Office, on Friday, 30th June, more than 20,000 letters posted for the 6 p.m. collection in the City, in addition to 40,000 letters received by the French mail, failed the final delivery in the London districts, and will he say whether this condition of affairs prevails to a lesser or greater degree every evening; whether he is aware that through insufficient staff the whole of the correspondence dealt with in this section is despatched to the head district offices, after 7.30 p.m. until 6.30 a.m., unexamined, and that recently, on examination of this class sent to the Southwestern District Office, 2,000 mis-sorted letters were found in one despatch; and, if so, what steps, if any, he intends to take to prevent this delay to public correspondence?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The inquiries which I have made show that the number of properly posted letters out of the 6 p.m. collection which failed to be included in the final delivery in the London districts on the night in question was much fewer than 20,000, and included a large number of ½d. circulars posted after 5.30 p.m. which are not entitled to delivery on the same evening. The number of letters received in the Eastern Central district office unsorted from the French mail on the 30th ultimo, according to the records, was 24,000 only. The mail arrived more than one hour late; and even so, a quarter of the letters for the Eastern Central district was delivered the same night. The day in question was the last day of the month, the quarter and the half year, at all of which periods the amount of work increases. In consequence of this, and of the heavy postings of newspapers for abroad in connection with the Coronation, the circumstances were quite abnormal. A considerable addition to the staff was, of course, made to meet the anticipated pressure. The practice of despatching

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    correspondence to the head district offices unexamined between the hours of 7.30 p.m. and 6.30 a.m. has no reference to inadequacy of staff. Very few letters are found to be mis-sorted. I am unable to find any verification for the statement that recently 2,000 mis-sorted letters were found in one such despatch.

    MEAL COOKING ALLOWANCE IN MANCHESTER.
    Mr. CLYNESasked the Postmaster-General whether he could now announce a decision upon the representations made with respect to a reduction in the payment previously made for the cooking of meals for the postal staff in Manchester; and whether payment on the old scale could be made from the time when an early reply to the claim made was promised by his Departments?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I hope shortly to be in a position to announce a decision on the whole question of the cooking of meals for the staff at night.

    REGISTRATION OF TELEPHONE CALLS.
    Mr. CRAWSHAY- WILLIAMSasked whether the registration of calls on the telephone exchanges is absolutely automatic, or whether such calls are recorded by the operators; and what guarantee subscribers have as to the correctness of the number of calls registered?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: In the large post office exchanges, where the calls are registered by means of meters connected with the subscribers' lines on central battery switch boards, no call can be registered on any line unless it is connected with another line. The registration is not entirely automatic, as it does not take place unless the operator depresses a key which controls the meter. The objection to an entirely automatic register is that it would not distinguish between calls which result in effective conversations and those which are ineffective and should therefore not be charged for. Meters of the same form as those in use by the Post Office are in general use in all the large exchanges in the United States, and the results are considered satisfactory. I am obtaining samples of a device which will register all calls automatically, but will allow the cancellation of ineffective calls, the subscriber being informed of the cancellation at the same time, and if this apparatus proves satisfactory it may be possible to allow
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    subscribers the option of having it fixed on their lines at the small extra cost involved by its use.
    Mr. CRAWSHAY-WILLIAMS: Has the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been called to a recently published statement to the effect that telephone operators are reported to be in the habit of taking revenge on subscribers by charging them for fictitious calls?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I saw the newspaper article in question in which this was asserted. I have no reason to believe it is true. I will, however, make-inquiry.

  Birkenhead Church Schools.
  Mr. SILVESTER HORNEasked the President of the Board of Education whether he has seen an appeal issued in. Birkenhead for a sum of £11,000 to be spent on the following seven schools: Holy Trinity, St. Anne's, St. Catherine's, St. James's, St. Mary's, St. Paul's, and St. Peter's; whether he has also seen the statement that the Board of Education has given assurances that if this sum is spent there will be no need for any more money to be spent for a good many years to come; will he communicate to the House the exact terms of the alleged assurance; whether he has seen the reports of His Majesty's inspectors on the structural defects of the said schools; and whether he is satisfied that the expenditure of £11,000 will completely remove all those defects?
  Mr. TREVELYAN: I have not seen the appeal referred to, but the seven schools in question require improvement. I am aware of the terms of the inspector's reports on the premises. On the 18th March, 1911, the Birkenhead branch of the Chester Diocesan Association informed the Board that they intended to raise a large sum of money and expend it upon the schools if they could be assured that the work which they should do would be regarded as permanently satisfying the requirements of the Board. The Board replied on the 31st March that while they could not, of course, pledge themselves to recognise any school for a fixed term of years, they would not approve any plans without satisfying themselves that the proposed alterations would render the premises satisfactory for a reasonable period, and that the managers would be well advised in embarking upon the expenditure which might be necessary. Until

  485
  specific proposals and plans are submitted by the managers, it will be quite impossible to judge whether their proposals are satisfactory and adequate.

  Medical Inspection of School Children.
  Mr. CROOKSasked the President whether his attention has been called to the case of the children of Mr. Hayzen, 16, Revesby Street, Walworth, who, after having attended the King and Queen Street London County Council school, are now excluded on account of the refusal of their parents to have them medically inspected under Section 13 of the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act or under The Children Act, 1908; whether the ground of the refusal of admission is reasonable within the meaning of the Code; and, if not, whether he will take steps to secure the readmission of these children?
  Mr. TREVELYAN: My attention was first called to the case by the hon. Member's question. I have made inquiries, and am informed that the children in question were excluded under Section 122 of the Children Act, 1908, because they were verminous. It appears from the information furnished to me that the children were not excluded on account of the refusal of the parents to have them medically inspected, but that the parents were informed that the children could only be re-admitted if a satisfactory medical certificate was furnished in respect of their cleanliness, or if they were found to be clean by the school nurse. On the information at present before me I do not think that any occasion for the interference of the Board has arisen, but I will make further inquiries.
  Mr. HOARE: Is there any power of prosecuting in such a case?
  Mr. TREVELYAN: I do not know.

  Manchester Education Committee's Protest.
  Mr. CLYNESasked the President of the Board of Education whether the memorandum published on 15th May by the Manchester Education Committee was sent to him; and, if so, whether he noted the protests in the memorandum and can cause any repudiation of the incorrect statements contained in the Holmes circular with regard to local inspectors and elementary school teachers.
  Mr. TREVELYAN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirma-
  486
  tive. With regard to the rest of the question I must refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 29th March to the hon. Member for the Southern Division of Salford.

  Secondary School Grants.
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTTasked the President of the Board of Education if he would state upon what grounds legal, or constitutional, provisions were introduced into the secondary school regulations of 1907, making grants conditional upon the observance of various prohibitions against denominational religion in connection with teaching, teachers, and governing body; and why under the secondary school regulations now in force no grant whatever is to be given to any new school unless it conforms to the undenominational requirements of the regulations?
  Mr. TREVELYAN: I am advised that there is no legal or constitutional objection to the provisions referred to in the first part of the hon. and learned Gentleman's question. The point raised in the second part of the question involves a matter of policy, which cannot be disposed of within the limits of question and answer.

  Declaration of London.
  Mr. HUNTasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view of the fact that Admiral Bridgeman, as commander-in-chief of the Home Fleet, is the man on whom will depend in war our defence against invasion and starvation, he will ascertain whether the Declaration of London has his full approval?
  The SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): I must refer the hon. Gentleman to the answers given by my right hon. Friend the First Lord on 6th July.
  Mr. HUNT: Why not have a Memorandum, as in the case of the Army? Is the right hon. Gentleman afraid to have these opinions published?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: A series of questions have been put regarding this Memorandum, and I must refer the hon. Member to the answers already given.
  Mr. HUNT: There has been no answer to this question?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: Yes
  Mr. HUNT: I say no.

  Development Grants for Scottish Ports.
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAYasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he can give any indication as to what decision has been arrived at by the Development Grant Commissioners with regard to the applications from the authorities of the ports of St. Andrews, Anstruther, Pittenween and St. Monans, respectively; and whether he can state when a decision is likely to be come to?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hobhouse): The applications referred to in the question have not at present reached the Development Commissioners.

  Rates on Improvements (Ireland).
  Mr. FFRENCHasked the Chancellor of Exchequer whether he is aware that an Irish farmer who improves his holding by putting up farm buildings, hay barns, etc., is liable to have his rates increased on his own improvements, even though they are paid for by money borrowed from the Board of Works; and whether, with a view to prevent a restriction of the employment of labour, he will consider the advisability of devising some other method of taxation whereby an improving tenant or occupying owner is not so heavily taxed on his own improvements?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: My right hon. Friend cannot make any statement with regard to measures for the relief of rates in anticipation of the report of the Committee now considering the subject.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL.

    COMPENSATION TO MEDICAL MEN.
    Mr. GIBBSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he would be willing to favourably consider an Amendment to the National Insurance Bill providing for the compensation of such medical men as shall be able to prove financial loss owing to the operation of the Act?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: My right hon. Friend anticipates that the operation of the National Health Insurance will cause financial gain rather than loss to medical men.

    MEDICAL AID SOCIETIES.
    Mr. POINTERasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has considered the case of the medical aid societies at work in various parts of the country, which engage, pay, and control a medical practitioner of their own, who prescribes
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    for and attends the members of the society, using the medicines and drugs purchased by the society; and whether they will be affected by the National Insurance Bill, and, if so, how, and, if adversely, what provision he intends to make to enable them to continue their work?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: A medical aid society which is prepared so to extend its operations as to administer all the benefits provided under the National Health Insurance can become an approved society. Under the proposals of the Bill a society which desires to confine its activities within the existing limits can readily make such arrangements with the approved societies through which its members are insured to enable it to continue to administer their medical benefit and to receive the funds available for that purpose out of their contributions.

    LOCAL UNREGISTERED SOCIETIES.
    Mr. CLYNESasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if a local unregistered society with a requisite membership providing sick and burial benefits can become an approved society under the National Insurance Bill; and, if so, is there any process which he can state will have to be followed by such local society?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: To qualify for approval an unregistered society would have to become registered under some Act of Parliament.

  United States Government Stock.
  Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that United States Government Two per Cent. Stock is now quoted at 100 and Consols at 79; whether he is aware that in the seventies the United States had to borrow at 5 per cent., while Consols returned 3¼ per cent.; and if he can give any reason for the change in the credit of the two countries?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: As the National banks in the United States are compelled to deposit with the Treasury Government bonds as part security for their capital, as full security for Government moneys deposited with them, and as a full equivalent for every bank note issued to them, the Government has been able to issue two per cent, bonds at par, the greater portion of such bonds being necessarily acquired for banking purposes. An issue of fifty million dollars of Panama Canal Bonds

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  Three per cent, has just been made by the Government at an average premium of 2½ per cent. These bonds have no circulation privilege but may be held as collateral security by the banks against Government deposits. For this reason, the price realised, even in the case of these bonds, is probably in excess of their value upon a purely investment basis. That the United States Government had to borrow in the 'seventies at 5 per cent, is not surprising seeing that the Civil War lasted from 1861 to 1865 and that the total Public Debt increased from £13,509,000 on the 30th June, 1860, to £577,758,000 six years later. It has now been reduced to about £200,000,000, and the improvement in public credit reflects the stronger financial position of the Government, as compared with 1866. Any comparison of the public credit of the United States with that of this country at the present time on the basis of the current market prices of the respective securities would be misleading owing to the special circumstances affecting the market for United States Bonds to which I have referred.

  Census Enumerators (Scale of Payment).
  Mr. FALLEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he was aware that a request from the Census enumerators of certain parts of Portsmouth was first forwarded to the Registrar-General, who regretted he was unable to acceds thereto in consequence of Treasury regulations, and that on the Treasury being approached the officials declined to deal with the matter but referred the applicants to the registrar; and if he would give instructions that the request of these enumerators should be attended to and considered?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: The scale of allowances was fixed by regulation made under the Census Act and approved by the Treasury. Any representations on the subject of the scale should be made to the Registrar-General, who will exercise his discretion as to dealing with them
  Mr. FALLE: May I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the statement made in the question that a request was made to the Registrar and that he referred it to the Treasury, and that the Treasury referred it back to the Registrar, and can he suggest any course which was open to these gentlemen to obtain an answer to their question?
  Mr. HOBHOUSE: As a matter of fact the question does not state what the request of these petitioners had reference to. But I made inquiries into the facts, and I understand it had reference to the scale of payment desired. The Registrar-General has got a scale laid down by the regulations which he ought to apply. If there was any reason for a departure from that scale he ought to have made application to the Treasury for leave to depart from that scale. Any application to that effect would have been considered. No application to that effect has been received.

  Vaccination Act (Exemption of Soldiers' Children).
  Mr. JOHN WARDasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether, in view of the evidence of the Secretary of State for War before a Select Committee on the Employment of the Military in Case of Disturbance, issued by the War Office, 17th December, 1908, that the King's Regulations cannot repeal the common law; that he proposed to revise the King's Regulations to make it clear that they are in accordance with the common law; and that there is no statutory authority that he knew of anywhere to alter the common law by the King's Regulations and that he thought it should be made perfectly clear that the two do remain consistent, he will say why that opinion is not made applicable to the Vaccination Act, 1907, in the case of the exempted children of His Majesty's soldiers?
  Colonel SEELY: I assume that my hon. Friend is alluding to the regulations regarding the vaccination of the families of soldiers residing in barracks. Such residence is a privilege, and in order to obtain the privilege the families must conform with the regulations which the Army medical authorities consider necessary for the protection of the troops from infection. With regard to the last part of my hon. Friend's question, there does not appear to be any infringement of the common law by the regulation in question.
  Mr. JOHN WARD: Does the right hon. Gentleman admit that there was any infringement of the Statute?
  Colonel SEELY: No, I do not admit any infringement of any law.

  Royal Visit to Edinburgh (Expenses of Volunteers).
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINEasked the Under-Secretary for War

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  whether he is aware that those units who have volunteered for duty in Edinburgh during the forthcoming visit of His Majesty, in addition to having to pay the hire of horses, pay of men, railway journey, forage and rations of both horses and men, have also been informed that they must pay the hire of camping grounds, extension of water supplies, all engineer services, including water troughs and ablution tables, but also all sanitary services, including the freight of latrine screens from Stirling, and all camp equipment, including tents and head ropes from the ordnance; and whether, seeing that the cost to regiments will be several hundreds of pounds for railway and maintenance, he can see his way to defraying the cost of freight of ordnance and engineer stores out of public funds, and their erection where necessary?
  Colonel SEELY: Inquiry is being made with a view to seeing whether anything can be done towards meeting part of the expenses referred to.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that certain commanding officers, in order to have the privilege of attending, willingly made certain bargains, and they are asked to pay these things at the end?
  Sir WALTER MENZIES: Does the right hon. Gentleman think it is desirable to provide individuals in Scotland with part of these expenses in order that His Majesty may be properly received by the loyal inhabitants?
  Colonel SEELY: The question referred to those units who volunteered of their own free will to come to Edinburgh on this occasion. It does not apply to those who were formally invited or ordered to attend. It is only those who volunteered to come.
  Captain WARING: May I ask whether in view of the fact that these regiments have already made considerable sacrifices in order to perform this duty, he cannot see his way to bear the whole of these expenses?
  Colonel SEELY: I have said inquiries are being made in order to see if anything can be done to meet part of the expenses. It would not be reasonable to bear all the expenses, nor is that asked for. Certain troops were invited, and others were ordered; but it is to those who volunteered that I am referring.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the names of the regiments outside the locality who were ordered or invited to attend?
  Colonel SEELY: No, Sir. I think the Noble Lord refers to his own regiment. It was not invited, but he was good enough to express an intention to come.
  Mr. WATT: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that the volunteers in Edinburgh get precisely the same terms as those in London?
  Colonel SEELY: Certainly; if the circumstances were the same they should be treated alike.
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of inviting representatives from all the regiments in Scotland?
  Colonel SEELY: I think it is too late to make that arrangement now; much too late.

  Coronation Medals.
  Mr. WHELERasked the Undersecretary for War whether only two Coronation medals per regiment, one for the officer in charge and one for the senior non-commissioned officer, are being issued to Territorial regiments; and whether, where Territorial regiments were represented by one of their permanent staff instructors, these instructors are to receive the medal in preference to the senior Territorial non-commissioned officer?
  Colonel SEELY: The allotment of these medals has not yet been finally settled.
  Mr. LEACH: Is it the intention of the Government to recognise the police in this way by giving them medals for their services during the Coronation?
  Mr. SPEAKER: The police do not come within the scope of the question.

VENEZUELA (EX-PRESIDENT CASTRO).
Mr. CRAWSHAY-WILLIAMS: May I ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a question, of which I have given him private notice, whether his attention has been drawn to the rumour that ex-President Castro has returned to Venezuela, and whether there is any foundation, for this rumour?
The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey): I have seen the rumour in the newspapers, but no official communication has reached me on the subject.

COURSE OF BUSINESS.
Mr. LYTTELTON: May I ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can state the business for next week?
Sir E. GREY: On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday the Committee stage of the National Insurance Bill will be continued.
On Thursday, in Committee of Supply, the Colonial Office Vote will be taken.
On Friday we shall give an opportunity for discussing the Resolution on Justices of the Peace, standing in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for the Wisbech Division (Hon. Neil Primrose).
Mr. KING: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Parliament Bill is expected back again in. this House, and if any provision is to be made for its reception here?

ALLOTTED DAYS AND PRIVATE BILLS.
Mr. BOOTH: May I draw attention to the fact that to-night there is a Private Bill down on an allotted day for Supply. May I ask whether that is the regular practice or whether it is becoming more frequent than in former years?
Mr. SPEAKER: That is a question that I cannot answer off-hand. I should be very glad to give the next three or four hours to research into the matter. It certainly is the practice towards the end of the Session. It is absolutely necessary for the Chairman of Ways and Means to put private Bills down in Government time because the Government have the whole time. Earlier in the Session, according to the Standing Order, the Chairman of Ways and Means, has to allot Bills between Government time and private Members' time as fairly as he can. After a certain date he is obliged to take Government time for that purpose.
Sir WILLIAM BYLES: As a result of that is it not the case that the time allotted to Supply may be very seriously curtailed when Bills are put down at 8.15 by the will of the Chairman of Committees?
Mr. SPEAKER: It is the will of the House that determines. The Chairman of Committees proposes and the House disposes. Ho must put it down for some time, and if he were to put it down on a day on which the Committee stage of the National Insurance Bill was being taken there would be a loud outcry from hon. Members interested in that. Whatever time he puts it down there is sure to be objection.
Mr. KING: May I point out that a large number of hon. Members wish to speak to-night on the education question, and will probably wish to make long speeches. If one or two early in the evening are allowed to make long speeches no one else gets in at all.
Mr. SPEAKER: Perhaps the effect of putting the Bill down will be to shorten speeches.
Mr. PICKERSGILL: In reference to your observation that the matter is in the control of the House, would it be competent for any hon. Member, when the private Bill is called on, to move that the discussion be adjourned?
Mr. SPEAKER: Certainly, and then, there would be a long discussion on the adjournment, which would probably be negatived, and then the discussion upon the Bill would commence, so probably it would not shorten matters in the end.
Mr. PICKERSGILL: Then the matter is not under the control of the House.
Mr. SPEAKER: What I meant was that the time which the House chooses to occupy on the discussion of the private Bill is a matter entirely in the control of the House. If hon. Members wish to get on with the Education Estimates they can shorten their speeches on the private Bill.

BILL PRESENTED.
  VEHICULAR TRAFFIC REGULATION OF SPEED (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  "To deal with vehicular traffic and regulation of speed in Scotland," presented by Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON; supported by Mr. Cathcart Wason and Sir George Younger; to be read a second time upon Friday, 21st July, and to be printed.

SUPPLY.— [16th Allotted Day.]
Considered in Committee.
(IN THE COMMITTEE.)
[Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

SUPPLY.— [16th Allotted Day.]
  CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1911–12.

    BOARD OF EDUCATION (CLASS 4).
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £9,125,442, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March, 1912, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Board of Education, and of the various Establishments connected therewith, including sundry Grants in Aid." [Note.—£5,250,000 has been voted on account.]
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Runciman): I regret that discussion on the Education Estimates should be in any way unduly curtailed, but as the Committee was good enough last year to say that they approved of a full statement being made with regard to the work of the Board of Education throughout the preceding twelve months I propose to-day once more to take a review of the whole field of activity covered by the Board of Education. I wish to disclose first of all one or two satisfactory episodes in the past year's administration which have been of interest not only to England but to the Dominions and the Crown Colonies as well. The Imperial Education Conference which met here in the spring of this year had representatives present from the Crown Colonies and from the Dominions and from all the education offices of the United Kingdom. The topics which were there discussed led to a unanimous decision in every case. Arrangements were made for continuing the work of the Department of Special Enquiries, which is now performing the duties of an Imperial bureau, and the Conference before it dissolved, expressed a wish that four years hence the Imperial Government should once more summon them to discuss Imperial education matters. An advisory committee is to be set up in London on which there will be representatives of the Dominions and of the India and Colonial Offices and the Board of Education for the discussion of these educational topics between the meetings of the Imperial Education Conference, which in future, I trust,
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    will be held every four years. Two conferences are to be held next year of an international nature in London. I refer first of all to the fifth International Congress on Mathematics, for which the Board is making special preparation; and secondly to the Conference of the Universities of the Empire, which has been, summoned by the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and London. It will be attended by the representatives of every one of the Universities in the British Empire.
    The museum work of the Board of Education, although not controversial, has been of profound interest throughout the whole of the last twelve months, and the attendance of the public at such museums as the Victoria and Albert Museum has been greater than even the most sanguine supporters of that museum could have anticipated. Now, in twelve months, nearly a million persons passed through the turnstiles of the Victoria and Albert Museum. But the work which is done there is not restricted to London alone, and the circulation of objects for exhibition has gone on continuously throughout the year. Something like 23,000 objects are continuously in circulation amongst provincial museums. No fewer than eighty-seven provincial museums benefit by this arrangement, and wherever we have made loans we have made them under conditions which are not likely to jeopardise the safety of the objects which are sent out. The loans which are made in England, I think, are safe from loss by fire and theft by the guarantees given us by the local authorities. When, however, requests are made for loans of these objects for international exhibitions abroad I have laid down the rule that in future no original object shall leave London for the purpose and that we shall send out only replicas. For instance, in silver and gold, I intend in future to have nothing sent out except electrotype reproductions. To an ordinary visitor in an international exhibition it looks exactly like the original, which remains in London. If I had not made that arrangement, something like a year ago, we should have lost the whole of a very valuable exhibit which was at the Brussels Exhibition when the fire broke out. As it is, the only things that we lost were two tapestries which we had provisionally purchased and for which we had not paid and a number of these electrotype reproductions which we replaced within a fortnight, and so set up once more in Brussels the com-

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    plete exhibit as it had been before the fire broke out. In the Indian Museum we have re-arranged and re-housed almost the whole collection. The new galleries are open now and anyone who cares to go down there will find that the extra accommodation which we have given will lead him to believe that we have almost doubled the number of articles there on exhibition, but this is not so. All that we have done is to set them out in better form and in better cases, with greater space between them than they ever had before. But I regret that up to the present we have not been able to gather together the whole of the Indian collections to be found in the museums of London.
    During the past year the most important event in the museums has been the opening of the Salting collection. I reminded the House last year of the generosity of Mr. George Salting over a very considerable period. When he died he left to the Victoria and Albert Museum the whole of his exhibition of pottery, all his miniatures and a great collection of his prints, and they are now housed in two galleries and something like six rooms and form one of the most beautiful collections of ceramics to be found anywhere in the world. The first visitors to this collection when it was thrown open were the King and Queen, and since then a continuous stream of visitors has passed through the rooms of this valuable collection. The next most important bequest of the year was that of Captain Murray, who not only gave us the whole of his collection, but also added to it a sum of £50,000, the income of which is to be devoted from year to year to strengthening the collection. I have decided that that annual income shall be devoted to increasing our collection of objects of the German renaissance. We have already set out Captain's Murray's collection in such a form that I trust, in the course of the next fortnight or three weeks, the public will be able to see how beautiful are the things which have been bequeathed to the nation.
    As to the science museum the Committee know that there has been a controversy over the site. The British Museum trustees felt aggrieved that there was a re-arrangement of sites proposed by the Government. I have no regret at any controversy on this subject, since the first announcement was made in regard to the site of the science museum. I entered into close negotiations with the trustees
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    of the British Museum, and we have now arrived at an agreement which will give us the land we require for the science museum, and will enable them on the British Museum site to arrange their objects to the best advantage to themselves. It will not interfere with the arrangements of the natural history museum, and we shall have at South Kensington a group of museums which will be the envy of every European nation. I turn from that to the higher technical work which is under the control of the Board. I regret to say that from all I learn of the work done in the provinces and of the work done on the Continent I have to confess that it is in the field of higher technological forces that we have most leeway to make up. It is true that in many directions large sums of money are being devoted to the endowment of technological chairs. I have to report that there are technological chairs in almost every modern university. Great bequests have been made during the past year. The University of Liverpool has recently founded a professorship of naval architecture largely owing to the generosity of Mr. Elder. They have also created a department for the study of the problems of town planning—a new and rather interesting department. There are at the present time at least two departments in modern universities for the study of aeronautics, one of them being at the Imperial College. A professorship has been founded at Leeds for the study of the gas, coal, and fuel industries. It was founded by one of the-great industrial organisations. In the same university instruction is being provided in woolcombing and cotton-spinning, for which no less than a sum of £50,000 has been given by the Clothworkers Company, of London, making, I believe, the school at Leeds one of the most valuable technical schools in Europe. A sum of £35,000 has been provided for mechanical engineering chairs in the North of England, and in three universities no less than £30,000, £50,000, and £70,000 respectively have been provided for the promotion of chemical science, in which, I regret to say, England does not hold the first place. In London £60,000 has been set apart towards the £100,000 needed for a university department for the training of women in the science of the household. Great progress has been made, I am glad to think, in the departments of metallurgy and chemistry in the North, and among the sciences at the Imperial College great improvements have been made during the

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    past twelve months. I believe that now the leaders of the great industries are well alive to the fact that, in the development of higher technological work lies much of the hope of their future success. I need not mention agriculture further than to state that two agricultural colleges have been linked up with modern universities. When one records all that there is still left the feeling that in England there is not full appreciation of higher technological work, and when we make comparison of the number of students at German universities with the number at English universities I find that the comparison is all to the advantage of Germany and not to our credit. In the eleven modern universities of England at the present time full-time students number 9,655, and if you add 7,000 at Oxford and Cambridge of under and post-graduates, you arrive at a total for England and Wales of 16,655 students. This sounds like a large number, but when, you remember that Germany has 63,000 students at similar institutions we may well say that we have a long journey before us.
    The most important departure which has been made in the administrative work of modern universities is to be found in the change in the machinery for the distribution of the Treasury Grant. For a long period the Treasury Grants, given boldly in large sums to be spent largely at the discretion of the modern universities, were allocated on the advice of a committee set up by the Treasury. The Treasury have no other educational work to do, and there was unfortunately a certain amount of overlapping, because the technological work came under the Board of Education. It was felt that a change in the administration in these matters, and I think also the simplification of the regulations under which modern universities work was of the first importance if we were to avoid a great deal of wastage and overlapping in the universities themselves. With that object the Government decided to transfer the distribution of this Exchequer Grant to the Board of Education, and now practically the only Department modern universities have to deal with is that Board. I am glad to think that this meets with the approval of the modern universities, and in the many conferences I have had they have shown the desire to do their best to work together with us for a common end, namely, the extension of the work and the further efficiency of the
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    work falling under their guidance and control. I cannot pretend that the Board of Education at the present time is sufficiently equipped to do the whole of the work undertaken by the advisory committee appointed by the Treasury, and I have therefore set up a small Advisory Committee to deal with the distribution of these Grants. I am glad to say that I have secured as chairman of that committee Sir W. S. McCormick, LL.D., who is well known for his services under the Carnegie bequest, and who was one of the most active members of the Treasury Committee. Associated with him are Sir J. A. Ewing, K.C.B., F.R.S.; Sir William Osier, M.D., F.R.S.; Miss Emily Penrose; Sir Walter Raleigh; Sir John Rhys, and Sir Arthur Rücker. They are a small, and I think I may add, a very distinguished committee. They have already started their meetings and amongst the first arrangements which have been made is that the Hartley College at Southampton, which is struggling to exist as a University College, has been given Grants for a further year, in which time they may be able to accumulate a fund to enable them to continue University College work.
    I now turn to one of the great Departments of the Board's work—that concerned with secondary education. There has been no more remarkable growth in the educational work of the past few years than the increase in secondary schools. At the present time there come under the purview of the Board of Education no less than 1,060 secondary schools. It is true that about ninety of these receive no Grants. The whole of the rest receive large Grants from the State. The amount which I have to ask the Committee to place at our disposal for the year 1911–12 has risen from £647,000 three years ago to £777,000 for the current year, but as this covers no fewer than 162,000 scholars, a little over half of whom are boys, I hope that the Committee will agree that we are not aiding secondary education extravagantly. One fault, I regret to say, we still have to find with the secondary schools all over the country, is that the children come in too late and go out too early. The objection that is taken by all educationalists is that the full benefits of the secondary school cannot be given to the child who is not there for a term of years, but the local authorities are well alive to this fault, and they are, by means of undertakings signed by the parents of the children, and by means of scholarships, doing what they can to induce

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    parents to keep the children at school for a longer period in these secondary schools. One of the requirements of England is that the secondary school system should be flexible.
    We have done everything we could to make the local needs of a district one of the deciding factors in the curriculum which is sanctioned for a secondary school. I believe that we have not left out of sight the specialised work that ought to be done with greater success in secondary schools than in any other. With that object we have worked in close harmony with some of the great educational associations. At this stage I will mention only two, the Classical Association and the English Association. The English Association in particular has given us most valuable aid in the compilation of a circular on the teaching of English, which I am glad to say has met with praise from every quarter in the United Kingdom. That a practical bent should be given to these secondary schools is all to the good. This is particularly necessary in rural areas. I am glad to be able to report that nearly forty secondary schools now give a distinctly rural bias to their education. One of the best rural schools, that I should like to mention, is the county school for the West Riding which the county council has established in Knaresborough, which is now largely attended by the children of the farming classes, though it is not restricted to farmers only, and will I trust have a considerable influence on agricultural success in the West Riding in years to come.
    Then aid has been given outside the ordinary purview of the Grants in the exchange of teachers with English schools abroad, an exchange which has been counterbalanced by the visits of foreign teachers to the United Kingdom, and we have also been able, through the generosity of the Gilchrist Trustees, to give a small Grant to a selected number of teachers for what are known as observation visits, the object of that being to give those teachers an opportunity of studying the best work which is being done in their special subjects in other schools in England and Wales. I look forward to greater efficiency being attained with regard to the staff as well as with regard to the children. The first and most startling fact with regard to the staff in secondary schools is the extremely small salaries which are paid to the assistant masters and mistresses. They are out of all comparison not only with the salaries paid in Ger-
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    many, but I would add, and I hope not at all unkindly to the head masters, out of all comparison with the incomes of the head masters. I cannot believe that we have by any means solved or even approached the solution of what has now become a very serious problem. Every effort ought to be made by all those who are interested in secondary schools to improve the position and the dignity of the teachers in secondary schools.
    In particular we have been doing what we could to secure for head masters and head mistresses adequate powers and responsibilities, and one thing which I believe to be of considerable value to them we have attained, with regard to a new arrangement which has received the sanction of the Board during the past twelve months, which is to give access by the head masters and head mistresses to the governing body. Even now I am sorry to say there are far too few of the teachers in secondary schools who have, had anything in the nature of training. I have had for the time being to suspend one of the requirements in the regulations which makes that a condition of service. One of my hon. Friends, I think the hon. Member for Sunderland, has frequently asked me questions with regard to the employment of elementary teachers or those who have been trained specially for elementary work in secondary schools. I find that there is a considerable number of elementary teachers, or those who have been trained in elementary colleges, who are now working in secondary schools. There is a large amount of work which they can do well in those secondary schools. At the same time they must realise that there is also a considerable amount of work for which they have not been equipped. I have in no case allowed the masters who have received an elementary training to be barred from service in these secondary schools as my hon. Friend thought. I have asked him for any instances which have come to his knowledge of that having been done. He has not yet brought to my notice any particular case. If I come across any I shall be quite glad to take action in the matter. But it must be clearly understood that in the secondary schools you require teachers of all kinds and it is absurd to exclude teachers of any kind.
    Another matter in which my hon. Friend has been interested is that he thinks the governors of the secondary schools are not in touch with the local education authorities. I do not know what are his grounds

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    for thinking so but I find that the governors of the secondary schools provided or controlled by local education authorities are made up as follows. In six of these schools the Education Committee is the governing body. In forty-four the Higher Education Committee is the governing body, and in all the remainder the governing body is a subcommittee of the council themselves. I am glad to find that although these men are fully engaged in the local government work which covers so many things nowadays, the sub-committees of the councils have been giving throughout the past year a larger and larger amount of time and personal interest to the welfare of the schools. It is necessary, of course, that you should have on these governing bodies men who can spend time over the schools if they are to do their work well, indeed if they are to be able to understand the problems which are brought before them from time to time. But the best way of governing these schools is undoubtedly by means of the local education authority. They ought to be democratic, if democracy does its duty. That is my experience of the governing bodies of those schools to which I have referred. They are either a sub-committee of the council or the higher education committee of the council or the education committee itself. If there is any fault to be found with those governing bodies that lies at the door of the education committee only in so far as they are not all elected.
    4.0 P.M.
    The number of children who are able to take advantage of the education in the secondary schools has greatly increased. I think the Committee may be interested in knowing when we give large Grants to these secondary schools that children of every class, those of the poorest as well as those of the richest parents, are able to take advantage of the education given in those schools. I am pleased to report so far as the free list is concerned, that there is no charge whatever made on the child for attending the secondary school. The only sacrifice asked from the parent is that he shall put off for a year or two sharing the earnings of that child. It is sometimes a considerable sacrifice, but it is the only sacrifice asked of them. But these numbers have gone up during the last twelve months to a considerable degree. I find that out of 162,000 in England and Wales, no less than 51,000 in these secondary schools are in free places; that is to say,
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    whereas we provide in the regulations for 25 per cent, of the places in the secondary schools being free places, the schools are actually giving over 30 per cent. I find, moreover, that in addition to these there is a very large number of children who previously attended elementary schools. I can imagine no misfortune greater to secondary schools than that they should be in a water-tight compartment, with no passage from elementary schools into the secondary schools. At the beginning of the present year there were no less than 85,000 children in England and 12,000 children in Wales in the secondary schools who had previously been elementary school scholars. It is suggested that in pressing for the entry of these children at an early age we are doing what we can to compete with elementary schools to their disadvantage, and to help the secondary schools at the expense of the elementary schools. I hope that no Member of the House or parents outside will believe that. I want to see the elementary school scholars come in at an early age. [An HON. MEMBER: "What age?"] The general educational opinion is that they should come in about the age of nine or ten. There would be no cost to themselves if the parent was prepared to make the sacrifice of time. I think it is all to the good that they should pass into these schools as early as possible. If you take the whole of the children in the secondary schools in England who come under our purview nearly 60 per cent, are children who have been in the elementary schools. In Wales, the number is still more remarkable, over 83 per cent, of these children being children who have previously been in the elementary schools. I think when it is suggested that we attempt to cut them off in watertight compartments the House will realise that the ideal on which we work is not to confine the benefits of education to any one class, 'but, in these schools in particular, to unite all classes in a single organism. I only wish it could be done in the elementary schools here as well as it is done in America. The important thing is that in allowing these children to come into the school free places no difference should be made between them and the fee payers.
    There should be no differential entrance test; there should be no condition as to the continuance of the child in the school, there should be no undertaking to stay in the school, imposed on the free placer which is not equally imposed on the fee payer. Pressure is brought to bear

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    on me from many quarters to reduce the number of free places, and I hope to have the support of the Committee in the refusal I have made, so far, to reduce the number in practically any of the schools that have made complaint. Of course, there are some cases where the secondary schools could not fill up free places normally. There are some cases where financial reasons forbid their giving the full 25 per cent, of free places. Where there are cases of that kind—I have gone into every one of them—I am satisfied no harm is done to those who wish to take advantage of the education there, without cost to themselves. I am glad to say we have so far resisted the claim made for a general reduction of the 25 per cent, requirement. Another great development of the Board's work on the secondary side has been the very remarkable increase in the number of full inspections made in secondary schools. The staff at the disposal of the Board allows for about 200 of these inspections to be made every year. They are made by some of the best-known scholars in England—men of great renown in the Universities—and the whole of the inspectors who take part in these inspections have themselves had teaching experience. The inspections of the Board of Education have not always been popular; yet, curiously enough, in the last twelve months we have been invited by some of the great public schools to send down our inspectors for full inspection. We have already, at the invitation of their governing bodies, inspected Clifton, Dulwich, Repton, Sherborne, and King's School, Canterbury, amongst boys' schools; and amongst girls', Wickham Abbey and the Godolphin School at Salisbury. The most remarkable is the invitation we received from Harrow, and a full inspection is now proceeding at Harrow. Who would have thought a few years ago that the Board of Education would ever be asked to invade such sacred precincts? The secondary schools are used not only by those who wish to go into the professions and into the higher branches of industrial work and by those who can spare the time for the higher education of their children, but also, very largely, in the early stages of the training of teachers.
    I would turn the attention of the Committee for a few moments to the output of trained and untrained certificated teachers, who now nearly all take their training at the secondary schools or in the pupil teachers' centres. I do not know
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    whether the Committee is aware of the fact or not, but the average output of trained and untrained certificated teachers remains fairly constant in spite of the growth of the population and in spite also of the smaller classes, which created an increased demand for trained and untrained certificated teachers. On an average about 7,000 teachers are certificated each year. The number was fairly large in 1910; it was 7,500. It has fallen during the past twelve months to 7,400, and, as far as J can see, it will remain at about that figure in the coming year. I may be asked, therefore, "On what grounds do you maintain the figure at this large total?" I do it for two reasons. One is that I find in many parts of the country a shortage in the supply of teachers. Another reason is that I cannot press the local authorities to have smaller classes, and penalise them if they have uncertificated teachers, unless the supply of certificated teachers is kept up. What I wish to see is not a diminution but an increase in the number of certificated teachers. I want to see an increase of employment in every part of the country. We have heard a good deal about the over-supply of teachers. There is over-supply; there is also a shortage, and this is by no means a paradox. The over-supply is to a large extent temporary, that is to say it is greatest at the beginning of the school year, and is largely local. I have given the greatest possible amount of attention to this subject in the last twelve months, and the conclusion I have come to is that the main over-supply is to be found in London and Cardiff alone. In London far more teachers are turned out than are necessary for the requirements of the area. There is also this awkward fact, that teachers who are trained in London, and who live in London do not wish to be employed elsewhere; they want to remain near their homes, so that it happens in London there is a large over-supply of teachers. The same holds good, of course to a much smaller extent, in Cardiff. I do not know whether the Committee is aware of the fact that in many areas the authorities are calling out for more and more teachers.
    I have recently been asked by the following local authorities to give them some assistance in increasing the supply of teachers, and mark how varied are the areas: The Lindsey Division of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire, Devon, Northampton, Huntingdonshire, Preston, and Rhondda. There

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    may be local reasons for teachers not wishing to go to Rhondda; but the fact remains that Rhondda, one of the largest industrial centres in the country, has been unable to obtain teachers.
    Sir GEORGE WHITE: Is the right hon. Gentleman speaking of trained teachers?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am speaking of all classes of teachers; I will differentiate later. I also hear that there is great scarcity in Gloucestershire, East Suffolk, and Leicestershire. As my hon. Friend suggests by his interruption, this is not to be found entirely in the class of trained teachers, although some of the authorities find it difficult even to get trained teachers. Only to-day I hear from the county of Durham that seven of their vacancies have been filled with great difficulty after a long interval; nine of their vacancies have been filled by the promotion of uncertificated teachers who passed the acting-teachers' examination; seven of the vacancies were filled prospectively by teachers who are now still at training colleges and will not be available till August. There were fifteen vacancies in which the credentials of the applicants were not satisfactory, and ten vacancies for which no applications had been received at all. That is in Durham, and these vacancies are for certificated teachers. In Norfolk I believe the case is mainly one of uncertificated teachers. There the schools are smaller than in Durham, and it is impossible to expect a county area to staff its small schools with such highly trained teachers as a county borough can afford to employ. But Norfolk has been attempting to fill up the supply by the employment of more certificated teachers, and the improvement in that county is well worthy of mention.
    In Nottinghamshire they are now engaging young teachers still in. training colleges, who will pass their examinations in July, and the Director of Education writes that he has received no applications for employment from last year's crop of certificated teachers. So far as this area is concerned, no trained teachers of last year's crop are available. With that before me, I cannot take upon myself to reduce the output of trained certificated teachers, nor to reduce the output of certificated teachers, but I think something ought to be done to meet
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    the London case. I propose, therefore, as the London County Council has been good enough to initiate the proposal, to push the change a little further than they. They proposed to reduce the annual output of the training college places in London provided by the council from 910 to 760. I have suggested to them that permanent buildings would be approved by us for an annual output of 635, but that there might be a continuance of the temporary provision for 760. That will help in London. I hope it will do some good in the reduction of the over-supply in London, but it will not meet the whole case, for there is trouble arising every year so long as all teachers come out of training colleges on the same date. If they are all to come into the schools at once, the schools are going to be short of teachers before the year is out. If the schools are not going to be short of teachers before the year is out, there must of necessity be a number of these young teachers out of work at the beginning of the year, after finishing their training college course. I have been endeavouring to find out how far a double date for leaving training colleges is possible, and some have replied that a double date for leaving would disorganise the college and add greatly to the expense of running it. Indeed, I cannot give a single instance of a training college that is prepared to say that they would willingly have a double date for leaving, because of the very great disturbance it would cause. But that does not shut the door to the possibility of particular colleges turning out their schools not in July but in December.
    If we were to make a change with the existing colleges I am informed that the principals might regard those colleges which were put in the December category as having been selected, or in some way not being up to the standard of those who emptied their rooms in. July. But there are colleges coming along for sanction, and there are some in the London area. I would suggest to the local authorities, and to those representatives of the local authorities who are in this House, that it might be a good plan for them to consider how far the new colleges should be started on the basis of taking in their young men and young women in order that they may enter the teaching profession at Christmas instead of in the autumn. I believe some steps could be taken in that direction by London, and that it might be possible for some of the North Country or provincial

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    colleges to make this change. I do not desire to do this without having the full concurrence of those who are in close association with the training colleges. I trust that that will be given, for I believe they are just as much alive as this Committee is to the hardships which occur by all the teachers from the training colleges being thrown on to the market in July instead of being spread out better over the succeeding twelve months. I ought to add, in conclusion of that topic, that the trouble does not start only with the training colleges, but that it also begins far back in the schools. As the Committee well knows, the work which is undertaken in those schools nearly always starts in the autumn, as the school year starts then, and it will mean a considerable disturbance of secondary school work if it is to start in future in January and not in August in any secondary schools which have already the August system of starting the school year.
    I turn from that topic to that of training colleges as a whole, and on them I will only make two or three remarks. One is to draw the attention of the Committee to the enormous increase in the number of undenominational places which are now at the disposal of those who do not wish to go into training colleges where there is a denominational test. The increase in denominational places during the last five years has been 300, and the increase in the number of undenominational places has been 3,000. There is still in operation a regulation which provides that 50 per cent. of the places of the denominational training colleges which receive nearly nine-tenths of their upkeep from the State should be thrown open to boys and girls irrespective of denomination, irrespective of creed. I do not think this has worked hardly on the training colleges concerned, and their representatives who have recently seen me tell me that at present they believe no harm has been done by Nonconformists invading the colleges, and I do not believe any harm will be done in the future. A new type of training college is springing up in the country, and I am not at all sure that we are proceeding in the right direction in fostering so many training colleges which are restricted to their localities, and which will in course of time lead to the inbreeding of teachers. Some of the best authorities declare that they could not get teachers by any other means, and I believe they are correct in saying that. But if every county is going to set
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    up training colleges for its own children who are going to pass into the local schools, and who never get out of their own area, it is quite clear the width of their view must be very much circumscribed. However the authorities of those local training colleges are quite well aware of the risk which they run in this direction, and I believe they will take every means in their power to prevent the over-localising of the view of those who are in their colleges, and I trust they will see to it that the teachers and the masters and mistresses of their colleges will be chosen from a much larger area than that over which they have administrative rights. One of the best of the new colleges is the Cheshire County Training College. I would like to point out how excellently they are doing the work, how admirably they have varied the curriculum, and how wide an experience they are giving to the students in every direction.
    In future I look forward to a large extension not of training colleges of this type, but of training colleges which are in direct association with the modern universities. I hope to see, in course of time, every modern university with a very large training department. If that is to be the-case, however, there must be halls of residence, for, let the Committee remember, that there are far more women in the teaching profession than men, and everyone who knows anything about those young people will know that it is very much better, if they cannot live at home, that they should not live in lodgings. Those homes of residence are springing up in some parts of the country already. There is one in Birmingham and more than one in Manchester. We have given some slight assistance, financial assistance, to-the building of those halls of residence in. so far as they will serve teachers for the training they are directly interested in. This residential provision, for women in particular, is most urgent. Those young students, not only live sometimes under circumstances of considerable difficulties, but up to the present they have all suffered from one serious drawback. Their ambitions—and I say it not at all unkindly—are too great, and they have endeavoured to cram into the three years they spend in the training department of the modern university, not only the whole university work done by the ordinary graduate, but the training work which is required for the teaching profession. I have been informed from universities where they had training departments that

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    this has led to overstrain, and especially overstrain amongst women. They have been stale before they entered into the schools; they have been tired, and in many cases the physique has suffered. I think every credit is due to them that they have made such great efforts to combine university work and training work, but I hope this will not go on.
    After many conferences with the heads of modern universities, I came to the conclusion that the only way in which we could give those students a fair chance was to turn their three years' course, which they spend there, into a course purely for university work, and to postpone training work until the fourth year, and the maintenance and payment of fees which we gave during the three years we now extend to four years. This will add a burden on the amount which we spend on the training of teachers, but I believe it will be amongst the best money that goes out of the Board of Education. There is only one risk we run, and that is that those young people may not be able to stay the fourth year for this purpose. We can only find that out by experiment. I am assured by the university authorities that they will be prepared to spend the fourth year. I hope by the maintenance Grants which we have given them, and in some cases I hear that the county councils are prepared to supplement those maintenance Grants, that we shall enable even the poorest child coming from the meanest of the elementary schools to go to the secondary school and to the university, and finally come to the teaching with a good university degree behind him. This is a change which has met with the approval of all the modern universities which are entering on a new work with enthusiasm.
    I stated that I thought that the child ought to have a chance of proceeding from the lower school to the top of the highest university and entering the teaching profession. I go further and I say this for the satisfaction of my friends, especially those who have been speaking in the country recently, that I believe this really ought to apply not only to the teaching profession but to all grades of the Civil Service, and to all grades of the teaching profession itself, and I will add to the inspectorial staff as well. I have been attacked for not having done this in the past. Have I not done it in the past? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] If I understand the cheers of
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    hon. Gentlemen opposite they would suggest that I have only recently come to this view as a result of public agitation—is that their view? I take it that it is their view. They are absolutely mistaken. They do not say so. I have done this during the whole of the three years I have been at the Board of Education. I take first of all the inspectors who serve under the Board. I am alone responsible for their selection. There are hundreds of applicants, some of them come with all sorts of influence behind them, and influence not restricted to gentlemen outside of this House. I have for vacancies which number about seven or eight in the course of the year now on the list something like 700 applicants from all sorts of schools and all sorts of universities and every district of England and Wales. I take the greatest care myself to see that those are sorted out. I have never entrusted the selection of inspectors to any member of my staff, for I believed it was a matter of the highest importance, and I was not prepared to depute that responsibility to any one. I have scrutinised their record I have taken care to find out in the country from many directions what could be found out about their personality and their skill, and in every case of any staff inspector appointed I have had long and searching personal interviews. I need hardly say there has been nothing in the way of jobbery in the appointment of inspectors. That is not the charge which is made by those who do not know what the Board have done during the three years.
    The one desire I had from the very first was to get for the inspectorate the very best men for the job. You may say how do you choose the best? I choose him in this way. I want a man of wide experience. I want a man of some knowledge of local administration and of the schools in which he will have to work. I prefer a man who has taught. As far as possible they should be men who are specialists in some branches of the work, and should have on some occasion done excellent work and original work in the schools. I wish that original work to be spread over the whole of England and Wales. I will point out, therefore, that, in selecting the best, I cannot afford, if I am to consider the interests of the children in the schools, to restrict the inspectorate to any one class or to any one profession or to any section of any one profession. [An HON. MEMBER: "Or to any one university."] Or to any one university, or to any two universities,

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    or to any one school, or, I will add finally, to any one social class. Nor can I allow the inspectors, once they are selected, to be placed or to be used according to their own convenience. Let me give the House some samples of the kind of men whom I have been obtaining for the service of the Board during the past three years. I will not weary the Committee with many of them. I take some fair samples, and I hope the Committee will take it that they are fair samples, and not the only men of this class. [An HON. MEMBER: "Are they junior inspectors?"] Yes, junior inspectors. I think it is on the subject of the category of junior inspectors the suggestion has been made at meetings all over the country that the promotion and selection was closed against men of humble origin who had themselves been teachers in elementary schools. That is really the case which has been made in the country. [An HON. MEMBER: "NO."] It is one of the cases which everybody knows. I want to meet that—I want the Committee to be satisfied that before this agitation was promoted I had already done the very thing many of those estimable gentlemen had been saying I ought to have done.
    I take the first example, that of a junior inspector in the North of England. He started life in the London County Council School at Brixton. As far as I know there is no taint of the upper social classes about Brixton, though I do not want to say anything that any Member for Brixton may resent.
    Mr. KING: Did he start since 1902?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: It is the same thing. I am using the ordinary nomenclature of the day. If it was before 1902 he was in the Brixton board school. He went from there to a pupil teachers' centre, then to Southampton Row Training College; he took first-class honours in English at London University; he was a scholar of the University, George Smith prizeman, and so on. But he went to Oxford, and to Balliol, where he got a first-class in History, a very creditable performance for a board school boy. He took prizes there, amongst them several at Balliol, and he had other qualifications. When that man came on my list of applicants I saw his record, and I said, "There is a man with the widest possible experience, who has shown by his own achievements that he is a man of character, and, as far as I know, he has knowledge of the very atmosphere in which I wish him to work." After hearing all I could about his work in the
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    various places where he had been, I came to the conclusion that he was worth seeing. I saw him, and as a result of careful scrutiny and further enquiries I appointed him.
    Let me take another. He was at the Longfleet School, at Poole. He passed from there to the Borough Road Training College. I have been directly or indirectly connected with the Borough Road Training College for many years, and as far as I know there is no social taint about it. He also got a London degree and an Oxford degree, with second-class honours in Natural Science. He had other qualifications. He was an exhibitioner, and he had a wider knowledge, I venture to say, of the teaching profession and more of the training requisite for a man who had to inspect schools than a man who had not been through the mill. I go further, and say that, all things being equal, he had a wider knowledge than a man who had been through the mill but had not been at the University. I therefore selected him. I turn to another, a Welshman this time. He was at an elementary school; from there he went to an organised secondary school and to a pupil teachers' centre. Ho also went to Cambridge, where he got a first in Moral Science; he also took a degree at the University of Wales, and was Ph.D. of another university. He was a man of wide experience, not at all unlike the type you commonly find in Wales, who works his way up from the little village school and without any social backing or financial assistance reaches the top of the ladder. He was the kind of man I wanted, I got him, and he is at work in Wales. I turn to another. He was at Shoreditch, at the Haggerston Road Board School. From there he went to Owen's School at Islington. He worked his way up bit by bit until he reached Oxford, where he was an open mathematical scholar. He took first class in Mathematical Mods and first class in the Honours School. He was also a prizeman, and he took honours in Physics in 1904. I got him.
    Who can say that these men are not chosen from the elementary schools altogether irrespective of their social class? These are samples of men whom I have appointed in every direction. I give them as being fair samples. I have also had others who came from the great public schools. How foolish I should have been if I had said, "I am going to taboo the big public schools," provided the men who

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    came from them had sufficiently wide experience. When it is suggested that the Board's staff is made up only of those who come from the upper class, the suggestion must be made by men who are not well versed in the actual facts.
    Mr. KELLAWAY: Like Holmes.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Mr. Holmes may have his personal opinion, but I am taking the actual facts. I say nothing about Mr. Holmes's view. I am not going to discuss that; Mr. Holmes can defend himself as far as his personal view is concerned. The actual facts are that I have had men. from every social class. My hon. Friend has in his mind one sentence in Mr. Holmes's memorandum, a sentence which says that we usually look to university men and public school men for our junior inspectors. Mr. Holmes ought to have known better, for he knew the men who were appointed during the time he was at the Board. Some of these very men to whom I have referred were appointed while Mr. Holmes was there. I say nothing about Mr. Holmes at all. He has expressed an opinion upon these matters, but I expect the Committee to be guided not by any expression of opinion by Mr. Holmes, but by the actual facts for which the Minister himself is responsible.
    Dr. LEACH: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the case of any inspector who was not a university man? All those he has given were from Oxford or Cambridge.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Yes. I said these were samples; I will deal with the other universities and with the men who are not university graduates, in order that the House may have full information before it. It is suggested that these men are selected from the upper class only. I hope I have exploded that idea; they are not. Further, it is said that there is an effective barrier placed in the way of elementary school teachers; there is not. ["No."] I have the resolution, which says: "An effective barrier" is placed "in the way of candidates fully qualified by ability, knowledge and experience, merely because their preliminary education has been received in the primary schools and schools other than the great public schools of the country." That is the resolution which has been passed all over the country and has been sent up to me in large numbers. I am sorry to say it must have been
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    drafted by those who are not aware of the actual facts, which I am now giving to the Committee.
    It is suggested by one of my hon. Friends that the names I have given refer only to Oxford or Cambridge men. Let me state how the universities stand. I do not know that there is any particular objection to Oxford or Cambridge men simply because they happened to go to Oxford or Cambridge. After all, they are the oldest universities in England, and if only you get a man of the right origin, who has had the right experience, with an Oxford or Cambridge training on the top of it, he is all the better for it. But there are other universities, and the other universities have not been boycotted. I take the whole of the examiners and the inspectors now serving the Board of Education, whom I have appointed during the last three years. It is true that twenty-one of them had degrees of Oxford and twenty-two had degrees of Cambridge; but when you consider the enormous number of students at both—I think there are 3,000 undergraduates in each university—the fact that they are the oldest and richest and must of necessity be the best equipped, I do not think this number is at all surprising. Besides those, I have appointed three men who had a London degree and were not at Oxford or Cambridge; I have appointed two men who had a Welsh degree and were not at Oxford or Cambridge; I have appointed one of Aberdeen, one of Edinburgh, two of Dublin, and eight who had no degree at all. I hope that that satisfies my hon. Friend.
    The one charge which is made is that in the selection of our men we have been guided by social preferences or that we have erected a social barrier. The best way of testing whether they have been all selected from the upper class is to take the schools from which these examiners and inspectors have come. I have given samples, but I do not wish the Committee to decide on samples. I will give the total number of examiners and inspectors who have been appointed by me, and their origin. I have appointed sixty in the last three years. Take, first, the great public schools—that is the phrase used in the Resolution; I do not wish to restrict the term too closely; I presume it means those schools which call themselves public schools and those which have a statutory right to be called public schools. Out of these sixty, eigh-

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    teen started life in the great public schools. I come to the next class, the schools, like St. Paul's, the City of London, Llandovery, Tonbridge, Owen's School, Islington, and so forth. From these schools twenty-nine came, and thirteen came from the public elementary schools. When we think of the advantages enjoyed by many of the secondary schools in the way of large endowments and well-established staffs, I do not think you can say that twenty-nine is too large a number to come from them, or that thirteen is too small a number to come from the elementary schools.
    Sir P. MAGNUS: The thirteen who came from public elementary schools afterwards went to secondary schools, of course?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I mean thirteen who never had a secondary school training. They were elementary school scholars, and never had the advantage of a secondary school education. Some went to pupil teacher centres, and from there to training colleges, and then found their way to the university or took a London, Dublin, or a Welsh degree, as the case may be, but their school was a public elementary school.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: Some of those who are given as having come from the secondary schools may also have passed through elementary schools.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: They might have done so. I am afraid I cannot tell in every case whether they did so or not. It does include some who had been in elementary schools, but thirteen out of sixty certainly had their only schooling in elementary schools. Therefore, it is not accurate to say that during the last three years we have erected a barrier in the Board of Education against elementary school scholars, nor that we have restricted these appointments to children of the upper classes. I have told the House how I make the selection. I hope they will believe me when I say that in making that selection I do it with a great sense of responsibility. I try to get men who represent all the interests of education, with the widest possible experience, and the fullest possible equipment for their task. I do not know that I need trouble the House further upon that point, except to say that out of the whole of the inspectors now on the staff—some 357 in all, including the women as well as the sub-
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    inspectors—138 have Oxford or Cambridge degrees, nineteen have London degrees only, eleven have degrees of other Universities, but not an Oxford or a Cambridge degree, as far as I know, and twenty-seven have no degree at all.
    Mr. KELLAWAY: How many of the 357 have had elementary school experience?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I cannot give the exact figures. I have answered a question once or twice on that point; but I think over one-half, something like two-thirds, have had elementary school experience. If the hon. Member likes I will give a little later the number of those who have had elementary school experience. I must point out that in the answer I have given as to the degrees of inspectors I am excluding sub-inspectors, who in every case had elementary school experience, but the majority of whom have no degree, and women inspectors. The figures I am responsible for, and for which I have to answer in this House, are the figures of the appointments I have myself made. I have made a full disclosure of the whole of those figures, and I hope I have set at rest the feeling which so many people have outside, that the higher offices in the Board of Education and on the inspectorial staff were being barred against men of humble origin.
    Mr. RAFFAN: How many of these men have had teaching experience in elementary schools?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: A very considerable number. I think I have given the full number; I cannot say exactly at the moment; it is about twenty-six or twenty-seven.
    Sir JAMES YOXALL: For how many months?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: It is not months, but years. I have answered questions in which I pointed out that the shortest period of practical teaching experience I referred to was two years, some three, some seven, some nine, and two over thirty years.
    Sir JAMES YOXALL: Will the right hon. Gentleman lay on the Table a Paper stating exactly in each case the period of experience as an elementary school teacher? I do not mean as a scholar, or pupil teacher, or student teacher; I mean in each case the experience as a certificated teacher in a public elementary school.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I think it is rather to be deprecated that any of our inspectors should be mentioned in a Return to be laid on the Table of the House. I certainly think that they ought not to be placed at this disadvantage—if it be a disadvantage; but if my hon. Friend wants to know the exact numbers of the men, and I think he ought to be satisfied with the numbers without bringing in the names—
    Sir JAMES YOXALL: I agree.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: If he will put a question on the Paper I will give him a reply on Monday.
    Sir JAMES YOXALL: Can we have a return to indicate the persons by numbers and not by names. That will quite satisfy me. I do not want the names at all.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I shall be glad to give my hon. Friend the fullest possible information on the subject. One qualification I must add to what he has said. I cannot agree that the only man who is fit to be an inspector is one who has previously been a certificated teacher. I think to lay down that hard and fast line would be to commit a sin of exactly the same kind in the opposite direction to that which I am often charged with.
    Sir JAMES YOXALL: The question arose on the statement that all these inspectors had had experience as elementary school teachers. The right hon. Gentleman referred to a certain proportion. I want to know what that number is, and how long is their experience? I do not adopt the view that they must all have had the experience suggested.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am glad to hear my hon. Friend say that. I have given the House as full information as I could. My hon. Friend is now going to another qualification of the inspectors. What I have been disproving—and I hope effectively—is that the inspectorship is restricted to children of one selected social class. The meetings in the country would not have been so affected if those concerned had known that no effective barrier has been erected, within at least the last three years, against any social class.
    Mr. LEACH Mr. LEACH rose.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Whitley): I deprecate these interruptions. We may have the whole proceedings interrupted.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I do not at all resent any cross-examination that I may be put to, but I would point out to my hon. Friends that I have a certain amount of ground to cover, and I would like, if I may, to cover that ground. Later in the Debate, if I can throw further light on these topics, I shall be only too delighted to do so. I turn from that subject to the greatest area of the Board's work—namely, that of the elementary schools. The first, rather a prosaic side, to which I must refer, is that touching the buildings. The commonest defect of school buildings is that they are badly ventilated. When we come across a school heated by a coke stove with a leaky pipe, the children sleepy, and the teacher with a headache, you may be sure that that is a building which cannot be satisfactory for elementary school purposes. Or if you find that the children on wet days have to pile their clothes in the passage instead of hanging them up in a proper place, that cannot be a satisfactory school. If you find their playground is a small gloomy yard, surrounded by high buildings in the middle of a large town, the Board cannot be satisfied.
    I go further, and say that unless decent offices and facilities for washing are given, and even in new schools occasionally there is the provision of school baths, you cannot expect elementary school-children in the dirty parts of great cities to live up to a high ideal of cleanliness. Within the last three years I have been doing what I could to get the local authorities to raise the standard of their school buildings—to have them better ventilated, better warmed and better provided with outside offices and playgrounds, as well as inside equipment. I am sorry to say that at first I met with a great deal of opposition. In some parts of the country local authorities and the authorities who were responsible for the denominational schools very much resented the pressure which I brought to bear upon them.
    Mr. HOARE: Was the pressure confined to the denominational schools?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: No; I think the hon. Member may be perfectly well satisfied that I have not in my administration singled out denominational schools for better ventilation than council schools. I have made no difference between them. A child served badly in a council school will get an illness just as readily as a child served badly in a denominational school.

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    In every case I have expected one standard only, namely, good health, hygiene, and good equipment. It does not matter to me, so far as this side of my administrative work goes, whether a school is denominational or not. The necessity of the case is that the child and the teacher should have a fair chance in the building. A great deal of this work has been done so completely that we have covered whole areas of the country. Already we have issued schedules on which local authorities are now working for such great areas as Essex, Huntingdonshire, Lancashire—which is a peculiarly difficult place—Somersetshire, Staffordshire, and Salford; and in every case the local authority is working on the schedule provided.
    Schedules are being prepared for Cheshire, Durham—only two districts of Durham, the rest will be dealt with later—Leicestershire, Birmingham, Leicester City, Manchester, and Cambridge. Several Authorities have asked us to schedule their defective schools. What we have agreed to do is that if they will deal with the whole of these schools at so many per year over a period of two years or three years, as the case may be, we will be prepared to give them a year or two to run after that without interfering with them. I think that is a good bargain. In many parts of the country large sums of public as well as of private money are being spent by the local authorities and by trustees in improving their school buildings, and far greater progress has been attained than ever we have been able to attain in the past. So far as I know, the local authorities are working in complete harmony with us on these wide schedules; this black list of defective schools in the cases which I have quoted.
    We have not only to deal with old schools, but with new schools. I freely acknowledge that where I can I foster the building of new schools, for the more new schools the better. The greatest obstacle to the building of new schools is the vast expense. I do not wish the children to be put into schools which are not fit. I do not want to see ugly buildings put up. I think we ought to have some of the best public buildings that can be put up, but extravagance can be carried too far. I appointed a committee last year to go into the whole question of school buildings. They discussed new plans and methods, and one of their conclusions was that we ought to release schools from some of the by-laws which at present impose on them
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    totally unnecessary requirements. I hope progress is going to be made in that direction during the next few months; that we shall do something to pull down the very heavy cost of new school buildings. We are constantly exercising pressure in this direction. As an example of that I may point out a case of a borough in the Eastern Counties where they required a school for about 800 children. The first proposal that came to us was for a school which would cost over £21 per head. After many reductions, a good deal of remonstrance, and a good deal of discussion, that amount has been reduced to twelve guineas and I believe the requirements will be thoroughly well satisfied at that.
    Apart altogether from the buildings, the health of the children is of the supremest importance. At a. time when the House is discussing a National Insurance Bill I think they may well take into account that already, under the organisation of the local educational authorities, no less than 6,000,000 children are subject to medical inspection. In the whole of the Authorities' areas there are 322 school medical officers who are carrying out this work. They inspect the children on entering and on leaving, and a very large number of the children in special cases which are selected by the teachers are inspected too. In about a hundred and odd cases they are also inspected in a third age group. Some authorities have been very slow to undertake the work, but I say nothing on that subject now, because I believe they are all going as rapidly as they can towards covering the whole of the area. Last year no less than 2,000,000 children were examined by the school doctors. There are nearly a thousand school doctors, of whom seventy-three are women. There are 300 school nurses, excluding altogether those who come from the local nursing associations. If the Committee is not already aware of the fact, I think they will be interested to know what have been the findings of the inspection. Of the 2,000,000 children no less than 10 per cent. were found to have seriously defective vision. No wonder some of them were thought to be stupid merely because they could not see! Some three to five per cent. had defective hearing. Eight per cent. had adenoids or enlarged tonsils. One per cent. had ringworm, and one per cent.—in some cases rising to over four per cent.—were suffering from tuberculosis in a readily recognisable form. One per

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    cent. were suffering from heart disease. From twenty to forty per cent. had extensive decay of their teeth.
    5.0 P.M.
    It is a disclosure which must give pain to every humane minded man that in England you have at the present time no less than 60,000 children who are suffering from tuberculosis in a readily recognisable form. Heart disease claims another 60,000 sufferers. These are facts which when brought home to local authorities make them at once agree, even at the expense of their most economical ratepayers, to embark upon medical treatment. Inspection is of some good, but it does not go the whole way. If inspection is to yield practical results, it must lead up to treatment in one form or another, either private or organised by the local education authority. But if it is to be undertaken by the local education authority we are bound under Statute not to give sanction until we are satisfied on four facts:—First, we must be satisfied that before treatment is undertaken the inspection is satisfactorily organised; second, the treatment based on preventive schemes of treatment shall be coordinated with the work of preventive medicine already conducted in the area, and not organised apart from it; third, that the authority which is responsible for the inspection shall also be responsible for the treatment; fourth, before the authority undertakes this work all other means should be exhausted: that is to say, that the parent cannot himself have the child treated by a private practitioner. But there is some work which the private practitioner cannot do and which is much better done by organisation. Even such a common thing as ringworm yields best to the X-ray treatment, and very few private practitioners have the necessary apparatus for dealing with this. Therefore we think it well to have our school medical service organised on a basis which is not out of harmony with the public health service already in existence. We prefer the school medical officer to be the medical officer of health—and he is in a very large number of cases—something like 250 out of 320. Another thing of great value is that if the school medical officer is not the same man, that he should be in close touch with the borough medical officer; for mark how necessary it is that the information collected by the school medical officer and by medical inspection should be passed on to the medical
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    officer of health as quickly as possible. For this reason: that the sanitary control of the schools is in the hands of the sanitary officer. Notification, disinfection, and sanitation of the home is in the hands of the sanitary authority. The right of entry into the house to the ailing child is an advantage possessed by the medical officer of health. All this means that the medical officer of health is an essential officer in the economy of the school medical service. And that is why we ask the local authorities to work in complete harmony with the existing public health authority. I take as an example tuberculosis. The first thing necessary is to find out what is the cause of tuberculosis—to find out what is its origin and the source of the trouble. The medical officer of health has a record of the child's birth, and he knows something about the home environment and the tracing of the source of infection. The school medical officer detects the disease at the time and then the child is dealt with by the local education authority, which body is responsible for the improvement of hygiene in the schools, for open-air schools, and other means for dealing with each case. Finally, it is the sanitary authority which disinfects the home and closes up the case. The same holds good in regard to verminous cases, and it is equally true with regard to infectious diseases. The medical officer of health undertakes the various medical duties; he links up the home with many of the public services, and that is the reason why we are taking the view that you must work on a conjunct arrangement if your medical inspection and treatment are to be at all effective.
    The charge made with regard to medical inspection was that it would be likely to lead to a decrease in the sense of responsibility of the parents. Quite the contrary has been the experience. The truth is a great many parents are reluctant to believe anything is wrong with their children. It often comes as a complete surprise to them. There are a minority of people who resent medical treatment, but, on the whole, the vast majority are surprised when they hear of illness among the children, and they believe it their duty then to make the mothering far better than before. A great many of the medical complaints are really the effect of defective mothering. By giving a little assistance, guidance and hints to the mother and making her improve the home surroundings, you im-

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    prove the health of the children and are making the best use of medical inspection. The best way of dealing with a great many of these cases is to make the nursing better, to improve cleanliness, and that is the practical result of the institution of medical inspection. So far from decreasing the sense of responsibility, it opens the eyes of many parents to the necessity of better treatment for their children. I will not trouble the Committee by telling them the large number of local authorities who have made special arrangements for providing medical treatment under this Act. I would like to point out the number of school clinics which have been instituted in various parts of the country, and I desire to say that where school clinics are started, full advantage ought to be taken of the service already available. Let me say further, that special treatment is now provided in many areas for feeble-minded and defective children and for children that are deaf or blind.
    I turn now to say a word as to what has been done on the subject of physical training. The extension of physical training on scientific lines has proceeded apace in the last few years. Our physical exercise syllabus has run into its third edition. The teachers in the training colleges are taking it up, and last year no less than fifty inspectors voluntarily underwent a course of physical training in order that they might be up to date with the teachers coming from the training colleges. The Temperance syllabus is also used by 214 local educational authorities out of 322. Hygiene of various kinds has been furthered, and the circular I promised last year on infant care and management has been issued, and every day I am getting inquiries upon that subject. This is only indicative of the progress made in almost every direction within the last few years. I recently had the privilege of talking to a man who knew our education system well ten years ago, and who returned to this country recently after working in other parts of the world during that long time. And he says one thing that impressed him was the richness, variety, and freedom of the teaching in the schools. He thinks there is now greater scope for originality, and I think he might have added a great reduction of mechanical routine in the schools than formerly. Brighter and more interesting books are used. Improvements everywhere have cropped up; the interest in the school work is on the increase, and one of the
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    great aims of all great schools has been to give the children not only instruction but to give them appreciation of habits. They have been taught to use their hands as well as their heads, and in every great school in London or in the country hand work is on the increase. Children enjoy that more than book work, but still in these schools there is to be found a proper spirit of order and precision. Every teacher and child knows his place, and his task. There is most implicit obedience and high discipline worthy of the best regiments in the Army. The school organisation is so great amongst those who control elementary schools that I think the achievement at the Crystal Palace some Fridays ago, when 100,000 children were taken safely to the Palace and safely taken home again, may well be put to the credit of those responsible as an illustration of the changes for the better which have taken place.
    One of the Church of England schools a few years ago was a great hall with a number of ecclesiastical windows in it. It had four classes in it ten years ago. That is all changed since. The central hall now is simply a hall with class-rooms in all directions off it. That was done at a cost of £2,500. In the same school the other day, when one of my friends called to see how things were going on, he found the most exquisite performance of music conducted by the headmaster. He told me that they sang an anthem by Gounod and finished up with a song by Tchaikovsky. It is true that the musical skill in the elementary schools was so great in years gone by that it could not be surpassed even to-day. In another room in that school the children were engaged at handwork, cardboard modelling, and so forth. Let me take now as another example a country school; it is a quite commonplace school, with nothing exceptional about it, with the boys and girls under a mistress. At eleven o'clock the boys go out to their school garden; they take note-books with them, on which to record what they have done. They watch their seeds progressing and they make sketches of what grows up. The girls have flower gardens, and this school garden system is springing up all over the United Kingdom. In Suffolk I know another case where the schoolmaster not only has a school garden, but where the children are taught to build poultry runs, having been taught the care of poultry, and where they have even with their own hands made a river bath in the river close by. In that county no less than 100

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    gardens are in working order. School journeys have been organised with great advantage to the children. They study literature and singing and make maps and sketch, and they come back with a wider knowledge of the history of their own area. In every direction the schools are becoming better and better.
    The one danger I foresee is this. That if the curriculum becomes too varied it may lose a great deal of the quality of the old schools. I wish teachers would realise that under the code they have the power of eliminating some of the optional subjects and concentrating upon others. I trust they will exercise their discretion in that direction more widely in the future. I think it is possible that if we attach too much importance to showy subjects some of the old subjects may be neglected. After all, reading, writing, and arithmetic are essential. It is all very well to draw a flower, sing a good old English song or make an intelligent map of Australia, but that will be no use to a girl if she does not know what six and a-half yards of ribbon at 6½d. the yard will cost. It is possible to make a school too attractive. I do not forget the man who said, "It does not matter what you teach a boy, so long as he does not want to learn it." When I hear a recent writer say that our elementary schools are bound in chains of custom and routine I cannot agree with him. I think we are breaking those chains in every direction. One thing I am sure of, and that is, that it is unwise to decry the present elementary school and its products. Someone reminded me the other day that the earliest example of writing was by a prehistoric Egyptian who wrote on the behaviour of the young. Among other things, he said:—
    "His motive was to improve the manners of the rising generation, which were no longer as good as they were when he was a young man."
    Probably it may be said that boys in schools now are not as industrious or as accurate as their fathers. I do not believe it. I believe the products of our schools are improving every day. There are no means of measuring with comparative accuracy the product of the elementary schools to-day with those of former generations and of determining which is the better; but we have more variety and interest in our schools to-day than ever we had before. Meantime let us not disapprove of the old school and the old schoolmasters. I have the honour to know a great number of them, and they
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    have been considerable social forces for years in their neighbourhood. When you take the country areas you will find many cases where the parents themselves have been subjected to chastisement by those same masters. Or, if you take the towns, you will find in the clubs and social institutions and centres of activity it is recognised that those old schoolmasters did their work well. They scarcely knew what they were undertaking in many cases, or the benefits they conferred upon the children confided to their care.
    I want to sum up the general consideration, which, I think, commend to the House of Commons these estimates for social reform. Social reform of all kinds has met with an amount of support never paralleled in the past. Let the House remember how important a part schools play in our social organism. They are not only the sorting house for ability, but they are the centres upon which the social movement acts, and ought to converge. You cannot exaggerate their importance, and for the sake of whole generations of children no alien interests should intervene; indeed, the time during which they can come under the influence of these schools is far too small—a period of some seven or eight years, and then they pass away from the purview and attention of their masters and mistresses. During those six or seven years the whole bent of their life may be affected. The school determines to a large extent whether a child will be industrious, sober and capable, rather than lazy, drunken and useless. It is not only the capacity of the child, but the character of the child which is moulded in our schools. I do not wish to depreciate in any way the power of Parliament, but my opinion is—after three years of very intimate connection with the Board of Education and with our schools, and for some years before that with local bodies—that the fate of England is decided far less in Parliament than in our schools. All our projects for improvement will fail unless they are built on sound mental and moral bases. I believe the instruction of our young people provides the only secure foundation for social reform, and I believe that basis and that education can only be secured in so far as it is maintained by the ceaseless efforts of the 200,000 men and women teachers, thinkers, and administrators, who rightly plead that while you generously devote national funds to kindly and sometimes heroic measures, you should not grudge expenditure upon the most pro-

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    fitable of all social benefits, the endowment of six million children with the blessing, of discipline, health, and knowledge.
    Sir PHILIP MAGNUS: I desire to say a few words upon the very interesting address to which we have just listened. The President of the Board of Education has naturally covered a very large area of subjects in the address to which we have just listened, and it would be impossible for me, even if I so desired, to attempt even to run through all the various questions to which he has referred. I know that there are many hon. Members present who are naturally desirous of saying something upon the many interesting topics which have been referred to. Therefore I shall restrict my remarks to one or two subjects, and mainly to those questions which have been omitted from the exhaustive speech of the right hon. Gentleman. Everyone must agree with the last few words of his eloquent speech, in which he referred to the great part which the schools of this country now play in its development and progress. Certainly there is no branch of Government service in which everyone in the country can be so interested as in that branch which has to deal with the intellectual, physical, and to some extent the moral development of the children of this country. At the commencement of the right hon. Gentleman's speech he referred to our museums. It is a very satisfactory feature resulting from the beneficent legislation of the years 1899–1902 that the President is now able to make a speech which deals not only with one branch, but which covers the whole area of national education in this country, an area extending from museums to our elementary schools and kindergarten. As regards the museums, I take it from the President's speech that arrangements have been made or are likely to be made for the extension of the buildings of the Natural History Museum on the Kensington site, and at the same time for the erection of appropriate buildings for the Science Museum on the same site.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: There is a slight modification of the arrangement, but it does not in any way jeopardise the interests of the Natural History Museum.
    Sir P. MAGNUS: I am pleased to know that the Science Museum will be in close juxtaposition to the College of Science and Technology, so that it may be of service to the large and increasing number
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    of students at that important institution. The President said he was not satisfied with the higher technological work being done in this country, but the only fact he mentioned illustrating his dissatisfaction was that the number of students in the universities and higher technical institutions of Germany are much greater than in this country. We know that is so, but perhaps I may remind him of a fact, which he is no doubt thoroughly aware of, that the higher technical institutes of Germany have been established almost for as many decades as the institutes of this country have been established years. I was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman refer to the great advantages which had resulted from the close connection of these higher technical institutions with our universities, and to the eminent services of some of the City companies in the development of higher technical instruction in this country. I must also congratulate the President upon the successful efforts he has made to unify the Treasury Grants which are to be made to cur universities. I for one am quite satisfied that those Grants shall be made by the Board of Education instead of by the Treasury in order that the education of this country may be unified from the lowest to the highest branches. I should say that one of the reasons why the higher education of this country does not compare so favourably with that of Germany is that the Grants provided for higher education in this country are very much smaller than those provided in Germany. I think that the proportion of expenditure on university education in Germany as compared with the similar expenditure in this country would even be greater than the disparity of students in the two countries. Now we know where to look in regard to this matter. We have to look to the Board of Education for increased Grants, and after the speech of the President I look with confidence to him to give larger Grants in the future to the universities of this country.
    I wish now to refer to the question of secondary education. The right hon. Gentleman in very sympathetic terms stated that the salaries of the assistant masters in our secondary schools are very much lower than they should be. I must own that I fail to find in his speech any distinct promise as to the improvement of the salaries of the assistant masters. Let me point out how very important it is that the salaries of the assistant masters should be increased. The Government

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    and all local authorities have been very active in granting free places and scholarships in our secondary schools. A great part of the speech of the President of the Board of Education referred to the facilities which are now offered to children to pass from the elementary schools to the secondary schools. I am afraid I cannot agree with all he said, but to a certain extent I sympathise with him. We are most desirous to see our elementary schools linked up with our secondary schools, but at the same time one must point out that it is very easy for the Government to say we are giving all these benefits to the poor children of the country; we are enabling them to obtain better education in our secondary schools and we are devoting large sums of money to scholarships for that purpose. It is, however, a matter for consideration whether these benefits which the Government are so liberally giving are given at the expense of the State or at the expense of other persons. The case is very similar as regards the medical benefits which are to be given tinder the National Insurance Bill. The Government say they are going to give these medical benefits to a large number of people in this country, but before you can provide either educational or medical benefits you must be satisfied that the teachers and the medical men are willing to give those benefits and are capable of doing so. We cannot expect to find capable and efficient assistant masters in our secondary schools if they are underpaid, as the President admits they are, at the present moment.
    I would like to impress upon the Committee the great difference in the salaries of assistant masters in the schools of England as compared with Germany and other places. There are very few local authorities in this country who give an initial salary of £150 a, year to an assistant master in a secondary school. There are not more than three or four cases where the final salary amounts to £300 a year. How can we expect the best men to be attracted to the teaching profession when their prospects are such that they cannot expect to rise to an income of over £300 a year? In Germany, on the other hand, I find that in nearly all the schools the salary commences at over £150 a year and rises to between £300 and £400, and sometimes to £450 in addition to rent allowance. Besides that, in nearly all the states
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    the teachers have pensions amounting to from 75 per cent, to 100 per cent, of their salaries.
    It is a matter of supreme importance that the teachers in our secondary schools should be free during the period of their instruction from all anxiety as regards provision for their old age, and you cannot possibly expect, out of the meagre salaries which are now given by local authorities to the teachers in those schools, that they should be able to make provision for their old age. They cannot have that freedom from care if they are to devote the whole of their energies to the work of instruction. It is partly because our assistant teachers are harassed in this way that the profession is made so little attractive, and that the results of secondary education in Germany and France are superior to what they are in this country. I earnestly appeal to the President of the Board of Education to take such steps as may be necessary to assure that when grants are made to secondary schools they shall not be made exclusively for the benefit of the pupils in the schools providing free places and scholarships, but that a fair proportion of those grants shall be devoted to the provision of more efficient and better qualified teachers to give the instruction which is so much needed. The President did not say anything about the old class of schools known as higher elementary schools. There is some reference to those schools in the report. The President pointed out, on the other hand, how desirous he was that children should be removed from the elementary school at a young age in order that they might be transferred to a secondary school. "A secondary school" is a term which requires some definition. It is quite true there are many classes of secondary schools in this country, but in Germany, to which we often look for guidance in educational matters, the secondary schools are differentiated. There are different classes of secondary schools, not according to any social distinction, but according to the kind of education given in those schools.
    Are we quite certain that in all cases it is a good thing for children to be taken out of their elementary school at the age of nine and transferred to a secondary school in which the education will in no way qualify them for the work in which they are afterwards to be engaged? If our schools were differentiated according to different occupations in which chil-

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    dren may have to earn their living, I should say it is desirable that the education of the child in the secondary school should be extended to sixteen or seventeen years of age, but with our secondary education, badly organised as it is at present, the kind of education given in the secondary schools is a matter to be considered before determining to draft such large numbers of children into schools where they may receive an education which is of little service to them in after-life. The problem for the Board of Education is to organise our secondary education so that we have schools which will continue the work of the elementary schools and thus enable boys and girls to take advantage of the higher technological education which is provided at present, to take their places in the industrial world, to improve the industries with which they are connected, and at the same time to earn a living for themselves. I am sorry to say the Board's Report with regard to these higher elementary schools is a very unsatisfactory one. It distinctly states:—
    "It can hardly be said that the majority of higher elementary schools are in any special degree fulfilling what the Board conceived to be the true functions of schools of that type."
    One would like to ask what efforts the Board are now making in order that these higher elementary schools shall fulfil the true functions of schools of that type. They say further that they fear the report they may issue next year with regard to these schools will be less satisfactory than at present. We have to bear in mind that all over the country, throughout the whole of the industrial centres, there is a general complaint, notwithstanding all the President has told us, that the education in our elementary schools is not sufficiently practical for the important purposes of life. It is very easy to speak of the good work which these schools are doing, but, when we come to examine reports such as that of the Poor Law Commissioners, and when we come to ask the masters of our industries, our manufacturers, and our foremen whether they are satisfied with the kind of education possessed by the boys who come to their works, I think the President would not be able to present so hopeful and so satisfactory a picture of elementary education in this country as he did in the interesting speech he has just made. Almost all of them declare that our education should have a more practical bias than it has at present. Those who have studied the subject carefully are strongly of opinion there should be less
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    instruction that appeals directly to the memory, and that the teachers of our schools should serve rather as guides to the pupils in their endeavour to work out problems for themselves.
    In conclusion, I would only ask one question. About a year ago the Board of Education, seized with the importance of improving the practical instruction given in our elementary schools, appointed a committee of their own inspectors to take into consideration the whole of this question and to see in what way the school-teaching of the country could be placed on a more practical basis. What was wanted was that in both the boys' and girls' schools there should be more manual training, not only carpentry and cookery, and that the whole course of instruction should be organised to a very great extent upon those principles of education which give to the teaching of any subject a distinctly practical basis. I have not heard what action has been taken by the Board on that important report of their own inspectors. The President has quoted a few isolated instances, and I am glad to say there are many, in which sound instruction of a practical character is being given in our elementary schools, but we want to see that this is the rule and not the exception, and that the whole of our schools are so organised that practical work forms the chief part of the instruction. I think the President is justified in referring, as he has done, to the great progress that has been made in all the departments of education during the last few years. Anyone who visited the whole range of our schools, from the elementary school up to the university, ten or twelve years ago, and who took the opportunity of inspecting them at the present time, would certainly agree with the President that a very remarkable development has taken place; but in education we cannot afford to stand still. We must go on improving, and therefore I do most seriously commend to the attention of the President the importance of giving effect to some of those objects to which I have ventured in these few remarks to refer.
    Sir JAMES YOXALL: The hon. Member for the University of London is slightly more pessimistic about the elementary schools of this country than the President of the Board of Education has shown himself, and I am not surprised that should be the case. The hon. Member for the London University, like myself, only so

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    short a time ago as a little more than twelve months listened to an expression of opinion on the part of the President of the Board of Education which was rather different from that which he gave this afternoon. Many of us for a long time have realised the admirable work, the devotion, the skill, the energy, and the success which are manifested by the teachers in the public elementary schools of this country, and I am glad that at last they have received from the Head of the Department that need of praise and gratitude which they deserve.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN:I have always acknowledged the excellent services performed by the public elementary teachers.
    Sir JAMES YOXALL: It is only a little more than twelve months ago we had all the faults of the elementary teachers pointed out, and nothing else. We were then told their work was purely mechanical, that they lectured too much instead of teaching, and so forth. I hope the President will not object to my commenting upon the change in the tone of his speech, because I feel sincerely grateful to him for having adopted that change, and so I do not doubt do a great number of teachers who were somewhat hurt by the estimate placed upon their work by those who speak and write for the Board of Education. We were told by the President towards the end of his speech this afternoon that things in the elementary schools are very well indeed. We have heard almost a pan of satisfaction and praise about the schools and about the teachers, uttered by the President at the close of his speech, and yet little more than twelve months ago all the inspectors in the employ of the Board of Education were officially informed that the elementary school teacher is engaged in
    "Surveying, or trying to survey, a wide field of action from the bottom of a well-worn groove."
    That was an instruction sent out to all the inspectors of the Board of Education, not only of the elementary branch, but also of the other branches and it was sent out to them with the authority of the Board of Education. Which is to be the true statement the one made by the President of the Board this afternoon or the one sent out to the inspectorate staff of the Board by the Chief Inspector of the elementary school at that time? That circular was sent out by the Chief Inspector of the elementary schools, convey-
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    ing that statement and other statements all totally unfounded, most unfair, irritating, and almost insulting in their tenor and their terms. That circular was sent out on behalf of the Board of Education with the word "approved" written on it.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I really must contradict my hon. Friend. He has also stated that in a letter to the public Press. The word "approved" was not written on the circular, but on a paper authorising the printing of it. It may only be a small point, but I think the hon. Gentleman when he makes a statement of that kind ought to be certain he is correct.
    Sir JAMES YOXALL: What is the distinction?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The hon. Gentleman said the word "approved" was written on the circular. It was not. It was written on the paper authorising the printing of the circular. It is only a, small point, but I think the hon. Gentleman ought to be correct in his statement.
    Sir JAMES YOXALL: I am afraid I cannot distinguish between approving of the circular and approving of the printing of the circular. I have seen a proof of the circular itself, and either upon that proof or upon the paper containing it I saw the letters "appd" in the writing of the Permanent Secretary of the Board of Education. At the time I saw it I said I should hold myself free to use, if I chose, any information I obtained. The right hon. Gentleman, for his own satisfaction, may draw a distinction between approving the printing of the document and approving the document itself, but I put this to the Committee: For what purpose should the document be printed if it was not going to be circulated? What distinction of any moment is there?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The distinction I draw is this: I am very often responsible for the printing of views I do not hold myself, and that naturally must be so in every Department. It would, however, be a ridiculous thing to say, when I approve of the printing of the views of everybody, that I always approve of the views of everybody. It is only a small point, but it is an important point. My hon. Friend has said before "the document itself bore upon it the word 'approved,' "and I say he is not correct. There is no question of threatening me "with the publication of any information he might have obtained.
    Sir JAMES YOXALL: I make no point of the fact that before I saw the document I said I might make use of any information I obtained. I can assure the Committee that I am betraying no confidence whatever. I have a right to make the statement I did. My charge is not the President of the Board of Education approved his circular—I can understand that many things come under his eye which he does not approve—but that this document slandering the elementary school teachers of the country and their work, so utterly opposed as it is to the sentiments expressed by the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon, was written by the senior inspector employed by the Board and was marked "appd" for some purpose—approved for circulation or approved for printing only, I do not care which. The point is that it was printed with the assent of the President of the Board of Education, and it was circulated with his consent, and, whether "appd" means permission to print or permission to circulate, it does not really affect this question.
    We are told that the distinguished public official, whom I regret to have to refer to publicly in this manner, minuted an expression of regret for permitting the circular to go out. Most of the circular has been reproduced in various ways. It is true, as the right hon. Gentleman says, that one clause has never been reproduced. I know there was one clause which was not so obnoxious as the other clauses, and which, perhaps, to some extent alleviated the ill-effects of the remainder of the circular. Still the fact remains that the circular has been placed on the records of this House. It has been printed elsewhere, and a certain number of typewritten copies have been put in circulation. But there has been no expression of regret on the part of any official of the Board of Education for its tenour or for the slanderous accusation against the school teachers of the country as a whole. My complaint against the right hon. Gentleman is that, although I am sure he would not wish to be in any way associated with this kind of policy, he has not been sufficiently careful or quick to dissociate himself from it.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I did so on the very first opportunity that offered itself. I said that I had no connection whatever with it.
    Sir J. YOXALL: That was most insufficient for the purpose, especially as the repudiation was very soon after followed by
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    a minute, in which the right hon. Gentleman, not only approved and praised, but almost deified the person who committed this outrage. Another point I wish to make is that the right hon. Gentleman has from the first—unconsciously and unintentionally, of course—conveyed to this House opinions concerning the work done at the Board of Education, which it would be difficult to substantiate in a court of law. If I were granted what I have asked for—a Select Committee of the House of Commons to inquire into the circumstances of the issue of this Circular—I think I would be able to show that the Circular was but one symptom of a disease which is becoming very prevalent at the Board of Education. I do not particularly lay stress on the demand for a Committee to inquire into the terms and origin of the Circular, but I believe if the Committee were appointed and had before it Mr. Holmes it would receive a very different impression concerning the Circular, its origin, and authority from that which has hitherto been conveyed to the House. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman has given the House statements in perfect good faith, made on the authority of his own officials.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: On my own authority.
    Sir J. YOXALL: On the right hon. Gentleman's own authority, but on information supplied by others. I think I can show by an examination of certain figures given to this House some months ago, in reply to a question put by myself as to the teaching experience of inspectors of the Board, that the return given by the right hon. Gentleman, although I have no doubt it was given in perfect good faith, was, in fact, most misleading.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: It was perfectly accurate.
    Sir J. YOXALL: It may have been a perfectly accurate answer to the terms of a question drawn up by one who was not careful to so frame it as to ensure securing the full truth. As a matter of fact, the exact number of inspectors, junior inspectors, and sub-inspectors should have been given separately, and not lumped together, and then it could have been ascertained if any of them had had experience in teaching in public elementary schools. But by reason of the way in which the answer was framed information undoubtedly misleading was given to the House by the President of the Board of Education. This is only one of several

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    cases of the kind into which a Select Committee might inquire. The facts cannot be brought out in debate here in the time allowed for discussion, or in the circumstances under which debate takes place. But they could be ascertained in the leisurely, careful, and almost judicial fashion which characterises the procedure of Select Committees of this House. Again I ask, as I asked the Prime Minister in this House a few months ago, whether we cannot have a Select Committee to inquire into these matters. If one be granted, I think I can undertake to prove to that Committee and to the President of the Board of Education himself that he has, no doubt intentionally and without the least desire to do so, conveyed to this House misleading information. It has not only been a case of misrepresentation and skilful misrepresentation, but there has been a juggling with figures, a sailing very near to the wind, always, however, on the safe side.
    There are other defects which I might point out. The right hon. Gentleman, in his speech, has paid a compliment to the teachers. He has simply done them justice, and, I venture to think, no more than justice. But there are classes of teachers in the schools of this country, not only elementary school teachers, but secondary school teachers, whose feelings have been just as much stirred by the attitude of the Board of Education, and who feel they have not received that nice and kind treatment at the hands of the Board to which they are entitled. Let me point out to the Committee how their susceptibilities are often wounded when there is no need to do it, by the use of a wrong word. For instance, in his speech this afternoon, the President of the Board of Education referred to "trained" and "untrained" teachers. What he meant to do was to distinguish between teachers who had been in training colleges and those who had not. Undoubtedly in the past the difference in the teaching obtained in training colleges as compared with other forms of training was so small as to be almost purely nominal. The distinction twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, or even only ten years, was very slight. Those the right hon. Gentleman calls "trained" teachers no doubt got some instruction which untrained teachers do not get. The latter have not attended training colleges, sometimes by reason of their poverty, and in other cases because
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    of differences in creed and faith. But they strongly object to being called untrained.
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    I would remind my right hon. Friend that in Circular 709, which was a very admirable document, some malign influence at the office managed to secure the insertion of a clause which cast a very serious slur on the so-called untrained teachers, and that slur has never been removed, although appeal after appeal has been made for its withdrawal. That is not the way in which to study the susceptibilities of large classes of people—men and women. That is not the way in which they ought to be treated, and I do hope the right hon. Gentleman will see if he cannot add to the complimentary statement he has made to-day concerning the teachers and their work, something which will prevent their susceptibility being thus hurt in the future. I have asked for a Select Committee to go into the matter of the amount of experience in teaching possessed by those persons whom the right hon. Gentleman has appointed to be inspectors on elementary schools. In regard to the secondary schools, the right hon. Gentleman has referred to the fact that there is a quite popular demand for detailed inspection, and he informed the Committee that these inspections were always carried out by inspectors who had had experience in teaching in secondary schools, and who, therefore, were acquainted with the difficulties, and knew what could and could not be done by these schools. These inspections were in fact made by expert, practical men. What we want is that the inspection of elementary schools should also be conducted by men who have taught in such schools. We do not say that there should be nothing else but the teaching element in the school. We do not say that because a man is an elementary school teacher that alone should give him a supreme claim to an appointment as an examiner or inspector in an elementary or secondary school. What we do say is that a man who is sent to examine or inspect a school should have experience in teaching in that class of school, and should know by experience the difficulties and drawbacks; what can be done, and what cannot be done. And when we make that claim it is not sufficient satisfaction of it when we hear of the appointment of a young man from Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, or London Universities, after he has been only a few months in a school—six or seven months at the

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    outside of actual teaching in a public elementary school—in order to be able to say on the form of application, "I have had experience in teaching in an elementary school." Cases of that kind have arisen frequently, and promotions of that kind have been made. It is not satisfactory to us, and it does not satisfy the claim that nobody should be sent into a school to examine it unless he has had some experience in teaching.
    I will not dwell upon that point, but it is one of the things I want the Select Committee to go into if our request is granted, as I hope to hear it will be, before the Debate is over. There are many sources of difficulty for the Education Department, and it is surprising to me that this circular trouble should have arisen with regard to the elementary branch, because, so far as I know, the elementary department is carried on with a less amount of friction than the other departments are. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the great development and improvement in the work of education throughout the country. Yes, but he must not take credit for the Board of Education for all that. I do not think he intended to do so. There are thousands upon thousands of members of education committees throughout the country working earnestly and faithfully for elementary, secondary, and technical schools without fee or reward. Ask them what they think; ask any one of them who has had experience of the Board of Education, who has come up here on a deputation by reason of some unreasonable demand made by the Board. Ask them what they think of a great amount of the work. Ask them what they think of the administration of the Board of Education. Ask them whether the President has appointed the best men for the evening schools, or men who know something about the technological branch as it is to-day—and after all, the blunders as to the persons appointed to teach do not depend altogether upon the teaching theory to which the circular directly refers. It may be an evening school or an art school, or it may be in the secondary school branch, but I say you will find if you will make careful inquiry among all these as to the merits of the Board of Education, and especially if you take the opinion of the members of these local committees who are responsible for the teaching in the schools, you will find among them the widest and deepest dissatisfaction with the administrative work of the Board, and it is surprising to me that it was in connection
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    with the branch where there had been less trouble than in any other in the past that they have had this trouble about the circular.
    Education is progressing. Why? Not because of, but in spite of, the large amount of administrative interference by the Board of Education. Whatever may be said about the circular, the spirit of the circular is still there, and it cannot be removed by three years of the present President's rule. It is not a sufficient answer to the charges simply to quote the appointments he has made during the last three years. The spirit is still there; it has been there all along; but it has grown enormously during the last ten years. There is reason for great dissatisfaction, not only by the teachers whose amour propre and dignity have been offended, but on the part of the education authorities and all the private persons who are concerned in the work of education. There does exist this dissatisfaction with the present state of things, and this point ought to be inquired into. I do not think a Royal Commission would be the best machinery; it would be too large and it would be too long in its operations, but again I ask the Government to let us have a Select Committee and we could bring before that Select Committee the evidence on which we rely in making these statements. That Committee could report not this Session but during the course of next Session, and then in the next Session in approaching these questions we might be able to speak with more knowledge of the facts than we can at present, even after the long, admirable, lucid, philanthropic, well meaning, and jubilant statement which we have heard to-day.
    Mr. HOARE: Like the hon. Member opposite, I was very much surprised by the optimistic sentiments which the President of the Board of Education has expressed. It seems to me that the annual statements of successive Presidents of the Board of Education are all very much the same in their optimism and in their intention to to make us believe that everything is for the best in the best possible world. I am very sorry to differ from the President of the Board, and to have to add to the controversial note that has been struck by the hon. Member who last spoke. During the last twelve weeks an extensive controversy has been agitating the educational world. I am not going back into the details and intricacies of that controversy, least of

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    all am I going to add any personal references as to what then took place. But Jet me say in passing that I am sorry the President of the Board of Education at that time made a charge against myself, and that although on more than one occasion I have taken the opportunity of showing that that charge was without any justification whatever, he has not taken the opportunities which he has had to withdraw the charge. But I do not trouble the House with personal matters of that kind.
    With reference to the general controversy, let me brush away what I regard as two misconceptions. With reference to the two general courses of that controversy I am in entire agreement. I am in agreement with my Friend opposite in his demand for an inquiry, and I am also in agreement with the general feeling expressed throughout the country for a more sympathetic and conciliatory attitude at Whitehall towards the great local education authorities. But I am not in agreement with two of its minor courses or—I do not wish to be offensive—spurious courses. I am not in agreement, on the first point, with the course which the controversy has taken in attacking particular officials. I am not in any way in agreement with that. I never intended to attack any particular officials when I brought this matter to the notice of the House. I may be wrong, but it is my strong opinion that if the President of the Board of Education had adopted the line which I believe the majority in the House expected him to take and had taken responsibility for the official acts of his chief officers, there would not have been any reason why the names of particular individuals should have been brought into this controversy. I am not in agreement with the attack that has been made also upon several occasions upon the older universities. It would be nothing short of traitorous for one in my position to say anything in depreciation of the course of education which are given at Oxford and Cambridge. It would not only be traitorous, but absolutely inconsistent, in a member of the London Education Committee, who is doing his best to ensure that there shall be a ladder of scholarships from the Board School to the universities, and to the older as well as the new universities, to say anything in depreciation of the advantages of a course of education at Oxford or Cambridge, and nothing was and nothing is further from my mind.
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    I have the fullest appreciation of the advantages of the older universities and public schools, and it does not in any way mean any disparagement of other kinds of education in different parts of the country to say that. I do not in any way depreciate these other kinds of education, and I would remind hon. Members that when I say that I hope they will not, whilst they appreciate these other kinds of education, depreciate the education given at Oxford and Cambridge. Let me pass on and speak with regard to the legitimate results of this controversy. First of all there is the demand for some sort of inquiry. I support that movement for the following reasons. I say that during the last generation, and particularly during the last ten years, the whole face of the educational world has changed. A few years ago it was considered that the duties of the educational authorities began and ended with the very few hours in a limited number of weeks during which the child was at school. Now I need not remind the Committee that has entirely changed. Education to-day has become much more comprehensive and complicated, and therefore it is of the utmost importance that the central authorities at Whitehall should be able to draw from the experience of men and women who have been brought face to face with the actual facts of local administration and the actual difficulties of local conditions. That in no way cuts out the other type of official. I am not sure whether the merits of one type have not been exaggerated at the expense of the other. The President has to some extent satisfied me by some remarks he made this afternoon, but in one respect he did not. It seems to me the central authority at Whitehall would do well if it often made more use of the experience of local administration. I think at the present moment there is a wealth of experience among the officials of local authorities from which the Board of Education ought to be able to recruit some of its officials. I think that owing to these changes in the educational world, the number of appointments, and the complexities and difficulties with which its officials have to deal, that the time has come for an inquiry. I differ in one respect from my Friend the Member for Nottingham (Sir James Yoxall). I think these changes and difficulties not only affect the Board of Education. I prefer the proposal of the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Snowden), and I signed his memorial asking for a Royal Commission to inquire into the number,

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    conditions, and methods of appointment of all the Government officials. I am inclined to think it better to include the Board of Education in that general inquiry. I said I was in agreement with the other result of this controversy, the demand that has been made, and is being made, by every great local authority for more sympathetic treatment at Whitehall. I will allude to one or two examples taken from the experience of local education authorities. It is a curious and significant fact that during the last year the Board of Education has got itself into controversy with almost every one of the great local education authorities. Last summer it was the London County Council. No doubt hon. Members opposite may have thought at the time that the Board of Education was justified in penalising the reactionary Moderates at Spring Gardens. It may have been that the county council was technically in the wrong, but whether it was in the right or not the Board of Education took what I can only call unfair advantage of the greatest local education authority in the United Kingdom by issuing their ultimatum at a time when the council was in recess and when there was no opportunity to give its official answer.
    Let me pass from the London County Council to the Lancashire County Council. The President of the Board of Education made a passing reference to the controversy that has taken place with the Lancashire County Council for their non-compliance with Article 18 of the Board of Education Code. In this particular controversy the President of the Board of Education declared his intention of withdrawing the Board of Education grants from fourteen schools in the county. He may have been right or wrong in the intention that he expressed, but it is a curious fact that after what I believe was a somewhat acute controversy he eventually gave way and withdrew his demand in every case except three, and expressed the opinion that if he had been better informed at the beginning of the controversy he would not have made the demand he did. The Board of Education, in dealing with great local education authorities such as Lancashire, should have seen that it was properly informed at the very beginning of the controversy. Then there is the case of Liverpool. It is only yesterday that I received a communication from the Chairman of the Liverpool County Council, who feels aggrieved that at the beginning of this year
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    a circular should have been issued under the name, not only of the President of the Board of Education, but of the President of the Board of Trade as well, telling the local education authority there to carry out certain particular points with reference to Juvenile Labour Exchanges. I am not at all sure that in the matter of Juvenile Labour Exchanges it is not an excellent thing that the Board of Trade should cooperate with the Board of Education, but that is not my point. My point is that surely in starting what, I believe, is quite a new policy of sending communications to a local education authority signed by the President of the Board of Trade, and asking them to do certain specific acts, some kind of explanation ought to have been sent with it explaining the particular points and the advantages which would ensue from the co-operation between these two offices. Then there was the case of the Manchester Local Education Authorities. The President of the Board has no doubt received a communication from the Manchester Local Education Authority with reference to the circular to which I am drew the attention of the House. The Manchester Education Authority feels very much aggrieved that no explanation has been sent to it from Whitehall with reference to the aspersions which were cast upon certain of its higher officials. The memorandum ends with words which seem to me exactly to express what is not only in my mind, but I believe in the minds of most of the local administrators throughout England. I will quote them to the Committee:—
    "Turning to the administration of the Education Acts, it may be pointed out that Scotland and Wales hare each their separate Boards of Education, and in these parts of the Kingdom a much better state of affairs is in existence, particularly in Scotland, due, no doubt, to the fact that the local education authorities have a means provided for bringing forward their views and recommendations. The English local education authorities hare no opportunities of bringing their collective views before the Board of Education, and are never consulted with regard to the Codes and Regulations which so largely govern elementary schools. When the Education Bill was before Parliament in 1902 it was stated that with the establishment of the new local education authorities there would come about a system by which greater powers would been trusted to the localities to the saving of much unnecessary clerical work at Whitehall. Such hopes have so far not been realised—administration by regulation has been intensified. What is wanted is greater liberty of action by the locality, with power to order the supply of education so as to suit local needs and circumstances by those best acquainted with such needs."
    Those opinions exactly correspond with my own, and, I feel certain, with those of the great majority of members of education committees throughout the country.

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    During the last few weeks my hon. Friend (Mr. Peel) and I have attempted to put a series of questions to draw attention to one of the details in which much unnecessary trouble might have been avoided by consultation with local officials and local administrators. I refer to the regulation with reference to evening schools and technical institutes. I am quite aware that in a matter of this kind it is the first necessity that the Board of Education, as representing the central authority, should maintain strict control over the financial Grants to evening schools and technical institutes, but I believe they could have done this without imposing an enormous amount of trouble upon the teachers and officials directly concerned with evening schools and technical institutes if they had taken local officials and local administrators into their confidence before they issued these regulations. I think I am justified in saying that from this fact that since the issue of these regulations there have been complaints from every part of the country, and that the result of these complaints has been that the Board of Education now say they are going to revise the objectionable regulations. That seems to point to what I am trying to impress upon the Committee that all this trouble might have been avoided if we had a little more sympathetic co-operation from Whitehall. I own that we are placed in some difficulty in the questions which we ask the President of the Board. For instance, the first question that the hon. Member (Mr. Peel) asked was on 20th April, when he asked "Whether the Board of Education have now decided to withdraw or materially amend the requirements respecting registration." The answer of the President of the Board was "No." In spite of this fact I find that only three weeks before that answer the Board of Education itself issued a circular in which it used these words:—
    "The forms of register and the rules for registration prescribed under Article 14 (a) of the existing regulations for technical schools, etc., are being revised for the educational year 1911–12."
    It is only a point of detail, but it bears out what was said by my hon. Friend opposite, that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, perhaps owing to our clumsy drafting, to get answers to the questions that we ask. These incidents, and I could multiply them, as other Members of the Committee could, seem to me to show three things. In the first place, they seem to show that the President of the Board is under the impression that no
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    knowledge exists outside Whitehall; secondly, that he is out of sympathy with the work of local administration in the country; and thirdly, that he is out of touch with the details of his own office.
    Mr. BOLAND: There is one point on which the community for which I speak to-day feels that it has been unfairly treated, not merely by the President of the Board of Education, but since 1906, and that is with regard to the secondary school regulations as they affect the Catholic schools of this country. Ever since the secondary school regulations as they now exist were brought forward we from the Irish Benches, speaking for the Catholics of this country, who be it remembered are mainly composed of the children or descendants of Irish people who have settled in this country, have steadily protested against the character of these secondary school regulations. I 'propose to show that in one respect at least it is open to the President of the Board of Education to meet the claim which is put forward by the Catholics of this country. According to the regulations as they now exist not a single new secondary Catholic school in this country can be recognised by the Board of Education. It is quite true that as regards existing secondary Catholic schools, owing to the waiving of two or three of the regulations they are able to go on, under protest it is true. But it is absolutely impossible to renew Catholic secondary schools in this country. At the present moment there are only eleven Catholic secondary schools for boys in this country. The girls are rather better off, there being something like thirty-nine secondary schools for them. When you come to look more closely into these figures, you find that out of these schools only three are recognised pupil teachers' centres, and that has an important bearing upon the future supply of teachers, not merely for the secondary schools, but for what is of the greatest importance, the Catholic primary schools in this country. On the other hand, there are 525 non-Catholic recognised schools for Protestant children, and as regards pupil teachers' centres there are 383. As regards the mere provision of the existing secondary schools and pupil teachers' centres for our people, they are ludicrously small.
    The Education authority should have regard to the possible growth of the Catholic population, but under these regulations as they at present stand Catholic

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    secondary schools cannot be instituted in this country. Quite apart from the question of the children who attend the schools, the possibility of finding a means of giving education to the future elementary school teachers in this country is so confined at present that it is impossible for Catholics to say that proper provision is made for the supply of a sufficient number of Catholic teachers to man the elementary schools in this country. The President of the Board of Education and some Members of this House may say, "Why not let them go to the council, or non-Catholic, schools of this country?" That is not a solution of this difficulty. The Catholics have made great sacrifices in the past for maintaining the Catholic education of their children, and as a proof of this I shall state what has happened since the passing of the Act of 1902 in the case of elementary schools. According to figures published by the Board of Education, the number of elementary schools in this country which since the passing of that Act have been transferred from being voluntary schools and have become council schools in the case of the Church of England is, I believe, 321. As regards Wesleyans and other denominations there have also been considerable numbers of transfers. In the case of Catholic schools not a single one has been transferred in the course of the nine, years. That is a proof that our people in their poverty desire that their children should be taught in their own schools, as are the children of other denominations. The same thing is true of other schools in the country. Where it has become necessary to close a Catholic school because of the growth of the Catholic population another school has been substituted, also under Catholic management.
    As regards our position, we have absolutely clean hands. We stand for Catholic education and Catholic teachers, and it is no answer to us to say, "Let your clever boys and girls take scholarships and go to council schools, and subsequently pass to the universities, and there get the training necessary for them to become teachers." That is not an answer to our protest. On the other hand, what should be done to provide a sufficient number of new recognised secondary schools which Catholic children could attend, and whereby you would not merely enable them to obtain the ordinary education which should not be denied to any child in this country, but which would enable future teachers of Catholic elementary
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    schools to get a proper education? What happens in London? There is not a single recognised boys' Catholic school in London. A few years ago, after the death of Cardinal Vaughan, steps were taken in order to erect a memorial to his memory, which was to take the form of a secondary school for boys. It was found to be impossible to carry out that project owing to the present technical school regulations. The Catholics, though they collected a certain amount of money for the school, were not going to hand that over to an outside authority altogether. What they ask, and I think justly ask, is that even supposing that the existing secondary school regulations are maintained, and granting that they are allowed in the case of existing schools, we submit that as regards new Catholic schools waivers of the regulations should also be allowed. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that there is a demand in different part of the country for institutions of the kind I have indicated, and I say that if he would waive these regulations in the case of new Catholic schools he would go a long way, but not the whole way, to meet, the Catholic contention.
    A few weeks ago there was circulated a White Paper relating to the registration of teachers and the proposed registration council. I notice that at the close there is a suggested scheme for a teachers council for England and Wales. I am not at all criticising the proposed register of teachers. It has been long wanted, and I think it will be of very great value to this country, but I submit to the right hon. Gentleman that it would clear away a great deal of doubt from the minds not merely of Members of this House, but of the people of the country, if he would indicate what the powers of this new registration council are to be. Is it to be in any sense an advisory council? Is it merely to have no power except that of setting out in a schedule exactly what are the qualifications of the teachers? If its power is no more than merely that I have no fault to find, but I would strongly resent the idea of any power being given to the registration council which would in any sense conflict with the superior powers of the Board of Education, because I would then feel compelled to ask that some representation should be given to Catholic teachers, Catholic head-masters, and the Catholic community in the educational world. If the right hon. Gentleman is able to make it clear that in setting up the register there will be nothing done to im-

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    peril the future of any teacher in the country who does not happen to come under the recognised system, I should have no further criticism to make. Let me impress upon the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the secondary school question that feeling is extremely deep, because Catholics who have made great sacrifices in the past for their schools are not going to sit down quietly and see steps taken not by statute, but by regulations of the Board of Education, over which this Parliament has really no control, setting at naught the ideals and practices which have been in operation for many years—regulations contrary it seems to me, to the proper system of education in this country which has been recognised as denominational education. These regulations seek to destroy that system, and practically to put an end, if it can be done by those regulations, to the growth of Catholic schools. If regulations are to be set up by the Board of Education crippling more and more the determination of Catholics in this country to maintain Catholic education for their children, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that he will some day find that the Catholic community are united with intense strength on this matter. Although in late years we have always supported the action of the Government, we shall take very strong measures in order to assert what Catholics are determined to assert—the right of Catholics to have Catholic schools for their children.
    Sir WILLIAM ANSON: Before I proceed to deal with the matters on which the President of the Board of Education touched in his lucid and interesting speech, I would like to refer to a subject to which the hon. Member (Mr. Boland) alluded, namely, the prospect at last that we are in sight of the formation of a teachers' register, and the appointment of a council whose duty it will be to frame regulations for the registrar. The register of teachers has been too long delayed, and I am glad to think that there is a prospect of its being set up. I was very glad to hear from the President of the Board of Education that the British Museum had been so great a success as he described, and I think we owe our congratulations to those connected with the new Science Museum which is about to be brought into existence. The requirements of the Natural History Museum will not come in conflict with the operations of the new Science Museum. I
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    hope it will now be possible to extend these institutions when required without interfering with each other. The right hon. Gentleman pointed to the fact that we are behind Germany in the higher technology. I think there is a fairly obvious reason, namely, that our own teaching institutions are remote from the centres of industry. The higher technology can only be developed when you bring scientific teaching into close connection with the operations carried on in industrial communities as in Leeds and Sheffield, where you get the highest scientific research conducted in the immediate neighbourhood of important departments of industry. I hope that these universities will be assisted in the subjects with which they are dealing, and that they will be brought into closer and closer relation to the industries with which their teaching is connected, so that thereby they may conduce to the greater development of science in relation to the industries of this country.
    The right hon. Gentleman went on to speak in a jubilant tone of the progress made by secondary schools. The Board of Education is doing what no local authority can do in that matter—that is to say, it is showing a preference in favour of one school as against another. The Educational Act of 1902 expressly forbids local authorities to do anything of the sort. The Board of Education by regulations are doing what Parliament has forbidden the local authorities to do. I can never accept the regulations as satisfactory while that blot remains upon them, and I sympathise entirely with all that fell from the hon. Member for South Kerry as to the injustice done to denominational schools and more particularly to the Roman Catholic schools of the country. The right hon. Gentleman dwelt upon the number of secondary schools which have largely increased and the number of pupils, and I admit that that is a matter for congratulation if we are satisfied that those institutions are really giving all that a boy or girl ought to get in a secondary school. Whether they get that benefit or not depends upon two things. The first is whether they stay at the school long enough—and in a great many cases we have heard they do not stay long enough—to enable them to get the full value of their time at the schools, and the next point is the quality of the schools.
    In the early days of the Education Act, there were a great many schools started which were secondary schools in nothing

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    more than name. I believe that the Board of Education has enforced the curriculum which is very much the same, I think, as was drawn up when I was concerned in educational matters, and that the schools are now genuine secondary schools. But the right hon. Gentleman laid his finger upon one weak spot in the working machinery of secondary schools. That is the inadequate salaries which the assistant masters in secondary schools now receive. Unless you can really attract good men into that branch of the teaching profession your secondary schools will never be all you wish them to be for the sake of the children who attend them. I cannot help thinking that the President has taken a mistaken view in suggesting that the salaries of head masters were too large in proportion to the salaries of the assistants. Anyone who knows anything of the secondary schools knows how almost entirely their success depends upon the energy and capacity of the head master. I have known schools to rise and fall in the most astonishing way by the coming or going of a head master. The most successful head master is not necessarily the man of the highest academical qualifications. He is the man who can push the school and attract parents, and really turn out boys and girls better than they were when they came. I think that to reduce the salaries of head masters in order to supplement the salaries of assistant masters would be the greatest possible mistake, and that what the Board ought to endeavour to do is from one source or another supplement the very insufficient salaries of assistant head masters, and in that way make secondary schools what they wish them to be—schools in which boys and girls may get the stimulus of an education given by a man of high character, high capacity, and long training. That is a thing you will not get as long as it is not worth a man's while to undergo the training necessary to qualify him for a position as master in a secondary school.
    I somewhat regret the rejoicings of the President over what he called the democratic constitution of the governing bodies of the secondary schools. Of course it is a very good thing if local authorities have really so far interested themselves in the working of the secondary schools that the committees or sub-committees can give the time necessary to attend to the government of the schools. But what most schools do want is not so much a democratic constitution, whatever that may mean, as a body of men who really under-
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    stand what a secondary school ought to be, and who will follow its curriculum, to whom the head master can go when he finds himself in a difficulty, and who really can spare time and take trouble for the development of the school. I think that is more important than being able to use the conventional term democratic as a term or phrase for the constitutional government of a secondary school. I was also glad to hear that the inspection of the Board is getting more widely used, and I confess I should not regret to hear that a school with which I am more nearly connected is also using it, because the Board of Education has the staff and the machinery for furnishing a more adequate inspection than any other inspecting body. It has got the money to pay for it.
    I now come to the question of appointments, which has given rise to some animation in the course of this Debate. I agree entirely with the President of the Board of Education on the question of the method on which appointments are made. The Board of Education is perfectly free from the burden of examination in the selection of its servants. An examination conducted on the scale on which examinations for the Civil Service must be conducted necessarily becomes mechanical. It is no final test of fitness. Of course, it is a qualifying intellectual test. It is not a final test of efficiency in the Civil Service either as an inspector or as an examiner. Inspecting a man's record and then having an interview in which you can really gauge the character and colour of the man to some extent seems to me the right way to find the right man. As to all these questions about the position and the rights of the certificated teacher, and his necessary qualifications for the inspectorship or examinership under the Board of Education, what you want to get is the best man for the best post. I do not wish to say more about the Holmes circular. We have had a discussion about it, and I took exception then, and shall take exception again, to the mode in which that discussion was dealt with by the President of the Board of Education. But I believe that much of what was stated in that circular had a very large element of truth.
    If I may put in a few words what I gather to be the root ideas in that circular, they were these: that a man who has got a university degree is better than a man who has not, and that a teacher is not necessarily the best man for an inspectorship. What is more, I entirely agree with the circular, that the teacher,

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    whether he is a teacher in a secondary school or in any sort of school, unless his habit of mind is corrected by the wider outlook of a university education, is apt to be opinionated and dogmatic, and in that way you have to regard other qualifications besides the experience of teaching in elementary schools. I quite admit that experience of that sort is a great benefit, and I am very glad to hear that the President has been able to find so many men who have had that experience and who are otherwise qualified to take these posts under the Board of Education, but so far as my own recollection goes the process that we went through in making appointments was precisely the process which the President of the Board of Education has described. I have a full sense of the value of the assistance I derived from the colleagues with whom I had the honour to work. I may say that we lived in stormy times. We had to enter into relations with over 300 local authorities in matters which were new to them and, to a great extent, to us. The material with which we dealt was highly combustible. Yet, on the whole, the Act came into operation without friction, except in certain places and on certain subjects and with the best feelings between ourselves and the very numerous local authorities with whom we have to deal. I think that that says something for the mode in which the appointments are made to those places under the Board of Education. I may be pardoned for touching on that point, because I think there is a great deal of misunderstanding on the question of qualification as to how the best men are obtained, and what is the result of experience as to the mode of obtaining them in the past.
    7.0 P.M.
    The President of the Board of Education dwelt at some length on elementary schools, and used an expression with which I accordingly agree. He said that what was done in the schools was, on the whole, of more benefit to the nation than what was done in Parliament. There are one or two points on which I would like to touch. First of all, as to the expense of building. I was glad to hear that the President of the Board of Education is now endeavouring to reduce the expense of building where it is possible to do so. I was informed this afternoon by one of my hon. Friends of a mode of building which has not hitherto been employed, and details of which I do not feel qualified to explain. But it produces a school adequate in buildings and approved of by the Board of Edu-
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    cation at a cost of £7 per place. I earnestly hope that the Board of Education will encourage cheapness in building, more especially in the rural areas. One great feature of interest in our elementary schools at the present moment is the efforts which are being made at the health of the children. For a long time we worked upon the school surroundings. We took care that the rooms were ventilated and that the water supply was good and so forth. I confess I never thought that that was adequate, and I am glad that the Committee now understand that a system of medical inspection is being introduced. It often happens that there is a child with defective eyesight or defective hearing which has not been recognised, and then the teeth also have always been a source of trouble with children. A child might not be able to undergo the physical exertion which is borne by other children, and there would be no one in authority to give attention to that case. But now we have got the machinery, and I am glad to hear that the local Board of Education machinery for making an inspection is working well. It is essential to my mind that the Board of Education and the local authority should use existing local appliances, and that there should be great variety of treatment between localities as well as a considerable range of experiment. There should always be a connection between the local authority, the local inspector, and those persons who are more especially connected with the school.
    We have had reports which are admirable in style, in arrangement, and feeling, but anyone who reads them I think will see that although a great deal of admirable work is now being done in the medical inspection of the schools, very much remains to be done. We have to bear in mind that the medical officer is not the only person concerned, there is the nurse who plays a prominent part; there is the teacher, and there is the home. We not only attend to the health of the individual children who are attending the schools, but we follow them to their homes, and tell the parents what is the matter with them, and how they ought to be treated, so that in future children may be sent to school in a better condition than are children at present. The medical treatment of children is a very important matter, but a great deal of care and thought is required as to whether we are not going too far in taking over the whole medical treatment of children, beyond what is

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    necessary to fit them for attending school. We have to consider whether we are really justified in carrying out this treatment in the way proposed at the cost of the ratepayers. As to the feeding of children, the child who is not fed is not in a condition, through hunger, to do school work. It is pointed out in connection with the feeding of children, that the child learns what is right and wrong in diet, and how to conduct himself at meals. Very often, at first, meals were somewhat of a scramble, and no attention was paid to regularity and discipline at these meals. Then there is the point as to teaching in the elementary schools. The President of the Board of Education pointed out that it is various and admirable, that the children learn interesting subjects, and that they are able to perform music, and so on. What, however, we have to think in our elementary education is, What does it lead to? Where does it take the child? It is not of any good to give an interesting and attractive education, even with accomplishments, unless you are giving the child that sort of instruction which will fit it to play its part in life. To accomplish that result it is necessary that our education should be continuous, that is to say, it should advance from the elementary school to the point at which the child is started in life. I am glad that a Bill, which will be the subject of considerable criticism when it comes to be discussed, has been introduced by the President of the Board of Education for the establishment of continuation classes, and the extension of education in that direction.
    I am sorry that the higher elementary schools, which in many cases have been the proper sequel of the elementary schools, which carry on education on the literary side while teaching practical subjects in view of practical work in our industries, do not increase in number, but rather diminish. Perhaps I have a sort of parental interest in the higher elementary schools, because they were established on my own initiative, and I had hoped that they would turn out to be more useful. The boy or girl of every elementary school can go to the higher elementary school, or continuation class, or the technical school; but what we want is to land a boy at a point where he will be able to start in life, for that reason I am sorry to find that the Choice of Employment Act, which was passed last Session, is really of very little good. It was intended to bring the schools and the education authorities
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    into contact with the Labour Exchanges. A difficulty has arisen of this sort, that nothing can be done except by the joint action of the Board of Education and the Board of Trade. We have heard a good deal about the difficulties which the local authorities experience in dealing with the Board of Education. I quite admit that any Government Department is beset by difficulties, but here the unfortunate local authority has to deal with two Government Departments in such a small matter as an elementary school, and also with Labour Exchanges. I think it is extremely important that there should be some other way of dealing with the matter. Having regard to the immense difficulty of putting the children—assuming they are fit to work, and as soon as their education can reasonably be regarded as finished—into some useful employment which will lead somewhere, I earnestly hope that the Board of Education and the Board of Trade will combine together and see whether they cannot simplify and accelerate the work of local authorities in enabling children to get into employment. Of course, we hope that continuation classes will be used, and that the tutorial classes will also be found useful. We have every reason to believe that they will enable the working classes to carry on their higher education while still following remunerative employment. In that way we are doing the best we can to start a boy or girl in the elementary school—with a genuine desire to learn and profit by the means of education—on the way to the higher spheres of education. Of course, there is the other problem connected with the elementary school, and that is the problem of making the passage from the elementary school to the secondary school, which we all desire to see established as easily as possible.
    If that is to be accomplished the secondary school must be made as adaptable as possible to the various needs of the children and of the localities. I entirely agree with what was said by an hon. Member, that the secondary schools should be various in character, and I believe the Board of Education encourage the adaptation of secondary schools to the requirements of an area. But the fact should not be lost sight of, that although we desire the child to go from the elementary school to the secondary school, we do not wish the secondary school to be of such a character that it would not be in a position to encourage in the child a desire for wider knowledge

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    and some of the accomplishments of life, while at the same time being carefully instructed so that it may be fitted for the practical occupations of life. We hope that the secondary schools may be a stepping-stone to the university, where a boy or girl has the capacity for university education, and who enters upon that course of instruction with the knowledge or reasonable expectation that it will lead to some profitable employment. I desire that the teaching which is given should be of a wide character, while always having relation to the future of the child and its walks in life. In order to accomplish that we should follow the child into its home, and see that it does not lose interest in its studies after it has left the school. If we can only make the parents and all the parties concerned recognise the value of education, not only its material value, but its value in making the lives of men more interesting and more generally useful, then I think we shall be doing something towards the establishment of an educational system which will confer benefits on all classes of the community.
    Mr. GOLDSTONE: I beg to move, to reduce the Vote by £100.
    I want, however, in the first place to thank the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board for his interesting statement, and to congratulate the Board on the work it is doing in regard to the medical inspection of schools, and also with the necessary corollary—the school clinic. That is one of the Board's activities which makes a very cordial appeal to me. I believe that the Board in that department, at least, has acted very wisely by inviting men to join its staff who knew their business. They called into their assistance a gentleman who did magnificent work in Bradford, a model city so far as this work is concerned, and by associating him with others in the work the Board seems to me to have made excellent progress, and to have gone on right lines. When I say that let me say that I make no apology for raising the matter of E Memorandum No. 21. It would be, so far as I am concerned, not a right thing to pass over the feeling in the country, the feeling of widespread suspicion as to how the affairs of the Board of Education are carried on; and also a feeling of the intensest unrest amongst thousands of teachers who are in the elementary schools to-day. The right hon. Gentleman the
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    Member for Oxford University (Sir W. Anson) said that there was some truth in. the circular, and possibly there is. The teachers may be uncultured and imperfectly educated, but I have yet to learn that it is a mark of culture to emphasise this want in others as this circular does. I have yet to meet the perfectly educated man. The teachers are not alone in this, and who is responsible? The interesting book, "Eton under Hornby," which has recently been issued should give an insight into the well-worn groove of public schools which supply one of the necessary antecedents for the appointment of inspectors.
    I say that those things may possibly be true, but I venture to suggest to the House that it is the people of "complete detachment" who are responsible. They have been responsible for the drafting of codes. For forty years they have determined the curriculum, they have conducted schemes for the training of teachers and then they turn round and they say that the teachers of the country are imperfectly educated, and creatures of tradition and routine—which sits ill on them. Moreover, the present administration of the Board still retains in the schools of the country thousands of unqualified teachers. Then, forsooth, I suppose the average of this watered profession, watered by the very Board itself, is to be compared with that of the men of Oxford? That is not the way to gain the enthusiasm of the teachers of this country. It is the way to foster that suspicion which is everywhere in the schools, and which will not be allayed unless those responsible are brought to book. It is really easy to tell us that the man concerned has gone from the Board. This circular was approved by others in a superior position to the gentleman who wrote the circular. It must have passed through the hands of the responsible head of the elementary branch of the Board of Education. Further, it received final approval, whether on the face of the circular or on the face of a covering letter is immaterial to the point, of the Permanent Secretary. And yet there is not a word of apology to the teachers and inspectors drawn from the ranks of elementary school teachers who are slandered. I think that apology was due. The whole of the circular has not yet been made public in this House. Another portion of it was discussed the other day at a meeting of the Durham County Council Education Committee, and the portion I should imagine which relates

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    to the inspectors employed by the Durham County Council would appear almost to me to be actionable in a court of law. Those words have now been made public in the committee room of the Durham County Council Education Committee, and I suppose I may be forgiven if I repeat them again:—
    "The £500 which is being spent on one Oxford man in—shire, is being laid out to infinitely better advantage than the £900 a year which is being spent on three ex-elementary teacher inspectors in Durham County. Indeed, the Durham Education authority is beginning to realise that its £900 a year is being wasted, and worse than wasted, and now that it is receiving full reports from the Board's inspectors, it is beginning to wonder what use it can make of the three inspectors who were appointed with undue haste."
    That is another portion of this circular. Naturally the Chairman of the County Council Education Committee is indignant, and the committee wish to know who supplied the information. They do not agree with the facts, and they repudiate the suggestions contained in the circular. When my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven (Mr. T. Richardson), who is Vice-chairman of the Durham County Council Education Committee, put a question in this House suggesting that there might be an apology to those inspectors and some explanation due, the answer he got to my mind was entirely unsatisfactory. The President replied:—
    "I am not aware of the authority on which the particular statements referred to in the question (the question being the résumé of that portion of the Memorandum) were based by the writer of the Memorandum, who is no longer in the Board's service. As the document was intended solely for confidential perusal, and was made public without the knowledge and consent of the Board, I do not think that the Board is called upon to take the course suggested in the last paragraph of the question."
    Surely there is something entirely unsatisfactory about that. Are the replies to the questions which were sent out by Mr. Holmes not filed with the papers in the Board's office. I would that we might have access to the papers which contain the replies to the questions sent out to the inspectors by Mr. Holmes. The statements are not true or approved of by the Durham Education Committee, and they, with me, are anxious to know who supplied the facts on which Mr. Holmes made generalisations, the generalisations being repudiated by the committee. Some explanation should be forthcoming, and I think some apology to the men so unfairly slandered in that circular. I have wondered whether they are not entitled to seek legal redress in the law courts, because they are professionally prejudiced
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    by the words which have now been made public throughout the length and breadth of the country. If those words, addressed to the teachers, or rather addressed about them to certain individuals, were merely the vulgar slanders of those above them, then we could afford to ignore them; but I take this to be a symptom of a policy from which the right hon. Gentleman disassociates himself, but a policy which has been prominent at the Board for years. There are those in the Board who are responsible, and I should imagine promote the policy more than the gentlemen who act as passengers in the responsible Parliamentary position at the head of the Board. One of the weaknesses of the position has been that the Presidency of the Board of Education has been, as it were, but a stepping-stone to higher things. It is an entirely British conception of the place education should take in the affairs of the State that the Board of Trade is of superior status and the Board of Admiralty also superior to the Board of Education.
    The fact has been that we have as it were passengers at the Board, and the fact that the Board is dependent entirely on that state of affairs has resulted in this, that the policy is framed more and more by those who stay there all the time. I am reminded of what a colleague of mine told me with regard to a State Department, whose name I need not mention, as this occurred not so many years ago. When there was discussed in this House the affairs of that Department one of the permanent officials came here, and my friend ventured to put to him the question, "What do you think of it all?" "Oh," said the gentleman, "I have seen squirrels go round in a cage before." I venture to put it to the House that if it is not alive to its own responsibility and to its own position in the thousand and one things which are not determined by direct Parliamentary mandate, then the great officers in Whitehall will take the place of Westminster, and that is what has happened with regard to this circular; and that is why I say that the circular is symptomatic of a policy which persists all the time, no matter who may come and go in the Presidency of the Board of Education. I venture to follow the right hon. Gentleman through a portion of his statement. I am glad to find that there are so many secondary schools in receipt of State aid. I am disappointed to find that though the percentage of free places has risen from twenty-five to thirty,

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    there are yet in the country 124 of the 1,000 secondary schools which have been allowed to depart from the normal arrangement of 25 per cent, of free places in the secondary schools. I doubt whether the suggestion that there is sufficient provision elsewhere will satisfy all those cases. If the normal requirement had been demanded in every one of those cases there would have been available in the public secondary schools of this country something like an additional 565 places for boys and girls from the public elementary schools.
    The right hon. Gentleman appeals to me with regard to cases of hardship in secondary schools with regard to transfer. I have cases, and if he would consult the Parliamentary Secretary he would probably recall to him cases I brought for his private attention. I am bound to add I got no suggestion of redress which would encourage me to go forward with the suggestion of other cases. I will give him one of those cases. I will take the case of a gentleman who was the head of a flourishing pupil teacher centre, but not with the "antecedents usually looked for." His pupils actually went to Oxford and Cambridge, and here let me remark that I wonder whether there is not another secret circular dealing with the death of the pupil teacher centres. This particular centre, was attached, and this is stage one, as a wing of the local secondary school. Incidentally the head of that pupil teacher centre became subordinate to the head of the secondary school. In stage two, we have the total absorption of the centre into the secondary school and the removal of the head master. In stage three, the local authority intervenes, being anxious not to part with the services of an excellent man whom they valued, and they gave him an equivalent appointment in connection with their training college. The gentleman concerned was placed in charge of mathematics. When the inspectors came round they dubbed him as not being a suitable person, and these are favourite words in some of the recommendations of the Board, for this type of school, and forsooth he had to go. Incidentally, I may tell the House that when the report came mathematics came out, I believe, the best subject of all, but the gentleman is now eating his heart out in a slum school with a reduction of £100 pet year in his salary. I have heard suggestions of £10,000 of compensation in
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    cases where the reputation and career of a boy have been prejudiced, but I have yet to hear of a case of the Treasury coming along on the recommendation of the Board of Education to put right a case such as I have mentioned.
    I have another case in mind, and one that I feel keenly, because the man concerned was intimate with myself and went through Borough Road with me. He was the head of a flourishing pupil-teacher centre, and again the fiat went forth that it was to be closed. The man was too proud to appeal to the two authorities concerned, who seemed to juggle between themselves as to which was responsible for finding him an equivalent appointment, and he had to go. He is now expending what little he had saved on qualifying for another profession entirely. Another man in the West of England is an assistant master, with a substantial reduction in salary in an elementary school where he had been head of the pupil teachers' centre. The pupil teachers' centre was a place where the progressive and excellent type of elementary teacher who had proved his worth in actual teaching came out on top. I do not know whether that was the cause of his downfall, but that is what happened.
    A suggestion is made to me with regard to the governors of secondary schools. I may remind the right hon. Gentleman that soon after the passing of the Act of 1902 there were suggestions from the Board of Education that the governors of the new secondary schools should be largely free from the domination of the directly-elected education bodies. Those who have any knowledge of local administration will agree with me. It was to that that I was referring as illustrating the continuity of the policy of the Board, which I aver to have been reactionary in this matter. With regard to fees, I hope the Knaresborough Secondary School, which is doing such admirable work, will not insist on a six-guinea fee. I recall the case of Todmorden, where the local authority wished to continue its secondary school as a free school, when it was taken over by the West Riding Education Committee. It had been a free school, but the education committee suggested a six-guinea fee. I proceed to other examples of the policy of the Board of Education. You find in the early stages, where there had been a modest fee of 6d. a week, the suggestion made that a 6d. a week fee for a secondary school is not the thing. I may quote the case of the Bolton Secondary School, where, when it was a

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    higher elementary school, the local authority charged 6d. a week. But when it was made a secondary school, the suggestion came from the Board itself—I speak on the authority of a Member of the Education Committee at that time—that the fee should be three guineas per annum, payable one guinea per term. The fees in secondary schools have risen in cases where they were higher grade schools at 6d. a week—a fee which gave the working man an opportunity of getting higher education for his boys. Imagine a man earning 28s. a week being called upon to put down for one of his boys two guineas three times a year, thus having more than a week's wages mortgaged before he got them home.
    The right hon. Gentleman suggests that the right age for secondary education to begin is nine. I hope I do not see in that suggestion the setting up of preparatory schools to secondary schools, which will still further shut off the secondary school from the boy in the elementary school. We want our educational system to be a pyramid, with the elementary school for its base, and the rest tapering symmetrically from that base without any adventitious arrangement or preparatory schools, which incidentally will bring in a type of school intended to provide earlier secondary education for children in cases where you are not yet able to tell whether their parents will be able to afford it. I do not like the suggestion at all. I believe the plan would be inimical to the best interests of education.
    I pass on to consider the question of the training colleges. The right hon. Gentleman suggests that the students in training colleges shall have the opportunity of reading for degrees and of undergoing a four years' course. That has not been the policy. This is a policy which comes to light almost at the last moment. The policy of late years has been, as the principals of London Colleges will doubtless tell the right hon. Gentleman if he asks them, to restrict the students in the colleges from preparing themselves for degrees. I speak as one who went through a training college. To speak of a college like Borough Road imposing an undue hardship on a man who read for a degree is to show a want of knowledge of how a training college works and of the type of man who enters a London training college. If he has a three years' course he can do it quite well. But the policy appears to have been to shut off from these men the oppor-
    566
    tunity of reading for degrees, and incidentally to shut them off from passage to higher educational institutions. I doubt whether the latter consideration did not dominate the suggestion as to reading for degrees. The difficulty was increased, because a man who read for a degree, and was able to secure the approval of the Board for that purpose, sometimes found that, if he went down in one subject in his final year, the Board's regulations required that he should take his teacher's diploma as an outside student, as an acting teacher, with all that is involved in taking a certificate as an outside student, although he had gone through a training college, and become what is called a non-collegiate certificated teacher.
    I pass to the question of inspectors. Clearly the demand for closing the inspectorate to any but teachers in secondary schools is too absurd. There are 100,000 certificated teachers in the country, and 357 members of the inspectorate. The demand of the elementary school teacher is not that the door shall be kept for his entrance alone. What he demands, and rightly so, is that positive inexperience shall not be glorified. That is what has happened. The man who goes through Oxford or Cambridge has a great advantage. No one reveres those places more than I do, and I regret that I had not the opportunity of going through one of them. But I do say that, although a man may go through Oxford or Cambridge, he is not a heaven-born genius because of it. To imagine that because a man has gone through Oxford or Cambridge he has therefore learnt the technique of the art of teaching is again to show a want of knowledge of the conditions of life. A teacher takes years to perfect himself, if he ever becomes perfected, in the technique of his art. Imagine a man coming along with small experience—and my figures do not agree with those of the right, hon. Gentleman as to the experience of some of his inspectors—there are some who have not had a year's practical teaching. He will find that that is so if he makes the special inquiry, as I hope he will. The right hon. Gentleman has given what he calls fair samples of the gentlemen whom he has appointed as inspectors. I also will give some fair samples of men who have been appointed prematurely. I vouch for my samples exactly as the right hon. Gentleman vouched for his.
    The first case I take is that of a gentleman who became an inspector and went to examine a rural school. He devoted

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    part of the time to an examination of the gardening of the school. A friend of mine was in charge, and I know that he is a good gardener. When they were walking along the paths the inspector said, "You seem to have a lot of weeds here, Mr. X." "Oh," said Mr. X., "those are parsnips." That was an incident in real life. There is an originality, but it may be the originality of immaturity. There is a freshness, but it may be the freshness of the evergreen. I will give another case. A friend of mine is in charge of a great school in one of our big cities. An inspector comes along—one of the recent creations of the Board—a gentleman who, I believe, will make a good inspector, because he said to my friend, "I have been recently appointed; can you put me up to a thing or two?" You find, too, that it is conveyed to some of these young gentlemen who become junior inspectors—I do not know whether it is through the usual channel—that if they get a little experience in a school they may expect to be appointed. I say that for the work of an inspector you must have a man who has been under the harrow himself. A man who is going to criticise a time-table should have made one. A man who is going to show the defects of a scheme should have had to draft one. The point is that positive practical acquaintance with a school seems to rule you out if you are over the age of thirty. That is the usual thing. In reply to a question of mine the right hon. Gentleman states that the normal age of appointment is under thirty.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The average age is under thirty. The normal age is under thirty-five.
    Mr. GOLDSTONE: "In view of the normal age of appointment, which is certainly under thirty"—I am quoting the right hon. Gentleman's words in reply to me. Surely those words are clear enough.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I hope the hon. Gentleman does not misunderstand me. If he reads the answer through he will see that that was given as the average. However, it is quite immaterial. The age at which I like to get junior inspectors is under thirty-five, and I have always said so.
    Mr. GOLDSTONE: We agree that if you find a man who has had experience and can get him when he has all his genuine freshness about him, it is all to
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    the good; but this policy of appointing men who have not yet had experience, and have to get it at the State's expense whilst practising on those whom they inspect, is not a good policy. If it takes years to develop a teacher, under the right hon. Gentleman's scheme, it may also take some years to develop the powers of inspection of work which is intensely technical. That we do not get. That is why I put in a plea for the practical teacher who has the necessary qualifications to undertake this work. There are such, but not many of them have been appointed of recent years. I recall what an ex-inspector of the Board told me. A man who had had the training of some good juniors who had for years conducted examinations for certificated students had the bitter experience of finding himself suddenly displaced by a junior, young enough to be his son in experience as well as in years, superseding him in his position. That is the unfortunate policy which has been developed.
    The right hon. Gentleman has replied as extensively by letter as the resolutions which he has received have been great in number. His reply to the protests, which are deeply felt by the teachers of the country, says:—
    "With respect to (E) Memorandum 21, it contains no more than the personal view of the writer, and was so understood by those to whom it was sent."
    But if a junior officer in the Board drafts a Memorandum, which receives the approval of his superior officer, are we to take it that the superior officer is not in accord with the sentiments expressed in the Memorandum? This Memorandum expresses more than the personal view of the writer. Surely under Departmental control it expresses the views of those who gave their approval to it as it passed through from stage to stage. Therefore it expresses not only the personal view of the writer, but the view of every succeeding highly placed official who passed it on to his superior officer. "It was not a declaration of policy," says the right hon. Gentleman.
    It may not have said under the words "strictly confidential," "this is what the Board desires you to do," but imagine an inspector carrying this Memorandum about in his portfolio. Imagine him falling in with some member of an education committee and the question of an appointment to the local inspectorate arising. Would that inspector not feel that he would be doing a good service to those to whom he was responsible if he suggested to this

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    member of the local authority that the Committee had better not appoint anyone unless he had been to a public school and the university?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Can the hon. Member give any instance in which that has ever been done by an inspector?
    Mr. GOLDSTONE: I have not had the opportunity of being a member of an education committee, otherwise I believe it is quite possible that an inspector meeting me quite incidentally might have put to me the view which was expressed in a Memorandum contained in his portfolio.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: What I want to know is whether any inspector has acted upon it; if so, I would like to know?
    Mr. GOLDSTONE: Surely the right hon. Gentleman can hardly expect the inspector to come along and say, "That is the policy of E Memorandum 21 to be conveyed to the Vice-chairman of the Bluffshire Education Committee?" Surely not! That is not how things are done. There is an incidental meeting and the inspector knows what is in his portfolio. He knows what is the policy of the high officials concerned, and the opinions of the Board. He supports that policy, believing it to be the policy of the Board, though he has no definite instructions to that effect. It could not form the basis of any action. I have shown the House what I complain of, and I am prepared to give him the statement of what possibly happened, and leave the House to judge between the two points of view.
    "Mr. Runciman does not consider that any branch of the teaching profession Can claim to be the sole depository …"
    That is exactly what we feel, and it is because we have not seen that development in the policy of the Board that we bring our protest from the teachers to the floor of the House of Commons. We venture an appeal to Members representing the various constituencies who believe in education to have the Board of Education purged of this policy of reaction. Reaction is there, notwithstanding the glowing accounts of the right hon. Gentleman, and the teachers of the country would like the House of Commons to vindicate them against this slander.
    Hon. Members know that in a big business the office boy can look to becoming a partner if he shows himself to be worthy. According to this circular, which I avow
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    is the policy of the Board of Education—at least the right hon. Gentleman cannot say what happened in his Department—the teacher in an elementary school is barred. There should be an incentive in the teaching profession. A man should feel if he shows himself worthy that there is nothing to prevent him rising to the highest position in the service of the State. Teachers have not felt that, nor do they feel that, and it is because there is this suspicion, shared by members of the local educational committees, as well as by teachers everywhere, that they look for a change. They believe inquiry will result in a change. They look to greater stringency in the way these departments are supervised; that we may have no longer a divorce between the control of Parliament and administrative action. That, I say, is an important matter, as more and more of the communal activities of the land are being brought under the care of the great State Departments which are responsible for their administration.
    In conclusion, I want to make an appeal that the right hon. Gentleman would convey to the Prime Minister the desire of the teachers, and I believe the majority of this House and also the desire of the working men and the working women of this country, for greater access to Oxford and Cambridge, by means of those great endowments which were left by great and benevolent men who thought that education at Oxford and Cambridge would confer advantages. There should be a way open to merit into Oxford and Cambridge by the application of some of these great endowments of these universities to their original intention. Then only shall we have the ideal of the true educationist realised; not a ladder with many broken rungs, but a broad highway for the lad, no matter what his social antecedents may be, if he has grit and ability.
    Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I would like to call the attention of the Committee to another aspect of this question which has been referred to slightly during the Debate this afternoon, and in respect of which I also have put down a Motion. I refer to the practice of the Board of Education, under the Presidency of the right hon. Gentleman now occupying that office and of his predecessor, in regard to the relations between the Board and this House, between the Board and constitutional usage, between the Board and the law as it

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    at present stands. The hon. Gentleman the Member for South Kerry spoke this afternoon upon one aspect of the question to which I wish to draw the attention of the House. That is the secondary school regulations. I am glad to see the benches from which the hon. Gentleman spoke supporting, as he said, the view which we know Irish Members do support, that in the educational system of this country denominational schools should be treated as an integral part of our system and on an equality with undenominational schools. I trust that the Government will not have this Motion talked out. I trust we may have an opportunity of seeing the Members representing the Irish party at the Division to-night backing their opinions and supporting the schools in favour of which the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Kerry spoke.
    The policy of the Board of Education in relation to these subjects has been illustrated both in its attitude towards actual legal statutory enactments, and in relation to what I may call constitutional usage. I submit to the consideration of this House that it is a part of the constitutional traditions of this country that there should be perfect liberty of religious thought, and that no difference should be made on religious grounds in matters of education any more than on any other matters. The Secondary School Regulations were, as we know, first introduced in their present form in 1907. Up to that date the Regulations of the Board of Education had drawn no distinction whatever between the denominational schools and others. Both have been treated alike as integral parts of the educational system. It was only when the Government of that day suffered its defeat on the Education Bill introduced by the right hon. Gentleman, now Chief Secretary for Ireland, that in revenge the present First Lord of the Admiralty, then President of the Board of Education, introduced into his Secondary School Regulations discriminating provisions against denominational schools. There is. I say, no legal or constitutional justification for the Department of Education by Regulations discriminating between denominational and undenominational schools. The only ground upon which they have claimed this right is that in the Appropriation Act certain sums of money are granted to the Board for the purpose of distributing them as Grants-in-Aid of education.
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    I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to refer to any legal or constitutional authority of any kind to justify the distinction made in the Regulations. Under these Regulations—the House at this stage of the evening does not want to go into them in detail—the House will remember that broadly, in regard to the schools which were in receipt of a Grant in 1906, in 1907 they were allowed to continue in receipt of a Grant on the lowest scale, and only those schools; no new school was entitled to receive the Grant on any scale at all unless it complied with certain anti-denominational regulations contained in the Code. The right hon. Gentleman will remember that those regulations were, firstly, that no denominational teaching should be given except at the request of parents; secondly, there was the ordinary conscience clause; thirdly, that the trust or other instrument regulating the constitution of the school should not require either that the teachers or that the governing body should be denominational in character; lastly, there was a regulation which required that the governing body should be of a representative character, that is to say, that the majority should be chosen by representative bodies. Under Regulations 42 and 43 no Grant-in-Aid could be given to any new school that was not willing to comply with those four or five restrictions. In regard to schools that had been in receipt of the Grant in 1907, a waiver can be given by the Board, and in respect of no other school at all.
    8.0 P.M.
    I ask the Committee to bear those facts in mind in regard to these regulations, because I want to illustrate the way in which they have operated in an actual concrete case, which I will call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to, in order to show how unjust and unfair they are in their operation. There is a school at Liscard, in Cheshire, called St. Mary Mount. It is a Roman Catholic school, and has been in existence for some years. It is a secondary school for girls, within the meaning of the regulations. Liscard, as the House may remember, is part of a growing urban district called Wallasey, which has recently been incorporated. The population of that district is growing very rapidly. In 1891 it was 30,000, in 1901 it was 50,000, in 1911 it was nearly 80,000. In the district there are a very large number of Roman Catholics. As a matter of fact, in 1908 there were over 6,000 Roman Catholics there. There was no other secondary Roman Catholic school

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    for girls within a radius of some eight miles. Such a school was, therefore, essentially needed. In 1908 the governing body of the school applied to the Board of Education for recognition for the purposes of the Grant. The Board of Education replied by reference to its Regulations, and said: "Are you willing to give up your denominational character and obey the Regulations which we made, to hamper denominational teaching, to forbid a denominational governing body?" knowing quite well that with that Roman Catholic school it was impossible that those regulations should be complied with. The governors of the school replied pointing out that the school was needed in the district, that it had over 100 scholars, that there was no other school, and that the needs of the neighbourhood were growing, and they asked for the assistance of the Government Grant. Not only that—and I quote the actual letter of May, 1909—the attention of the Board was drawn to the conditions in the following terms:—
    "(1) It is well known to the Board of Education that the governors cannot accept the requirements of Articles 23 and 24, and that to make compliance with these a condition of recognition is tantamount to a refusal of recognition.
    "(2) The Governors are ready to comply with Articles 5 and 18 in the same way as the Governors of other Roman Catholic secondary schools, but they look for the same waiver of Articles 23 and 24 which others have obtained where the schools meet an educational need.
    "(3) The school in question meets such a need. It is the only Catholic secondary school within the meaning of the secondary school regulations in the district of Wallasey. The school is necessary for the children of a rapidly growing Catholic population requiring such a school, and who have a just claim for its recognition and participation in the grants.
    "(4) The Governors request, therefore, that the school be duly recognised as an integral part of the higher educational system of the district of Wallasey. They believe that in this view they have the support of the local education authority."
    And the local education authority, that is the Education Committee for County Council for Cheshire, passed the following resolution:—
    "That as this is the only Roman Catholic secondary school in this district and has a total attendance of 114 children, this committee recommends the application to the Board of Education."
    These are the facts. The school was needed in the district and the local education authority of the district passed a resolution to that effect, but the Board of Education merely replied: "We have had our own hands tied by our own regulations and we cannot give you the Grant which the local education authority say is needed." I submit there is no power to make these regulations, and as there was
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    no power to make them it is open to the Board of Education to rescind them. Why should a Roman Catholic or Church of England or Jewish School in the country, even old schools in receipt of Grants, be subjected to the condition to apply for a discretionary waiver from the Board of Education as a condition of their Grant? I say these schools are entitled as a right, and not as a waiver, to have the Grant, and in the next place I ask what difference in principle is there between a school that has been in receipt of the Grant and a school in a growing neighbourhood and a new neighbourhood where there are many children requiring denominational instruction because their parents wish it, what difference is there from the public point of view between an old and a new school? Is there any difference from the public point of view in the fact that the neighbourhood is new, and that the school is a new school. I repeat there is no legal authority, and no constitutional authority, in favour of these secondary school regulations which make this discrimination against a denominational school. I say there is not only no legal or constitutional authority, but I say that whereas at the time they were introduced in 1907, the right hon. Gentleman may say that he had in fact in this House of Commons a majority in favour of undenominational schools, to-day there is a majority against them, and in favour of equal treatment for denominational schools, and I call in to my aid for that the hon. Member for South Kerry (Mr. Boland) who spoke this afternoon. In a Debate on 11th June, 1907, upon secondary school regulations, upon a Motion, I think, from the Irish Benches, the hon. Member for South Kerry used these words in regard to the regulations then introduced. He said:—
    "He could assure the right hon. Gentleman, the President of the Board of Education, that the regulations were regarded as a declaration of war by the Roman Catholics, and he would, before he sat down, move a reduction of the Vote in order to emphasise their attitude upon the subject."
    At the time and all through that Parliament the Irish party voted against these anti-denominational restrictions imposed by the Board of Education. The General Election has given a majority to the Unionists and Irish party. I say the Government to-night, unless they have squared the Irish party, if this matter goes to a Division, will find the Irish party, if they are loyal to their Roman Catholic schools, voting against them, and then perhaps we shall see the end of these regulations.

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    There is one other illustration of the attitude of the Board of Education to which I want to refer. I want to deal now with a Church of England school, and to show the attitude of the Board towards that school. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board cannot reply that this is only a matter of regulation. I take a case where he has connived and colluded in a breach of the law. The Wheelwrights' Grammar School, near Dewsbury, is a secondary school under the Endowed Schools Act. Under the Endowed Schools Act the original endowed schools commissioners, then the Charity Commissioners, and finally the Board of Education as successors to each other had power to make schemes to alter the character of an endowed school, subject to this restriction: that the main object of the foundation must be observed; that there must be no discrimination upon religious grounds at all; and that if the school is what you would call an ancient religious school of a certain denomination which it preserved down to 1869, then no change could be made in the foundation of that school in any scheme inconsistent with its denominational character. The Dewsbury school was an old Church of England school for many years down to 1869, and ever since. In 1888 it was converted from an elementary school into a secondary school by agreement, and at that time an arrangement was specially made and a letter was written by the Charity Commissioners saying that under the new arrangement the majority of the governors were to be of Church of England persuasion, and that the Church of England character of the school would be preserved.
    A further scheme was made in 1898, and a large majority of the governors of that school, combined with two or three others, were not Church of England. Again the Charity Commissioners wrote saying that the Church of England character of school should be preserved by a clause put into the scheme, and the town council of Dewsbury supported it and gave an undertaking that, in regard to this particular one of the schools over which the combination had control, they would always support the Church of England character of that school. In 1902 an Education Act was passed which the right hon. Gentleman did not like, and which the West Riding County Council of the party opposite did not like. And then, during
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    the last few years, the West Riding County Council had to face the provisions of the 1902 Act. The 1902 Act says, as regards secondary schools:—
    "(1) That the county council shall consider the educational needs of the district, and (2) that it shall not make any difference upon any religious ground."
    That is a statutory obligation, and the Board had by a mandamus to compel the local education authority to carry out its duty. The local education authority—the county council—refused on any terms to give a grant so long as the school remained Church of England. What did the Board of Education do? They were written to by the governors of the school and asked to help the school to preserve its Church of England character and to force the local education authority to do its duty under the Act of Parliament and to give the grant to which the school was entitled. The Board of Education did nothing. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to produce any letter from the Board of Education, while he was President, to the local education authority asking them to do their duty in accordance with the Act of Parliament and to give the grant.
    Mr. KING: I rise to a point of Order. Is there any means whereby this Debate, which is so interesting, and the speech of the hon. Gentleman opposite, which is so eloquent, may be continued after a quarter-past eight? Can we by any means secure that private business, which begins in two minutes, can be put off and continue this Debate? Could we defer the consideration of the private Bill which is coming on to another day?
    The CHAIRMAN: As far as this Debate is concerned no Motion can be moved which can effect that purpose. As regards what can be done when the other Debate begins, that is a question for Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. KING: Private business is put down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means. May I appeal to you as Chairman of Ways and Means to withdraw that so as to enable the Committee to proceed with this discussion.
    The CHAIRMAN: That has nothing to do with our business now. I shall be able to deal with it when the time comes.
    Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I regret to say, Mr. Emmott, that time will very soon come. I trust that my hon. Friend's inter-

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    vention was quite as ingenuous as it appears to be. I only want to add this one word before the clock arrives at 8.15. The Board of Education, instead of calling upon the local authority to do its duty in accordance with the Act of Parliament, came out with a scheme changing the Church of England character of the school, turning it into an anti-denominational school and putting pressure upon the governors of the school to accept the scheme changing the denominational character which the school had for nearly two centuries. I want now to deal with the corollary—with the inference to be drawn from the attitude which the Board took up.
    And, it being a Quarter-past Eight of the clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means, under Standing Order No. 8, further proceedings were postponed without Question put.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  NORTH-EASTERN RAILWAY BILL [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Mr. WARDLE: I rise to move the Amendment, which stands in my name, to leave out the word "now," and to add at the end of the Question the words, "upon this day three months."
  I do so on the grounds of a Clause which is contained in the Bill itself. On this occasion I do not propose to travel outside the scope of the Bill we are considering. This Bill, in addition to being concerned with many important matters affecting the North-Eastern Railway Company, also affects very largely the City of Hull. In this Bill it is proposed to cancel all the rights and privileges which the citizens of Hull have enjoyed for many years in getting to the banks of the Humber, and instead of that right there is to be erected over the docks and quays of the North-Eastern Railway Company an overhead promenade. This right, which the people of Hull have enjoyed for a long time, has been safeguarded by the House of Commons in all the Bills which have hitherto been promoted dealing with the docks and quays in Hull. In 1861 the Hull Dock Company was formed which came to the House of Commons for powers to construct a dock on the banks of the Humber, and
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  that Committee was established. It had power given to it to erect docks, but in that Act was inserted provisions for safeguarding the rights of the public and the citizens of Hull. Those rights are contained in Clauses 34, 35 and 36 of the Act of 1861, and in order that the House may be in possession of the facts I propose to read these Clauses. Clause 34 says:—
  "The company shall allow a right of footway during the daytime only along the river wall to be made by them adjoining to the River Humber; and in the event of their inclosing the new dock by a wall or fence to be erected on the southern side thereof, they shall leave a footway between such wall or fence and the river wall of not less than twelve feet in width, with proper and sufficient access thereto at the eastern and western ends thereof, and when the dock is so inclosed such footway shall be open day and night."
  Clause 35 provides as follows:—
  "The company shall provide and maintain three proper and sufficient flights of landing steps at some convenient part of the face of their works adjoining to the River Humber for the convenience of persons landing or embarking thereat or therefrom."
  And Clause 36 says:—
  "The landing steps shall be free for the use of passengers and their luggage coming into or departing from the borough."
  These rights, which have been exercised for a long time before that, were secured in this particular statute, and when in 1893 the Hull Dock Company became extinct and was transferred with all its powers to the North-Eastern Railway Company, the same Clauses giving the same rights and privileges to the citizens of Hull were incorporated in that Act. In 1889 the North-Eastern Railway Company, having in view apparently the acquirement of the docks, brought forward a Bill in this House to make a quay along the front of the Docks. That Bill was fought very fiercely by the Hull Corporation, and eventually it was, I believe, withdrawn. In 1905 the Hull Corporation came forward with similar proposals, and their scheme was fought equally fiercely by the North-Eastern Railway Company, and their Bill was also defeated. Nevertheless, the North-Eastern Railway Company in the same year obtained powers to make the quay they were seeking to make alongside the river bank. When they got those

  579
  powers there was put into their Bill Clauses protecting the rights of the citizens of Hull and allowing them the use of the bank of the Humber.
  We now come to the present position. The Hull Corporation had hitherto been concerned with protecting the rights of the citizens of Hull on the banks of the Humber, but when the North-Eastern Railway Company got their scheme through they found that they could not get the best use of the quay without erecting cranes and rails close to the water which this footway had prevented them using to the best advantage. The erection of these cranes so close to the water led the Hull Corporation to start an action against the North-Eastern Railway Company for an injunction to compel them to move the cranes in order to allow the public the right of way which they had hitherto exercised. That action was entered in the High Courts and proceeded, but for some reason or other the negotiations began between the company and the corporation, and at last they were concluded, and by the casting vote of the Mayor of Hull the terms were accepted which are contained in this Bill for the erection of a promenade over the docks and the quays. It may be asked why do we come here and try to upset an arrangement which has been arrived at between the Hull Corporation and the North-Eastern Railway Company. The matter is simple. The House of Commons is the final arbiter in these matters. The Hull Corporation and the North-Eastern Railway Company may make a bargain, but this House has to ratify that bargain, before it becomes effective. This House is the court which should settle whether that bargain ought to be ratified or not.
  We think there are excellent reasons why this House should not ratify a bargain of this kind, adopted merely by the casting vote of the mayor of Hull. Why do I say that? When the people of Hull found out the position they were in they at once began to object. The Hull Trades Council has taken a leading part in objecting to this Bill. Public meetings have been held in the various wards of the town. A large public meeting was held in the centre of the town, and there is a strong feeling in the city of Hull against this House ratifying the bargain between the North-Eastern Railway Company and the Hull Corporation. I think if this House will agree to postpone this ill for three months and let the November elections
  580
  come round, hon. Members will find that there will be no majority on the new Hull Council in favour of this Bill. I have here, as evidence of the facts which I have put before the House, a petition which, unfortunately, was not got up in quite the proper form, but it is signed by no less than 7,600 citizens of Hull, who are against this Bill being passed by this House. I am told, and I believe on reliable authority, that if there were only more time, instead of 7,600, the probability is double that number of the citizens of Hull would sign a petition to this House not to pass the Bill. I cannot see how we are to be compelled to ratify a bargain made under these circumstances. Of course, in the ordinary run of events, I admit a bargain, between a corporation and a railway company or between any two parties ought to be ratified; but I think the giving away by the corporation, on the simple casting vote of the Mayor, of rights which have been exercised by the citizens of Hull for many generations is too extreme a step to ask this House to agree to it, and therefore I move that this Bill be read a second time this day three months.
  Mr. ALBERT SMITH: I beg to second the Motion of my hon. Friend. The Bill now before us is the culmination of a long series of fights between the corporation and the railway company respecting public rights of way on the quay side. The company have been gaining all the time until the last piece of any right of way that can be properly so termed has been wiped away by this Bill. The corporation fought for this right of way on the Bill of 1861. Certain Clauses were put in that Bill, and in every subsequent Bill of the railway company for extending its docks the same or similar Clauses were inserted; but except for the very doubtful advantage of having an overhead roadway all the rights of way have been clean wiped away by this Bill. Another Clause in the Bill gives the company powers of compulsory purchase with regard to the remaining strip of land that the corporation can ever hope to hold and which the citizens have enjoyed for years and years. It ought to be pointed out that the Corporation of Hull took a ballot of the ratepayers as to whether they should erect a quay or not, and there was a majority in favour of the corporation proceeding with that proposal of over 10,000 votes. There were only just over 3,000 of the people of Hull who voted against the proposition. The Bill came

  581
  before this House and went up to the House of Lords. It was opposed there by the North-Eastern Railway Company in July and thrown out. In August of the same year the company "resurrected" the 1889 Bill and got it passed through the House of Lords, giving them power to erect a similar quay to that proposed by the corporation. All along the interests of the burgesses and citizens of Hull have been sold or given away to the railway company.
  The sanction of the corporation to the Bill has only been given on the casting vote of the mayor. I have had some experience of corporation life, having had the honour and privilege of occupying the mayoral chair of my own corporation for two years, and I feel there are very few people occupying similar positions in the country who would have given a vote of that character on their own responsibility and without consulting the ratepayers. I ought to say that out of the twenty-three who with the mayor composed the majority, nine were aldermen. It is a very serious matter to the ordinary ratepayer, who has been brought up to regard certain portions of the estate as belonging to his own town, and as kept up by the rates and the money he earns so hardly, to be deprived of those rights. I am of opinion that the mayor in giving that casting vote sold, and sold in a very bad bargain, rights which it never ought to have been attempted to sell. The result has been that the only thing the citizens have got in return is this overhead footway, and a councillor of some standing—not one of the railway party—said it was no substitute for the rights they had previously enjoyed. The only portion of a footway which will be on the quayside in future will be at least eight yards from the river front, and the company may erect sheds all along the line, and, by so doing, make it practically impossible for the citizens to enjoy the rights they have had. The memorandum issued by the promoters of the Bill convinces me there has been something not quite of the character of public spirit attached to this business. It says the company, while admitting the existence of a right of way somewhere, denies that a right of way exists along the edge of the quay, or, in fact, that there is any defined footway at all. It is quite easy for anybody who has followed the development of the dock estate to see that every time the company were swallowing up the footway, and now they come and say there
  582
  is no defined footway at all. The whole thing is in another paragraph, which says:
  "It is respectfully submitted it is contrary to public policy that a settlement arrived at in such circumstances and agreed to by the corporation as representing the public of the district should be set aside at the instance of certain members of the community."
  I do not like those words, "certain members of the community," and had I been a resident of that city and my rights were given away to a monopoly, I should certainly have been offended to be called a certain member of the community, without any qualification at all.
  Every hon. Member of this House who has served on a public body knows how difficult it is for corporations to acquire land for public building or roadways, and how dearly they have to pay for it. It makes them, therefore, all the more careful that once something has been obtained for the benefit of the community, for the administration of whose affairs they are responsible, it shall be retained in the interests of those whom they represent. In this case it is hardly fair that by reason of the action of one single man who possessed the right to vote twice, the rights of the people should be surrendered. I do not believe it is really the wish of the corporation, and therefore I hope this House will pass the Motion of my hon. Friend and delay further proceeding with this scheme until the railway company is prepared to give something more substantial as an equivalent for what they are taking from the people. Bearing in mind that practically the whole frontage of the River Humber, where people have walked for generation upon generation, will be taken away from the public for the future, and remembering, too, that this scheme was only carried by the casting vote of the Mayor, I do press the Committee to agree to defer the Second Reading. If they do that I am perfectly sure a big majority of the citizens of Hull will be delighted to have a little more grace for the consideration of this very serious question.
  Viscount CASTLEREAGH: The two hon. Gentlemen who have practically moved the rejection of this Bill have made very interesting speeches, but I have endeavoured in vain to discover exactly what is their objection to it. I know, of course, that the opposition arises in connection with Clause 24, but I do think they should have given some indication of what it is in that Clause they object to. I believe both are Members for Lancashire Divisions,

  583
  and I do not know with what authority they speak for the people of Hull. The hon. Member for Stockport simply claimed that he was "credibly informed with regard to various matters." I do not think that the hon. Gentleman who seconded went even as far as that.
  Mr. ALBERT SMITH: I spoke with the same authority as my hon. Friend, on behalf of the Trades Council of Hull and other bodies.
  Viscount CASTLEREAGH: After all, the case is a very simple one. It is obvious that if the claim made by the Corporation to a right over the footway along the edge of the riverside quay had been upheld by the court the very object for which the quay was constructed would be absolutely defeated. No doubt hon. Gentlemen will remember that in the original Bill there was a provision, in Clause 14, for the purpose of removing the alleged rights of way. After a certain amount of negotiation with the corporation they were induced to withdraw Clause 14 and to insert, under an agreement with the corporation, the present Clause 24. The Bill has passed through the House of Lords, and I would like to point out that now the position of the company is different to what it was previously, they have put in this Clause by agreement, and it is impossible for them to revert to the position in which they were before. The two speakers have told us that the Resolution was passed by the casting vote of the mayor. I believe the original motion was carried by 23 to 19.
  What this House is asked to do now is to delay proceeding with a Bill involving an expenditure of £450,000 for the expansion of industry—a Bill for the benefit of all classes of the community. With respect to the Clause to which so much objection is taken I confess I found nothing whatsoever in the speech of the two hon. Gentlemen to justify us in practically destroying the Bill. The Mover said it would abrogate the privileges of the people of Hull. The Seconder said the rights of the people of Hull would be wiped out, and he also talked about the doubtful advantages of an overhead footway. It will be admitted on all sides that there have been a certain number of complaints from passengers and from merchants as to the great difficulties engendered by the public use of this quay. I
  584
  am sure hon. Gentlemen in the interests of business in a place like Hull would not like to see continued an obstruction of this kind. The individuals who use the quay at the present moment go there more for the purpose of promenading and sight-seeing. They like to watch the ships enter the harbour, but I do not think that anyone will suggest that the footpath is ever used for mere progression from one definite point to another, especially during the rush of business.
  I will go further, and say that if anyone desires to go from one part of the harbour to the other he can go by an excellent roadway which is also available. What is the right which hon. Gentlemen are appealing for? Simply the right of the people of Hull to wander about amidst the docks of one of the most important and busy working towns in this country and hamper the proceedings for which the erection of this quay was intended. To move the rejection of the Bill on these grounds is surely a course which will not be upheld by a majority of this House. The proposal of the company, after consultation and agreement with the corporation, is to supply an overhead footpath. This footway will cost the company some £5,000, and as to these individuals of Hull who desire to take this nice walk, to promenade and see the sights of Hull, which no doubt they are entitled to do, this pathway will fulfil all requirements. I believe the House will consider the question on its merits. I am sorry that when a Bill of this great magnitude comes up it does not command the interest of hon. Gentlemen as it ought to do. I hope the House will see that this is really an important Bill and that it is an unfortunate proceeding on the part of Gentlemen below the Gangway to try to obstruct a measure, which carries so much benefit to the surrounding country, simply by putting forward a case that Clause 24 abrogates the rights of the people of Hull. It must be understood that the quay will not be closed to those who are anxious to go there on business. That is not the intention of the company, and if you consider it, it would not be to their interest to impede any individual who had any business which would take him to the quay. All those who are desirous of spending a pleasant evening will have this overhead footpath twelve feet in breadth, and I think any reasonably minded individual in this House will agree that it satisfies all the requirements. I hope the House will not accept the Motion.
  Mr. JAMES PARKER: I rise mainly to object to the imputation made by the Noble Lord that this is a factious opposition on our part. He did not use the word, but that is what he implied. As a matter of fact we never take up these cases of opposing private Bills in this House until considerable pressure has been brought to bear upon us, by people who hold opinions like our own, and who have no direct representatives of their views through their Members in this House. And therefore we do not put opposition forward, and we have not done so in this case, without inquiry. We realise quite as much as the Noble Lord does that it will give employment to a large number of people, and will also provide labour for a certain number of people. We are interested as much as he is in the commerce of the nation, but we do not realise the necessity of allowing the North-Eastern Railway Company to carry through a project of this character when 50 per cent, of the representatives of the Hull Corporation are against them. The Noble Lord spoke about people going down there for pleasure and being in the way of business. I know something of Hull docks and also of Grimsby docks. They are open to the whole of the public. You will see thousands of people going about these docks, and they do not seriously interfere with the traffic.
  I have myself seen hundreds of times these people watching the unloading of grain and timber, but what the company are trying to do in this case, though they will not succeed without a protest from us, is to take over to themselves the whole of the rights of the ordinary citizens of Hull in this river frontage, which represent to them something much greater than the Noble Lord seems to think. He can take his holidays where he pleases—it may be Monte Carlo or the Riviera, but the only breath of the sea breezes which these people can get is from the banks of the River Humber, which, I am sorry to say, is not always as sweet and pleasant as it might be. This Bill would deprive them of that, and hence we protest. I do object to the suggestion that the Labour representatives in their opposition to this Bill are conducting in any sense a factious opposition. We oppose these Bills because we conscientiously believe we have a right to do so, and especially do we think we are right when we have been specially requested to do so by 7,000 ratepayers. It comes with a bad grace from hon. Gentlemen opposite to make these suggestions, when not very long ago they took up the
  586
  time of the House whilst scores of them rose to defend one individual, and to obtain for him a large sum of money as compensation from the Government. As for factious opposition, that is one thing we have never done and never will do—either with regard to private or public Bills.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Tennant): I have no objection to the Member for Stockport raising this matter upon this particular Bill. He has given a perfectly accurate description of the history of this controversy, and, if I may say so, he is perfectly within his rights in bringing this case forward because he is particularly jealous of the rights of the citizens where rights of way are concerned. If I thought for a moment that public rights were being taken away and that nothing was being put in their place I should give him my hearty support, but I think there is more importance to be attached to the new overhead way as a substitute for the old footway than he has given to it. Although I do not pretend to local knowledge, I should have thought, in being allowed to use the old quay for business purposes and the new footway for purposes of pleasure, the people of Hull were getting something better than they had before. I am inclined to view this case as a quarrel between the corporation and the railway company, and it appears the Mayor of Hull gave his casting vote in favour of this compromise which was come to between the corporation and the company. I would ask the House to consider whether, owing to this quarrel between the corporation of Hull and the railway company, it is desirable to throw out a Bill which is going to do so many things as it is admitted this Bill will do. In the first place it is going to increase the length of the North-Eastern Railway by 10¾ miles, and it will widen railways and roads both in Yorkshire and Northumberland. It is going to provide for the abolition of several level crossings, and it is to raise £600,000—not £450,000, as the Noble Lord said—which presumably will go in railway undertakings and enterprise generally, which will obviously give a large amount of employment to the working classes. That is the problem we have to consider. Is it desirable because of this quarrel between the corporation and the railway company to do away with that altogether? Speaking on behalf of the Board of Trade I am bound to say I cannot give my vote in opposition to letting the Bill go forward.

  587
  It may have been an unfortunate circumstance that this arrangement was only come to by so small a majority as the casting vote of the Mayor. I regret that, but I cannot advise the House of Commons on behalf of the Board of Trade not to give the Bill a Second Reading.
  9.0 P.M.
  Sir ALFRED GELDER: The statements that the hon. Member (Mr. Wardle) made in respect to the history of this question I believe to be correct, but the misfortune which has attended him and others who have spoken in making those statements is that they have not known quite enough of the actual circumstances which have produced the issue in question. I quite agree with him that the rights of the public must be maintained, and that there may be a tendency on the part of railway companies and other bodies to restrict those rights in the neighbourhood of large towns. I admit also the history of this matter which has been mentioned that along the River Humber from time immemorial there has been a footpath, but to my certain knowledge it has not been used except by very few for the purpose of going from one place to the other, but rather as a promenade on the river side. In 1861 we are told the dock company obtained an Act which diverted this footpath. They enclosed some of the low lying ground between the footpath and the river, and therefore the footpath was diverted to the outside of their undertaking. In 1895 the railway company promoted another Bill whereby they claimed a certain amount of water from the Humber to make what is called a riverside quay. It is quite true that the corporation promoted a scheme before for the same purpose, and it was thrown out in the House of Lords. When the company obtained their power to make this riverside quay they had a clause inserted extending the footpath to the front side of the quay, and during the progress of those works the corporation pressed the railway company to allow the public the use of this footpath. The company left the matter in abeyance until the work was completed. That Act of Parliament not only provided for the quay but also for facilities for working the passenger service, which Hull had not before that time, but which was obtained through this Act of Parliament, to the Continent at all states of the tide. The Bill also included all facilities for loading and unloading passengers' luggage and trans-
  588
  ferred goods, and also powers to run trains close to the riverside quay for the carrying of passengers. The company therefore saw that it was very difficult to maintain the footpath in the position where the corporation desired that it should be maintained, and they made overtures to them, not for giving the footpath up, not for obliterating it, but for diverting it into a safer place for those who promenaded along the side of the river. The corporation were not satisfied at that time with the suggestion of the railway company, and they took steps to obtain an injunction. For reasons which could not be publicly stated, it was thought advisable that instead of trying the case on an injunction, they should allow the matter to be adjudicated upon by a Committee of the Houses of Parliament. I fortunately, or unfortunately, happened to be a member of a subcommittee of the corporation of six or seven members who had charge of these negotiations, and I must demur from the statement of my hon. Friend who seconded the Amendment with respect to the action of the corporation in this matter. The sub-committee had all the facts of the case. On the one hand they had the North Eastern Railway Company maintaining, on the advice of their counsel, that they had no defined position for this footpath whatever. On the other hand the corporation distinctly claimed that they had a right to the footpath in the exact position. On that committee there were three ex-Mayors who had considerable experience in municipal affairs in Hull. There were four other members, two of them labour members elected by the trades council. One of the labour members voted with the remaining six in favour of the arrangement which was come to and which is embodied in this Bill, and out of the seven there was only one member who opposed that settlement.
  Then the matter came before a larger committee of eighteen, and out of that body I believe there were not more than three who voted against the arrangement which had been made between the corporation and the company. That body met with closed doors, and it is always a very difficult matter when you are negotiating with a railway company or a dock company who conduct their affairs in private, and who have not to give all their opinions to the public, to negotiate a matter of this kind. These eighteen men had the advice of our town clerk, a very capable man, who strongly urged a settlement on the lines of

  589
  the Bill, and they also had the advice of very eminent practicing counsel, who advised that in a matter of this kind it was wise for both parties that some compromise should be reached. The committee had not only the advice of counsel, but they were strongly urged by their own town clerk for reasons which it would not be wise to state here, any more than in the full corporation of Hull, to accept the arrangement which would, to a very great extent, meet the difficulty on the Second Beading of the Bill. Again and again, in my capacity as a member of the corporation, I have had to fight the North-Eastern Railway Company, and so notorious has the Hull Corporation become in the Committee Rooms upstairs in relation to their attitude to railway companies that it has become a proverb and a by-word among Parliamentary counsel that they were their best clients for some years. It is very unfortunate that the Seconder of the Amendment made some suggestions that the small majority of the corporation had been in some way influenced by the railway company. I rather deprecate the suggestions, because in that body I know men who are absolutely above suspicion; but the most painful thing to me was the statement of the hon. Member that the mayor of Hull had sold the town. I think I took down his words correctly. I think the hon. Member would not have suggested that if he had thought who the mayor is. I do not think he really meant all that was conveyed by these suggestions.
  Mr. ALBERT SMITH: I do not know that I made the statement in the best way. What I intended to say was that it appeared to me that on the second vote the interests of the burgesses had been sold; but perhaps the word "sold" was not the best word to use. It was the word which came to me at the moment.
  Sir A. GELDER: I am sure the hon. Member did not mean to convey what the word implied. I do not know a more honourable, straight forward, and just man than the present Mayor of Hull. Much has been made of the fact that in the Corporation of Hull the resolution was only carried by a majority of one. The Parliamentary Committee of the Corporation, a smaller body, who knew all the circumstances of this case, could not put all the circumstances, including counsel's opinion and the opinion of their own solicitor, on the minutes, because these things are often used by those against whom they have to fight. It would not have been
  590
  wise to state all their reasons in the open council, and on that account many members of the corporation voted on this question without full information, such as was in possession of the Parliamentary Committee. There is no dispute about the right to a footpath, but there is a dispute about the position of the footpath. The corporation say it should be just outside the quay, and in meeting the railway company in this matter they have obtained the footpath in a position a little different from where they wished it to be. Whether they have a right to it in a position on the quay or not, this Bill will actually settle and define for all time where the footpath shall be.
  The only objection that can possibly be raised is that where there are electric cranes in use people will be diverted and will have to go overhead for the distance of the portion used as a passenger pier. They get the footpath just as before, but for a distance of between twenty and thirty feet it is elevated. People who go there to promenade will have a better view than before. Certainly what is proposed to be done will not in any way restrict the view of those who wish to take advantage of the footpath. I have had the opportunity of seeing a plan and section of this overhead footpath. I think it is a very good substitute for the footpath below, which, according to the railway company, was undefined, and according to the corporation was at the river front. The company in order to effect this alteration are spending £5,000 on the footpath. Surely that is a considerable sum for the company to spend?
  If this Bill is not allowed to be carried, the company's riverside quay, on which they have spent £200,000, cannot be effectively used for the purpose of landing passengers, and for the use of electric cranes for the landing of luggage. Speaking from the commercial point of view, I think that if the North-Eastern Railway Company were restricted, it would be a bad job for them, for passengers and for the city of Hull. My hon. Friend called attention to a petition signed by 7,000 inhabitants. There are 50,000 inhabitants in Hull, and no one knows better than the hon. Member how easy it is to get up a petition of this description. I hope the House will not pay too much attention to a petition signed by 7,000 out of 50,000 inhabitants. I would ask the hon. Member, even at this late stage, to withdraw his Amendment. He will have an oppor-

  591
  tunity, if he is not satisfied after the Bill has been, before a Private Bill Committee, of opposing the Bill. I think it is a little unfair to those who know exactly all the circumstances to block the Bill at the present stage.
  Mr. POINTER: If it was not necessary for anyone on these benches to speak in regard to this. Bill before the hon. Member for Brigg (Sir W. Gelder) commenced his speech it appears to me that there is some reason for doing so now. The Noble Lord (Lord Castlereagh) criticised the opposition to this Bill on the ground that it was confined to Clause 24. That is obviously the case, because the whole opposition, so far as we are concerned, rests upon Clause 24, the Clause which provides for taking away a public right of way enjoyed for a long time by the people of Hull, and substituting for it a raised footway. I was rather surprised, and not a little amused, to hear the Noble Lord say that our complaint was simply that people are to be prevented by Clause 24 from loitering on the quayside and standing in the way of business. Obviously if they go on the premises of the company, and get in the way of business, and these premises are where the old footway was, I take it that is the whole thing we are contending for. I was further surprised to hear the hon. Member for Brigg, who I believe is interested in Hull, give the case away. He dwelt on the generosity of the railway company, who, he said, are going to expend £5,000. But then it appears that they were going to expend £5,000 in order to safeguard £200,000 which they had already spent. So it appears that the real crux of the situation is this. In the first place the North-Eastern Railway Company have dumped down where they had no business to do and built their quay.
  Sir A. GELDER: The North-Eastern Railway Company obtained an Act for the purpose's of this scheme.
  Mr. POINTER: According to the case which my hon. Friend made out I understood that the title that the North-Eastern Company had in regard to this quay was limited by a safeguarding of the rights of the people in regard to this particular piece of ground and footway that we are contesting. If that is not so my whole argument falls to the ground. But if that is so it does appear to me that the railway company have dumped themselves down and developed activity upon ground which
  592
  was really not their ground at all, but belonged to the people of Hull. I notice also that the hon. Member for Brigg said that this footway would be no inconvenience to the people but would be a nice and easy route to follow, and he drew also a pleasant picture of the extensive view of the quay which could be obtained from the elevated position. Does he mean to tell us that it is not inconvenient for some people to climb up steps to an elevation of twenty-five feet, or that it is as easy to go up steps as to go along the level? He knows quite well that it is going to be inconvenient to the people of Hull, and the very fact that a fight, is being engaged in is proof positive that those people have been using the right and regard it as a valuable right.
  I notice even that the sub-title at the commencement of Clause 24 refers to the abolition of footways on the Hull dock estate, showing evidently that it is taking away something that the people of Hull had a right to. I am not getting up for the sake of obstruction, but I do think that there is a case to be made out. If the Corporation of Hull, as the elected representatives of the people, had decided by a big majority, for my part I would say "this is the voice of democracy, and so far as I am concerned I have nothing more to say. They may be making a mistake, but theirs is the responsibility, and they must bear the consequences of their mistake." But we find that the council, from which information was deliberately withheld according to the advocate who has just spoken, voted equally upon the matter, and the Mayor had to give a casting vote in order that action should betaken. It is usual in such assemblies for the Mayor or chairman to give his casting vote to maintain the status quo. Whether that is so or not, it does appear to us that there cannot be any great harm in postponing it. I notice that the hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench appealed to us not to destroy the whole Bill for the sake of a Clause. I think I shall have the agreement of those who sit near me in suggesting that we might be allowed to make a bargain.
  There are sixty Clauses. We will let them have the other fifty-nine so far as we are concerned if they withdraw Clause 24. If we do not do that they cannot blame us for holding back the whole of the Bill when we are prepared to let fifty-nine-sixtieths of it go through if only that one Clause is withdrawn. I notice that

  593
  Section 11 is for the protection of the Duke of Northumberland. So far as I am concerned I do not want to withdraw protection from the Duke of Northumberland. I notice that another Noble Lord, Lord Ridley, has to be protected too, and I am quite willing to let the protection of that Noble Lord also go by the board if we arrive at some satisfactory understanding. Putting all fun on one side, so far as we are concerned we do look on this question as a serious question. We believe that the rights of the public are being imperceptibly almost, but not the less surely, whittled away day by day more and more, and that these various companies, such as the North-Eastern Railway Company are for ever encroaching, a little here and a little there, and we think it is time that this should cease. The hon. Member for Brigg appealed to my hon. Friend to withdraw his Motion. I hope he will not do so. I hope he will proceed with the Bill. If he does so he can rely upon the support of myself and most, if not all, of my hon. Friends who are sitting near me.
  Mr. BALDWIN: Two points require a little elucidation before we go to a Division. I agree that this is a very serious question. I do not think any railway company would be so foolish as to run its head straight against a very strong popular feeling in a matter of this kind. I understood the hon. Member for Clitheroe (Mr. A. Smith) to say that the objection of the Corporation of Hull was to the alteration of the footpath and also to the transfer by sale of the western reservation, which formed the only part of the Corporation estate in that part of Hull, to the monopoly of a railway company. I think I am correct in that.
  Mr. A. SMITH: Some where near it.
  Mr. BALDWIN: Will the hon. Member explain to the House—I am sure it would be of great interest to every Member who has listened to the Debate—how it is
  that the Corporation of Hull, which is so reluctant to part with its western reservation to a railway company, after the North-Eastern Bill was deposited, offered that identical piece of land to the Hull and Barnsley Railway Company. I am sure that it would enlighten us considerably. If the hon. Member is unable to answer that question we shall be very pleased to hear an explanation from some Member sitting on that bench. The other point on which I want a little elucidation is this: We are told that all Hull is seething, but I should like to know where the representatives of Hull are. Are they seething, and, if so, where?
  Mr. BOOTH: I have occasionally been in the position of fighting a Private Bill, but, my hon. Friends having put their point before the House, I think it is desirable that this Bill should go before the Committee upstairs. The point is somewhat of a Committee point. Earlier in the Session I fought one or two Private Bills, and I found that the points which I raised in regard to them were all faithfully dealt with afterwards by the Committee upstairs, who had taken very careful note of the arguments brought forward. It does seem to me that after so much money has been spent this Bill should be read a second time. It affects my Constituency—I will be quite frank about it—where short time is being worked already, in some instances one or two days a week. I do hope my hon. Friends will not stand in the way of a good scheme like this which leads to the employment of labour and to the increase of business facilities. It will give the colliers in my district a chance of getting coal to Hull and on board ship, and also the expectation that they may be able to earn more money, while prosperity is brought to the district round about Old Pontefract.
  Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 107; Noes, 62.

  Division No. 270.]

  AYES.

  [9.30 p.m.

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Barton, W.

  Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

  Agnew, Sir George William

  Bathurst, Hon A. B. (Glouc., E.)

  Cawley, Harold T. (Heywood)

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Bathurst, Charles (Wilton)

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Allen, A. A. (Dumbartonshire)

  Beck, Arthur Cecil

  Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

  Anderson, Andrew Macbeth

  Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

  Clyde, J. Avon

  Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R.

  Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish-

  Collins, G. P. (Greenock)

  Ashley, Wilfrid W.

  Booth, Frederick Handel

  Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

  Baird, J. L.

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Craik, Sir Henry

  Balcarres, Lord

  Brocklehurst, W. B.

  Denman, Hon. R. D.

  Baldwin, Stanley

  Bryce, J. Annan

  Doughty, Sir George

  Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Duncan, J. Hastings (York, Otley)

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Byles, Sir William Pollard

  Essex, Richard Walter

  Barlow, Montague (Salford, South)

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Eyres-Monsell, B. M.

  Barnston, H.

  Cassel, Felix

  Fell, Arthur

  Fiennes, Hon. Eustace Edward

  Lewisham, Viscount

  Sanders, Robert A.

  Fletcher, John Samuel (Hampstead)

  Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

  Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange)

  Furness, Stephen

  MacNeill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine)

  Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

  Gibson, Sir James P.

  M'Callum, John M.

  Steel-Maitland, A. D.

  Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

  M'Curdy, C. A.

  Stewart, Gershom

  Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

  M'Laren, Walter S. B. (Ches., Crewe)

  Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North)

  Gulland, John W.

  Mason, David M. (Coventry)

  Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

  Hall, Fred (Dulwich)

  Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas

  Talbot, Lord E.

  Hambro, Angus Valdemar

  Morgan, George Hay

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Hamersley, A. St. George

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Tennant, Harold John

  Haworth, Sir Arthur A.

  Needham, Christopher T.

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Higham, John Sharp

  Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster)

  Ure, Rt. Hon Alexander

  Hoare, S. J. G.

  Nuttall, Harry

  Valentia, Viscount

  Home, E. (Surrey, Guildford)

  Paget, Almeric Hugh

  White, Sir George (Norfolk)

  Hunter, W. (Govan)

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Whitley, Rt. Hon. J. H.

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Pole-Carew, Sir R.

  Williamson, Sir A.

  Jardine, E. (Somerset, E.)

  Pollock, Ernest Murray

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)

  Jessel, Captain H. M.

  Radford, G. H.

  Wood, John (Stalybridge)

  Joynson-Hicks, William

  Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

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

  Kebty-Fletcher, J. R.

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  King, J. (Somerset, N.)

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Viscount Castlereagh and Sir W. A. Gelder.

  Kyffin-Taylor, G.

  Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

  Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th)

  Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)

  Hancock, J. G.

  O'Shee, James John

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)

  Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.)

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Barnes, G. N.

  Haslam, James (Derbyshire)

  Richards, Thomas

  Boland, John Plus

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

  Bowerman, Charles W.

  Hodge, John

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Brace, William

  Hudson, Walter

  Roche, John (Galway, E.)

  Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, N.)

  Hughes, S. L.

  Scanlan, Thomas

  Chapple, Dr. William Allen

  Kellaway, Frederick George

  Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

  Cotton, William Francis

  Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

  Stanley, Albert (Staffs., N.W.)

  Crooks, William

  Lansbury, George

  Sutton, John E.

  Crumley, Patrick

  Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

  Wadsworth, J.

  Dawes, J. A.

  Levy, Sir Maurice

  Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)

  Delany, William

  Lynch, A. A.

  Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

  Devlin, Joseph

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Watt, Henry A.

  Doris, W.

  MacNeill, John G. S. (Donegal, South)

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Macpherson, James Ian

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)

  Meagher, Michael

  Yoxall, Sir James Henry

  Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles

  Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Nolan, Joseph

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Wardle and Mr. Pointer.

  Gill, A. H.

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Goldstone, Frank

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Question put, and agreed to.

SUPPLY.— [16th Allotted Day.]
Considered in Committee.
(IN THE COMMITTEE.)
[Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1911–12.

  BOARD OF EDUCATION.
  Postponed Proceeding resumed on Question Proposed on consideration of Question, "That a sum, not exceeding £9,125,442 be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March, 1912, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Board of Education, and of
  596
  the various Establishments connected therewith, including sundry Grants in Aid." [Note.—£5,250,000 has been voted on account.]
  Which Question was, "That Item A (1) be reduced by £100 in respect of the salary of the President."—[Mr. Goldstone.]
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: In the remarks which I had to address to the House on this subject I had already dealt to a large extent with the facts relating to the school known as the Wheelwright Grammar School, near Dewsbury. I had referred to that school as an instance, only an instance, of the way in which the Board of Education had connived at direct breaches of the law. I was dealing with the question as to whether the Board of Education had any right to arrogate to itself the position to which Parliament alone in our constitution is entitled to assume, namely, that of deciding broad questions of public policy upon which the parties in the country and in this House are deeply

  597
  divided. I had referred to the instance of the secondary school regulations as an instance where the Board of Education had assumed to itself the power to determine a question of high policy. I said the Board of Education had not limited itself merely to cases where it might possibly contend that it was within the letter of the law in deciding a question of policy on which, as I say, this country is divided, but had gone further than that, and had attempted when Parliament had refused to endorse that policy to push that policy at its own instance, by means legal or illegal, in the administration of the Department with which the right hon. Gentleman the President is concerned. This case of the Dewsbury school (the Wheelwright school) is a critical case and a crucial case on this question, because in that case the right hon. Gentleman deliberately, and we will assume after consideration, decided to support the local education authority in its breach of the law rather than to perform its own duty of maintaining the trust of the school in accordance with the express terms of the Endowed Schools Act, under which alone the Board had jurisdiction.
  I pointed to the history of this school which from the early part of the eighteenth century had been a Church of England school, and a Church of England school under the will of the founder. I pointed out that under the various schemes for altering the constitution of the trust under which the school was administered that on each alteration, and there had been two, the Church of England character of the school had been maintained, and had been maintained, not only in fact but under an express promise by the Charity Commissioners, the predecessors in title of the Board of Education, that that character of the school should be maintained. Not only that, but in 1900, when the foundation of the school was amalgamated with certain other schools, one of which was controlled by the Dewsbury Town Council, the Dewsbury Town Council themselves gave a similar undertaking as a condition of the consent of the governing body of the school to the change, that the Church of England character of the school should always be maintained. Under those circumstances it was, that subsequent to the passing of the 1902 Act, the local education authority, the West Rifling County Council, refused to give a grant to the school unless the school agreed to become undenominational
  598
  in character. In order to appreciate the question with which I am dealing, namely, the conduct of the Board of Education in the matter, it is important for the Committee to hear the wording of the Act of Parliament which the Board of Education were called on to see was duly administered. Section 4 of the Education Act provides that
  "A Council (that is the local education authority) in the application of money under this part of the Act, shall not require that any particular form of religious instruction or worship or any religious catechism or formulary, which is distinctive of any particular religious denomination, shall or shall not be taught, used, or practiced in any school, college, or hostel, aided, but not provided by the Council."
  That is the condition upon which the exercise of their powers and their duties depends under the Act. Section 2 of the Act provides:—
  "The local education authority shall consider the educational needs of their area and take such steps as seem to them desirable, after consultation with the Board of Education, to supply or aid the supply of education other than elementary."
  which is secondary education. Under that Act the local education authority was under an obligation to give a grant. The Board of Governors of the school applied to the Board of Education and appealed to the local education authority to give that grant. The answer of the Board of Education came in a letter which I can quote. It was sent on 15th June, 1908, when the right hon. Gentleman was in charge of the Board. The answer of the Board of Education was not to compel the local authority, was not even to write a letter to the local authority urging them to obey the Act, but, on the contrary, to make a scheme which was inconsistent with the foundation which they had under their powers as Charity Commissioners, or successors of the Charity Commissioners, to protect, and which, under the circumstances, was a breach of their own duty. I ask the Committee to consider that, and to say whether the policy of having denominational schools as an integral part of our system is a right or wrong policy, that it is a matter which Parliament alone can decide, and the Board of Education has no right, by regulations or by any other adminis-

  599
  trative measures, to determine that the one policy or the other policy is the right policy, and that it is not for a Department of State to initiate a policy upon which the parties of the country are deeply divided. It is for Parliament and for Parliament alone. In that respect I am at one with the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Goldstone) in criticising the departmental conduct of the Board of Education. I say that that instance and the instance of the regulations are on the same footing in this respect. In each the Board of Education has assumed to itself powers which our constitution does not give it. It is an instance of the bureaucratic government which we all deplore, and which on both sides we are agreed in saying ought not to be entrusted to departments of State. It is an infringement of the powers of Parliament. It is an infringement of the power of control of this House over questions of policy which we say, in the highest interests of the nation, ought not to be permitted to any department of State. It is for that reason I ask the Committee not to talk this Motion out, but to allow it to go to a Division. We have a high and important question of policy upon which there is a majority against the right hon. Gentleman's view. The Member for South Kerry (Mr. Boland) spoke to-night on exactly the same lines as those on which I have addressed the Committee. He spoke in the same way in 1907 when he said that the secondary school regulations were a declaration of war. They were a declaration of war, and they were avowed to be such by the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, who said that he was going to use the sword. If the Irish party tonight vote in accordance with their genuine religious convictions and in accordance with the convictions of the great majority of the people of Ireland who send them here, they will vote in support of the Motion to reduce the right hon. Gentleman's salary. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to allow this Motion to go to a Division in order that we may see whether the party below the Gangway on this side will vote in accordance with their convictions and support the voluntary schools of this country.
  Mr. KING: Is the hon. Member entitled to say the same sentence again and again? He has repeated this sentence at least four times in my hearing.
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That is a matter for the Chair to watch.
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I am indebted to my ingenuous Friend on the other side.
  Mr. KING: You are trying to talk it out yourself.
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: If the hon. Member thinks that he is meeting the convenience of the Committee by interfering in this frivolous way when a serious question is under discussion—
  Mr. KING Mr. KING rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question he now put," but the Deputy-Chairman withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
  Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: It is a serious question whether the Government are going to allow this Motion to go to a Division or not. If they do we shall know whether the Irish party will support their convictions in the Lobby by voting in favour of the Motion.
  Sir GEORGE WHITE: The hon. Member (Mr. Leslie Scott) has cautioned us against talking this question out, but he has certainly done his best to accomplish that object himself. I do not intend to occupy the time of the Committee at anything like the length he has seen fit to do. As to the treatment of denominational schools by my right hon. Friend, I am not going to follow the hon. Member in the cases he has brought forward, but I think I can see quite enough in the last case to understand, without knowing anything about the details, that it concerns one of those obsolete endowments which would be of little service to the day in which we live, and that the Charity Commissioners and the Board of Education have dealt with it in a way that is for the best interests of the present generation. But while my right hon. Friend gets charges of partiality from the side represented by the hon. Member opposite, he is not free from charges on this side; therefore I conclude that he holds a fairly even hand between the conflicting claims of the various, parties connected with education
  I heard with a great deal of pleasure the speech of the right hon. Member for Oxford University (Sir W. Anson). I have heard many speeches from him, but I do not think I ever heard one with which, on the whole, I more entirely agreed. There are one or two of his statements, however, upon which I desire to remark. I think he rather misrepresented the position of my right hon. Friend with regard to the salaries of secondary school assistants. He

  601
  seemed to imagine that my right hon. Friend desires to take something off the salaries of the head masters and to distribute it amongst the staff. I did not gather that that was the idea of my right hon. Friend at all. I understood that he was drawing a comparison between the two to show that there was a disparity which ought not to exist, and that the idea was rather to level up so far as the assistants were concerned than to level down the salaries of the head masters. The right hon. Baronet also desired to know what was intended by a "democratic body of governors" for our secondary schools. It is that a large proportion of the governors of our secondary schools shall be men chosen from the local education authorities, who have been elected by the ratepayers of the district which they represent. I am quite sure that in following that policy my right hon. Friend is pursuing a line of action which will be most conducive to the maintenance and spread of secondary education. It may be true that on the city and town councils there is not a very large sprinkling of university men, but if these authorities are not fit to find governors of secondary schools, they are not fit authorities to manage the educational system of the country. I am quite sure that in getting on our governing bodies such governors as may represent the higher education committee of the city or borough council we shall be getting those men who are interested in education and who will be able to form a link between elementary and secondary education in the most successful way.
  I do not desire to go further into the question of the Holmes circular. I took very strong exception to the wording of that circular and to the policy which seemed to be at the bottom of it; but I think that enough has been said upon that question. There have been very strong expressions of opinion throughout the country; those expressions of opinion have been conveyed to my right hon. Friend, and I think that now, in the interests of education, we might leave the matter where he has left it. So far as concerns any committee or commission for dealing with questions of patronage or the maintenance of a Civil Service generally, or the action of some of the permanent Civil servants, I am not at all opposed to it; but I do not think it should be directed to the Board of Education alone. I believe that whatever faults may exist in connection with our permanent Civil servants that they do not apply with any greater force
  602
  to the Board of Education than they do to other great bodies of administrators. So long as the inquiry asked for would cover the whole of our Civil Service administration I should certainly not be against it. I think there are many things to inquire into which might with advantage be unravelled by such a commission. So far as directing it wholly and solely against the Board of Education—well, I certainly would not be a party to it on those lines. I confess to the one little matter which my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham referred to, and in which I have been as great a sinner as the Board of Education—if it is a sin. That is the charge he has brought against my right hon. Friend for using the term "trained" and "untrained" teachers. I have been forty years dealing with educational matters, and I confess I have used these phrases constantly, and heard them used constantly, without the slightest check, or without any idea that any aspersion was, by using the term "untrained," being cast upon those who had not had the good fortune to be trained. If my hon. Friend is correct, I have no desire to use that term if it is treated as a term of offence. But, as an old educationist, it is the first time I have ever heard it challenged. Therefore I do not think it should be brought in as a charge against my right hon. Friend.
  In the very comprehensive speech with which my right hon. Friend opened this Debate there were many things upon which I am sure the House congratulates him. Personally, I congratulate him upon the results of his action in connection with the removal, or I should say the establishment of a "conscience clause," in connection with our training colleges. I am very glad that he can bear testimony from the heads of these colleges that the classes of religionists admitted into them manage to live on very friendly and happy terms, to get on together, and to make progress in connection with their educational work. I only wish the right hon. Gentleman could extend that same principle a little further in connection with our elementary schools. Then, I think, he would have accomplished a very great work. My right hon. Friend began at the top of the ladder, at our universities. He walked downwards until he came to the elementary. In the few further remarks that I have to make I desire to begin in the other direction, that is at the bottom of the ladder, and name one or two things that I should be very glad to have some informa-

  603
  tion upon. Some years ago there was a very important inquiry instituted as to the way in which school children were employed at arduous work out of school hours. Some very important revelations were made. Many of us who sat upon those inquiries were horrified to find the amount of real, arduous labour done by children out of school hours. I have not yet heard that anything drastic has been done by way of remedy, and I fear those blots still remain. It is one of the matters which I think the Board of Education should give prompt attention to, because it is quite certain that children cannot attend schools for the regulation hours and then do, as many of them were doing, practically a day's work out of school.
  10.0 P.M.
  But one of the principal things that I desire to ask my right hon. Friend is to take the Committee into his confidence, and give us a little more definite information in regard to the policy of the Department upon higher elementary schools. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University referred to this matter. I believe it is one of the questions that is affecting our educational position in a very serious way at the present time. There are many thousands of children less in our schools over fourteen years of age than there were seven or eight years ago. Part of this no doubt is to be accounted for by the fact that some of them have been drafted into our secondary schools. But it is a direct consequence undoubtedly of the abolition of the higher grade schools. I do feel that to complete our educational system we have got to put something in the place of these higher grade schools, which were practically higher elementary schools. In the first place there were many boys and girls attending that class of school whose parents could not pay the fees of the secondary schools. Many of the boys and girls could not profit by the secondary school education that they really were able to get there even with the large number of scholarships which the municipalities are giving. There is still, however, in my judgment, a very considerable gap, and the boys and girls are leaving our schools at exactly fourteen years of age, for unfortunately there is too little regard in many circles to the benefits of education. Even if the boy has not got any employment to go to when he becomes fourteen he is removed from school.
  604
  There are many other parents who would be very glad to keep their boys and girls at school, say for another year, who are not able or willing to send them to the secondary schools. If they could see any advantage in the curriculum of the higher elementary school I believe the boys and girls would at least get a year's longer schooling. In a school of the sort I have indicated we might, I think, under proper management, take the morning for literary work, and the afternoon for practical manual work or something of that kind by which the boys and the girls would have practically half their time in the last year or so spent in fitting themselves for those occupations which they intended to go to. I believe we might make our education much more practical in that way. I know in our elementary schools a great many most able educationists have come to the conclusion that it is not wise to specialise for boys and girls under fourteen. But if in the higher elementary schools they could be kept for a year or two the specialisation so far as industries and occupations are concerned might very well be brought in for at least hall the day.
  I do feel that we let slip at a most important time a very large number of these boys and girls who were in our elementary-schools for a longer time than they are at present. May I give an illustration from my own district, an example of a school which is probably known to my right hon. Friend? This school gives an elementary education of a fairly liberal type, and a little wider curriculum than is usually taught in the ordinary elementary school, with a staff that is of a somewhat higher type. That school was doing very excellent work. It is a fee-paying school, but 25 per cent. of the children are allowed in on free scholarships. The managers of that school have a conviction that the inspector is entirely opposed to the carrying on of that school, because one or two subjects are taught in it which are not usually found in an elementary school. I think that is a great misfortune. You cannot force these children into the secondary schools. It would do them no service or good, and, therefore, if the parents are willing to continue them for another year or two, surely it is in the interest of the Board of Education to allow them to have that opportunity. If I may-offer a word of criticism as to the general policy of the Board, I think it is that they put too strong pressure upon non-essentials, I am entirely with the Board in

  605
  endeavouring to have proper schools and proper appliances of all kinds, but what occurs to one in many instances is that under the administration of the Board non-essentials are elevated into principles of great importance, and work is stopped because authority cannot be got for things which are absolutely non-essential. I desire, therefore, to learn what the policy of the Board is in regard to this higher elementary education.
  In my own city of Norwich we have in the last few years opened there a fine secondary school for 600 boys, and we have transferred into what was a high-grade school, and afterwards a municipal secondary school, as many boys as would go, but they have all to be charged 6d. fee, and a considerable number of the boys in consequence could not be transferred, and they have left the supervision of the educational authority altogether without, I am afraid, any means of using even their leisure hours for their advantage. I hope therefore that what I consider an absolute gap in our present education system may be tided over by a more general admission of the principle in our higher elementary schools. The same thing, to a certain extent, applies to our technical school work. We have hard-and-fast rules laid down with which it is very awkward to comply. A lad leaves school at fifteen; he has not yet made up his mind or his parents have not made up their minds what he is going to turn to in the way of employment, so that for a while he is practically idle. He would attend a day class, but having no school and not belonged to any work, he is disqualified from attending a class, and if a certain number of lads do not attend a class the whole class is disqualified.
  I put it to my right hon. Friend whether there is anything essentially wrong in having a class in a technical school, all the members of which do not technically come within the scope of grant-earning scholars? If the educational authority is willing that these lads should get the advantage of such class without earning grants, why should the Board disqualify the whole class and simply decline to give any grants because some are not eligible? Why could not the grant be paid for certain individual scholars? I know more than one case in which a considerable number of classes have been practically forbidden because they could not be wholly formed upon lines which the Board of Education would recognise. I do not want to take up an undue portion of the limited time of the Com-
  606
  mittee, and I therefore forbear from making any further remarks except to say that whilst I make these criticisms I am bound to say the speech which the right hon. Gentleman delivered shows that ho is extremely active in his work, and that the Board of Education is doing what it can to promote educational progress in this country of ours, and I am quite sure if the right hon. Gentleman would have a little less red tape about some of the regulations of the Board, and would give the local officials who are generally well educated men a little more discretion in the conduct of their work, and a little more liberty in the way in which they carry on the education in the localities in which they reside, he would be able in another year or two to report much further progress.
  Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without calling the attention of the Committee and the President of the Board of Education to the case of the Swansea school. Two years ago I raised this question in this House, and largely in consequence of the Debate and of the attitude of the President of the Board certain proceedings were taken by the managers of the Swansea school which resulted in a series of decisions of such importance as to raise the question in. Swansea from what was a local squabble to a matter of real importance, because the courts laid it down that in their opinion the Board of Education should act in a certain way. I desire to ask the President to-night if he will give the Committee an assurance that in full, re the Board will act upon the interpretation which the courts have placed upon their duties and will carry out their administrative work as far as falls within the decision of the Swansea case in what the courts called a judicial spirit.
  I do not propose to-night to be in any way bellicose. [An HON. MEMBER: "Oh."] The hon. Member opposite was not in the House when the Swansea case was discussed two years ago. The case at that time led to very bitter feeling, but I am glad to think these feelings have to a large extent been assuaged. So far as the newspaper report tell us, I believe I am right in saying that the local authority in Swansea is prepared to loyally abide by the decision of the court, and I think it is an open secret that they have been so advised by the Board of Education. I gather from the public Press that they have been told that it is the duty of the local education authority to carry out the decisions of the

  607
  courts of law. This is the first opportunity we have had in the House of calling attention to the decision of these courts, and I feel one must do so in order to obtain some kind of acquiescence in them from the President of the Board of Education. I will not trouble the Committee with all the facts and details of the Swansea case. Those who were in the House at the time will remember it was a very difficult question arising out of the staffing of a Church school in Swansea whose teachers were undoubtedly underpaid by the local education authority. [An HON. MEMBER: ''And by the Church."] The local education authority were underpaying the teachers, and the whole question was whether the local education authority were treating the church school in the same way as the council school.
  Mr. KING: Would the hon. Gentleman tell us what salaries were paid to the teachers by the Church before the Act of 1902 came into force?
  Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: I must ask the hon. Gentleman to allow me shortly to put the facts which were fully before the House two years ago, and if the hon. Gentleman will refer to the speech made by myself and by other hon. Members at the time, he will find the answer to all his questions. The object of the Act of 1902 was to give further financial support to voluntary schools, and to place teachers in voluntary schools upon an equal footing with teachers in council schools. In 1908 the Swansea managers complained that the local authority would not pay the same rates as were paid in the council schools. It will be within the recollection of the Committee that the right hon. Gentleman sent down a Commissioner—Mr. Justice Hamilton—to ascertain the facts, and that Commissioner, having heard the evidence in Swansea, and having gone fully into the whole question, reported to the President that he was definitely and entirely in favour of the managers' contention that the school was not maintained and kept efficient, and that there was no ground for preferential treatment in favour of the teachers in council schools as against the voluntary schools in Swansea. That was the definite report of the Commissioner sent down by the Board of Education. The Board afterwards saw fit to ignore that report.
  608
  We commented very strongly upon that attitude at the time. The Board ignored that report, said they were not bound by it legally, although I think they were morally bound by it. We asked the President why he had arrived at the decision to overthrow the report of Mr. Justice Hamilton, and he replied that the Government took the advice of the Attorney-General, who said that as a matter of law they were bound not to follow that decision. I think the Prime Minister said that the advice was that they could not possibly follow the decision of Mr. Justice Hamilton. That being so, the managers decided to apply to the courts of law to ask them to quash the decision of the President of the Board of Education, not merely because his decision was wrong on the facts, but because it was so perverse as not to be a real decision at all. They could not, when they got before the court, merely argue that the President's decision was wrong, there being no appeal in the ordinary sense from the Board's decision, and were therefore, for technical reasons, obliged to argue that the decision was so wrong as not to be a decision at all. The President, in his discretion, appealed from court to court until no less than eleven judges took part in the decisions on the Swansea case. I suppose it was within his right, but it delayed the final decision and greatly increased the costs. The courts have been unanimous up to the very highest court of appeal, and throughout they have upheld the decision of Mr. Commissioner Hamilton, and have said that the decision of the Board of Education ignoring the decision of their own Commissioner and giving preferential treatment to the council schools in Swansea was so perverse as not to be a real decision at all.
  I do not want to rub in to-night the word "perverse," because it is upon the main principle those judges laid down that I want to invoke the acquiescence of the President to-night. There were certain broad aspects of those judgments which I want to call attention to. When the Government were pressed on the point in this House it was stated that this was a matter of law. As soon as they got before the courts of law the legal advisers of the Crown said it was not a question of law, but a question of fact. I think the reason for this was because, when pleading before a common sense tribunal like the House of Commons, they knew they could not substantiate the question of fact, while before the courts of law

  609
  they knew the case was so bad legally that they could not substantiate the Jaw, and therefore they tried to get the court to say this was a mere question of fact, and that therefore the courts could not interfere. These judges laid down certain definite principles. They were as follows:—The Board's power to determine questions is not an arbitrary but a judicial power. That is the first great charter the judges have laid down in connection with this question, and I hope I shall have the acquiescence of the President now in this great principle that the Board's power is not arbitrary, but judicial and must be exercised as such, and must not be used to help political friends and to hurt political foes. Then the judges went on to say the Board are not entitled to give an inferior standard of maintenance to voluntary schools because they do not like them. The Master of the Rolls said:—
  "They are not entitled to differentiate between voluntary and council schools as such."
  That is what we have been pleading for for many years—practically a charter for voluntary schools. It is possible many Members of this House do not like voluntary schools, but voluntary schools are, under our Acts of Parliament, part and parcel of the educational system of the country. If you can alter the Act of Parliament, you may alter the position of voluntary schools, but while they remain on the Statute Book it is the duty not merely of us but of the Board of Education and all its officers to treat them as part of the law of the land. I want to call attention to two quotations from a very eminent Member of His Majesty's Government, and I am going to ask the Committee and the President to agree with one and not with the other. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1903, when he was in a position of less responsibility and a great deal more freedom, said the Education Act of 1902 was a hopeless Act, and—
  "if the county councils in England did what the county councils of Wales meant to do it would be a dead letter."
  That was the position the right hon. Gentleman took up in 1903 with regard to an Act of Parliament, but in 1910 he took up a different attitude with regard to another Act of Parliament. When some unfortunate Tories went to the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year with regard to the Land Taxes under the Budget, he read them rather a lesson as to the duty of everybody to obey Acts of Parliament. On Sep-
  610
  tember 14th, 1910, in reply to a deputation at the Treasury, he said the Land Taxes were part of the law of the land.
  Mr. BOOTH: On a point of Order. May I ask whether we are entitled to discuss the Land Taxes of the Budget?
  The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Emmott): We cannot discuss the Land Taxes of the Budget, because that is a question of legislation.
  Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am not in the least discussing the Land Taxes. I will, if the hon. Member likes, leave out the exact Taxes or law to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer referred. He was referring to an Act of Parliament, and he goes on to say:—
  "It is the duty of every law-abiding citizen to obey a law as part of the laws of the land, because, if we only conform to such laws as suit us and defy those which we dislike, we shall find ourselves on the high road to anarchy."
  Well, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was very far on the high road to anarchy in 1903, when he invited his friends in Wales to make the Act of 1902 "a dead letter." I assume he has now changed his views as to the desirability of being on the high road to anarchy. While we are quite willing throughout South Wales to bury the bitterness which has arisen over the Swansea case, I want the right hon. Gentleman to tell us to-night that he assents to the second and not to the first quotation from the Chancellor of the Exchequer; that he accepts loyally, as I believe he intends to do, this decision of the Courts of Law; that his Department in future will do what it has been the pride of all Government Departments to do for many centuries past, and that is administer the laws of the land whatever those laws may be, without fear, without favour, and with equal justice to all sections of the community, whether they like those laws or whether they do not.
  Dr. CHAPPLE: Those who have preceded me in this Debate have confined themselves very much to those branches of education which deal with the development and equipment of the mind. I make no apology for endeavouring to direct the attention of the Committee to the development and equipment of the bodies of our school children. We cannot hope to build up a healthy mind except on the foundation of a healthy body. Let me refer first of all to a very valuable report—the Report for 1909 of the chief medical officer

  611
  of the Board of Education, in which very valuable reference is made to the diseases of school life, a very alarming prevalence being shown of preventible diseases. I find in the report these words:—
  "It may however be stated that in respect of six million children in the public elementary schools of England and Wales, about 10 per cent. suffer from serious defects of vision; 3 to 5 per cent. from defective hearing, 1 to 3 per cent. from suppurating ears, 8 per cent. from adenoids or enlarged tonsils, 24 per cent. from extensive teeth decay, 40 per cent. from unclean heads, 1 per cent. from ringworm, and 1 per cent. from tuberculosis in a readily recognisable form."
  One per cent. of six million children represents 60,000 children in the schools suffering from tuberculosis in a readily recognisable form, and it is not too much to add another half to one per cent. as suffering from tuberculosis in a form which can only be detected by careful medical examination. In other words some 100,000 children in the elementary schools of England and Wales to-day are suffering from tuberculosis. We cannot expect to do much for its prevention unless we know what are the causes of tuberculosis in our children. If I were to ask a number of laymen who are in the habit of reading the daily Press and keeping themselves well up in questions of social reform—questions that appertain to the social well-being of the people, what are the causes of tuberculosis, in nine cases out of ten they would say it is the germ of tubercle. But the germ of tubercle is not the cause of tuberculosis, if it were all Members of this House, or most of them, would be suffering from the disease. The fact is we have for years, probably from youth upwards, come into contact with the germs of tuberculosis and inhaled or swallowed them, and we are still here, clothed and in our right mind. If the germ of tubercle were the cause of tuberculosis it would be prevalent amongst us, but as a matter of fact, the cause, the primary cause, is the susceptibility of the individual, owing to his or her devitalised or non-resisting tissues, which are unable to resist the invasion of the tubercle bacillus. If this is the primary cause it must alter the whole of our views as to the prevention of the disease, because instead of sweeping up the germs we will cultivate resistance in the bodies of these children and develop their tissues, so that they may be able to resist the invasion of the bacillus. In order to do that one must establish a whole system of physical education for school-children, so as to equip them for the
  612
  fight against disease. After all, health is a victory and disease is a defeat, and these large numbers of school-children—100,000—who are suffering from consumption are-suffering in the first instance from weakened constitutions and debilitated tissue cells. In fact, the disease is due to low vitality and poor constitution, to the fact that the constitution is lacking in that vitality which constitutes health, and its power of resistance has been overcome by the power of the bacillus.
  I want to suggest what are the preventive means which we will have to adopt for the children of public schools. In nearly all cases the disease of phthisis starts in the apices, because the children have never been physically trained and have never gone through the exercises which are necessary to develop these parts of the lungs which form the nidus of tuberculosis. Not one case in 500 starts in any other part than in the apices, the tops, the extreme tops of these conical organs. Therefore we must look for a system of physical training which will develop those parts of the lungs. That is the best way to deal with the alarming prevalence of the disease which this Report shows. One complaint I have to make against sanatoria is that they treat the disease only after it is established.
  Mr. BOOTH: On a point of Order. Is the hon. Member making a speech on the sanatoria Clause of the Insurance Bill?
  The CHAIRMAN: I do not think he is doing that, but I do think he is not confining himself to educational matters.
  Dr. CHAPPLE: I am confining myself to the physical development of school children, and I am endeavouring to show that unless you follow a system of physical training in the schools which will fight the disease which is so very prevalent, you will not prevent it. There is one exercise which is an ideal exercise as an anti-phthisical exercise, and that is swimming. In every public school swimmings baths should be established wherever it is. possible. Practically that would do more to prevent the prevalence of tuberculosis, and especially phthisis, than any other training which you can adopt. Swimming is an anti-phthisical exercise for the simple reason that it develops the parts of the lungs in which consumption almost invariably starts. This report complains about the lack of

  613
  cleanliness in school children, and it re commends that shower and spray baths should be established in our schools. Such a method would be an entire waste of money. Baths are disliked by children, and one of the most important attributes of an exercise is that it should be attractive. I should like to draw a distinction between baths which constitute a body "wash and swimming, which constitutes an exercise. If you establish a swimming bath you have both, and you fulfil the condition that the medical officer of health recommends. You have all that cleanliness demands, and at the same time you would have an attractive exercise. In those schools where swimming baths are established children go to them spontaneously. They do not require to be driven there. You require to drive a child to an ordinary cold shower bath. Nor do you require teachers for a swimming bath. Children learn to swim spontaneously if you give them plenty of water. If you throw them into shallow water often enough you will soon discover, to your amazement, that they become adept swimmers. If these swimming baths are established, from twenty to fifty or one hundred children can get in at once. On a football field there are only twenty-two playing—the others are looking on—and on a cricket field there are only twelve or fourteen playing. You are using a large and costly area of ground for the physical development of about a dozen men. If you spend your money in a rational way I suggest you get physical development and uniform development—not the arms and legs only, but development of the whole body uniformly. I am advocating a very important reform which has been neglected too long, and the degeneracy of our children to-day is the result of the neglect of those fundamental principles of physical development which long years ago this country ought to have undertaken. The degeneracy in our slums is amazing. The military authorities cannot find enough well developed men to fight for their country. It is due to the fact that our children are huddled in hovels. All the fundamental laws of hygiene, public health, and physical development are neglected. It is the duty of the Education Department to lay itself out to spend its money rationally in providing these cheap and economic ways of systematic physical development which can only be done by recognising those principles, and undertaking the work with determination.
  614
  There is another very important consideration. In an island country with a great mercantile marine like ours, apart from all the advantages of physical development, of health, and of the development of those powers which enables us to resist and overcome disease, and on these we should concentrate all our attention, the very fact of being able to swim is a virtue in itself. I took out the figures a little while ago of the number of cases of drowning in this country. They are enormous—over 3,000 per annum. More than one-half the cases of drowning that occur annually could be prevented if children were taught to swim, so that the reform which I am inviting the Board to undertake would be justified if it equipped people for being able to act in this particular emergency, apart from the other advantages. I want to say in conclusion that the evidence of disease in our school children is alarming, and is not on the decrease. It is a matter of common observation by those who have travelled in distant parts of the Empire that you do not find the undersized and undeveloped frames which you find in the populous parts of London and of the industrial centres in the United Kingdom. It is possible to lessen the amount of money you will have to spend upon sickness insurance and sanatoria by getting at the fountain head of these defects and diseases. Unless we start with the children, and make it a matter of urgent public importance to deal with degeneracy and with those who are suffering from disease and make use for this purpose of the valuable inspection of school children which has been instituted by the Board, we will fail utterly to develop the sound and healthy constitutions which we have a right to expect among the people of this country.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Trevelyan): I have delayed as long as possible rising to make any sort of reply to the criticisms that have been made in the course of the Debate, and in view of the short time I have at my disposal I am afraid I must deal straight away with the Amendment which is really before the Committee, namely, the reduction of the President's salary, which has been moved by an hon. Member on this side of the House. I note that the criticisms from this side of the House, although they were milder than those which have been made

  615
  outside, yet tried to establish the proposition, that the Department at the present time is doing nothing right, that it is stirring up a state of class war, and that in various ways it is blocking progress. That is an entirely new attitude taken up by hon. Members on this side of the House. If you compare the criticisms made to-day with those of the last few years, you will find that none of these things were formerly discovered at all. I would like to say first of all that no one regrets more than my right hon. Friend and myself that the Holmes Circular was published. I am not making that statement in the sense of objecting to the row that has been made. After all, in administration and in the rough and tumble work of politics misfortunes will occur to politicians, but what I mean is that we are extremely sorry that an entirely false impression has been created by that publication, and above all I say with the utmost genuineness that we are deeply sorry at the effect it has had on the feelings of teachers, and at the soreness which was quite naturally created in their minds. I think we have done in the circumstances everything that could be done. The circular has been withdrawn. My right hon. Friend has stated over and over again that it does not represent the policy of the Board, and I do not think there is really one who heard his speech who would say that he has not shown that it does not represent the policy of the Board.
  But the real question that the House has to decide in regard to this circular is whether it is a symptom, as my hon. Friends the Member for Nottingham (Sir J. Yoxall) and the Member for Sunder-land (Mr. Goldstone) would assert, or whether it is an exception. What we maintain is that the whole course of our administration at the Board shows that it was the exception and not the symptom. In his vigorous and eloquent speech the hon. Member for Sunderland tried to establish a certain number of concrete complaints against the Board, which he thought illustrated the policy of the Board. I should like to take one or two of these cases. He mentioned the case of a teacher at a new training college at Sunderland who had been removed from his position owing to the action of the Board of Education. It is really impossible, in the House, to discuss a question as to whether a man is competent or not. I went into the case extremely thoroughly.
  616
  I knew the man myself, and would stretch a point in his favour, but I came to the conclusion that we had to take the action which we did take; and I should have thought that the comparative rarity with which we take such drastic action in a case which required that, in the interests of the school, the man should cease to be a master, is really an argument that we do not adopt such a course without very great reason.
  My hon. Friend spoke of the case of the Todmorden secondary school, which hitherto has been a free secondary school, in the West Riding. I could not quite understand what his point against us was. The facts are these: It is the West Riding authority that is now trying to require fees to be paid at the Todmorden school. I do not at this moment say anything as to whether the West Riding authority are right or wrong, but it is they, and not we, who are asking that fees should be paid for this school, where hitherto the people of Todmorden had been able to get free secondary education. So far from our being responsible, there is a deputation coming up to see my right hon. Friend next week to ask him if he can take action, and certainly until he has seen that deputation it would not be right to say anything about it at all. My hon. Friend cited another case which is still more curiously illustrative of what I must say is the rather careless way in which accusations have been brought against the present administration of the Board. He cited a case in which he said the Board had advised that a three-guinea fee should be charged instead of a much lower one. It is quite true that the Board did write to say that they considered that, except in very special circumstances, a fee of not less than £3 per annum should be imposed. But when did they write it? They wrote it on 10th November, 1904, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford University (Sir W. Anson) was responsible for the affairs of the Board.
  Mr. GOLDSTONE: This was illustrative of the continuity of policy which had gone through the Board, and not merely since the present President had come into office.
  Mr. TREVELYAN: I will deal with that. I will take the hon. Gentleman on his own argument, in respect of continuity in this case, that before this Government had taken office it was suggested by the Board that this fee of £3 per annum should be imposed. As a matter of fact—
  Sir W. ANSON: What is the name of the school?
  Mr. TREVELYAN: The Bolton Secondary School. I am only pointing out that it was under the regime of the right hon. Gentleman. The final arrangement come to did not result in that fee being imposed. The Board did not insist on its view, even under the regime of the right hon. Gentleman. But now I come to the action of the Board under our administration. The only dealings we have had with that school have been to require that instead of charging a weekly fee, they should charge a terminal fee on the ground that it would check capricious or premature removal. If the parent pays a terminal fee he is less willing to take the child away than if he paid a weekly fee. Now I come to the accusation of continuity of policy. In February, 1911, the local authority asked our approval for raising the fee to two guineas a term for the older pupils. The Board refused approval of the demand. I do not think there is very much in that complaint. I do not think my hon. Friend has substantiated any of the cases he has brought forward as to the class action of the Board. I do want those of my hon. Friends who are critical of the action of my right hon. Friend to judge of him not merely by the Holmes circular but by his general policy. I say in the face of his record it is impossible to charge the Department with class prejudice, stagnation or reaction. I have no time to go over the record of what my right hon. Friend has done for elementary education; but he has reduced the size of the classes, raised the standard of staffing of the schools, and insisted on better buildings.
  Sir G. DOUGHTY: And increased the ratepayers' charges without finding any money.
  Mr. TREVELYAN: I have not time to go into that, but my critical friends are perfectly aware of what my right hon. Friend has done. I ask them to remember the facts and the acts which he has done and set them against the words of the Holmes Circular with which the acts do not correspond. The real central myth of all this agitation was that the Civil Service of the Board of Education was upper class. All those who heard my right hon. Friend know that that is no longer the case. They cannot have heard him describe the origin of the selection of
  618
  examiners and inspectors without feeling that it can no longer be said that the way is barred to elementary school teachers, to people of humble origin, and to those who come from the elementary schools. Even the hon. Member for Sunderland feels that, for he fell back upon his denunciation of the Board. I quote his words, that for inspectors we must have a man who has been under the harrow.
  Mr. GOLDSTONE: Under the harrow to the extent that the inspector, not himself, be inspected.
  Mr. TREVELYAN: Yes, exactly. I quite agree that the teachers must have their chance of being made inspectors, but the hon. Member is raising a different question. He is beginning to say that only teachers should be inspectors. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO, no."] He is going perilously near that. That is not, I quite frankly say, the policy of the Board. Our policy is to open them for all. [An HON MEMBER: "Promotion from the ranks."] Those who listened to the right hon. Gentleman know that promotion from the ranks is open. To my mind one of the worst dangers to the people, to the democracy, and to progressive legislation is that there should be a campaign in this country against obtaining for the Civil Service men who have the highest education wherever they come from. I do not believe there is really very much difference between us and my hon. Friend. Surely the line he advocates is this, to widen the universities in the country as far as possible to all classes of people. As it is, people of humble origin are now carrying away most of the prizes in the universities. Somebody doubts that. The other day I took up a paper with the announcement of the Mathematical Tripos in Cambridge, and I found in the first class out of fifty-six men only eleven came from what we may call the upper-class public schools—
  Mr. GOLDSTONE Mr. GOLDSTONE rose in his place and claimed to move "That the Question be now put," but the Chairman withheld his assent, and declined then to put the question.
  Mr. TREVELYAN: I do ask the Committee to judge my right hon. Friend not by one single unfortunate publication, but by the real value of the whole of his administration, and they can judge it from their knowledge of what he has been doing during the last three years.
  Mr. KING: I very much regret we cannot have two days for the discussion of this subject.
  Mr. GOLDSTONE Mr. GOLDSTONE rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put,'' but the Chairman withheld his assent, and declined then to put the Question.
  Mr. KING: I feel it my duty to say a word or two upon this miserable Holmes circular, though I may be the means in so doing of preventing the House going to a Division. The Committee would certainly be glad if we could have this matter settled in a satisfactory manner. I must inform the President of the Board, much as I admire his admirable speech and the line that he has taken, and the courageous way in which he has faced his foes on the other side of the House and his foes on the Board of Education too—because I believe he has insidious foes there as well as open foes on the other side of the House—I still say, in spite of everything, that his reply upon this Holmes circular has not satisfied me. I do not believe—
  And, it being Eleven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his report to the House.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next, 17th instant.

SMALL LANDHOLDERS (SCOTLAND) [SALARIES, Etc.].
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do to-morrow resolve itself into Committee to authorise—

(i.) the payment, out of the Consolidated Fund, of the salaries of the Chairman and of each of the other Members of the Land Court;

(ii.) the payment, out of moneys provided by Parliament, of—

(a) the salaries and remuneration of the Agricultural Commissioners and other persons appointed or employed by them and by the Land Court, and the expenses incurred by the Land Court and the Agricultural Commissioners in the execution of their duties;

(b) an annual sum not exceeding eighty-five thousand pounds for the use of the Agricultural Commissioners;

620

(c) compensation in certain cases to members and officers of the Crofters Commission."

MOTION FOR ADJOURNMENT.

  BOARD OF EDUCATION.
  Mr. GULLAND: I beg to move, "That this House do now adjourn."
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I rise only for a moment or two to make an appeal to the President of the Board of Education, which I think will be supported by every Member who has listened to the Debate to-day. There are some of us who think that the problems connected with education are in importance second to none that come up for consideration by this House. I desire very respectfully to submit that the opportunity given us to-day to discuss these problems of education is altogether inadequate. I would say, in passing, that even if we had had full time to-day it would still have been inadequate. But as the House is well aware, we had to sacrifice from the Education Debate something like an hour and three quarters for a discussion on Private Bills. In addition to that, owing to some Members having to deal with questions of very great importance which they found it impossible to present to the House in a brief way—perhaps it was not possible—only a few Members have been able to take part in this Debate. I want to point out further that although certain questions have been discussed at great length, questions like the Holmes circular, the Swansea case, the great bulk of general problems which have cropped up have, not been discussed at all. They have been hardly hinted at. The question of the relation of secondary education to elementary education, the problems of the inside of secondary schools and of the inside of the elementary schools, of the aftercare of the children, of the development of educational systems—these things have practically not been touched upon. Finally, I would point out that an informal Committee of this House exists to study educational problems from the standpoint of the needs of the children. None of the members of that Committee have had the opportunity of giving the views of that Committee to-day. I venture earnestly to appeal to the President that we should be allowed another day for the discussion of the Education Estimates. I trust—I feel

  621
  sure—that the House may count upon his sympathetic reception of that request.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: I desire to associate myself with every word that has fallen from the mouth of the hon. Gentleman opposite. What has really happened to-day is this, that during a comparatively short sitting of the House, the President of the Board, with an extremely interesting and able speech, occupied very nearly two and a half hours of the time.
  Mr. KING: An hour and three quarters.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: Well, it was at least two and a quarter hours; to be quite accurate it was two hours and twenty minutes. A very considerable proportion of the rest of the Parliamentary time has been taken up with Private Bills. Exactly the same thing occurred last Session when the Education Vote came on. I agree with the hon. Gentleman opposite that there is no Vote coming up in this House of more importance than that of education. A considerable number of us sit in this House with the object of representing the views of the local education authorities of the county councils. There has been absolutely no opportunity for the representatives of the administrative bodies to put their views before the Government with regard to matters of pure education. The time of the House is taken up with what may be the views of one section or another of what I may call the militant educationists. A very considerable number of men in this House as well as in the country would like to have an opportunity of considering the administration of the Board from the purely educational standpoint. I appeal to the President of the Board to use his influence with the Government to give us another day for such discussion.
  Mr. JONATHAN SAMUEL: There is one aspect of this question which I should like to press upon the President of the Board why we should have another opportunity of discussing. I refer to the question of the building of new schools. In that policy I quite agree, but it is quite impossible for local authorities to continue building new schools unless they get some assistance from the Exchequer. I am a member of the Durham County Education Committee. We have spent up to the present something like £850,000 in new elementary schools, and about £150,000 on secondary schools, and about another £40,000 on a new college. The higher education rate cannot exceed 2d. in the £, but the expenditure is going up year by year and if the Board
  622
  of Education desires this building to go on by the local authorities the Government must assist and are bound to assist these local authorities in the building of new schools. We have taken over in Durham something like 40,000 children from non-provided schools to provided schools. That may shock some hon. Members opposite, but everyone must acknowledge the vast improvement in the new schools. In addition to that the growth of the population in our county is so great that we are bound to make provision for it and that means about 25,000 children more, so that we have to provide new schools or additions for about 65,000 children. That involves a very large addition to our expenditure equal to about £1,000,000, and we desire that the Exchequer should come to our assistance in making this large provision, otherwise it will foe quite impossible for the local authorities to do so. The matter has been debated over and over again, and we understood that the Board of Education intend to give a grant to the local authorities, and we have been building some of these schools in the expectation that that grant will be given. On this ground, therefore, I should like to urge upon the President the necessity for another day's discussion so that representatives of county councils and borough councils should express their views upon the necessity for this building grant from, the Exchequer. I am not a believer in grants to local authorities to any great extent because I think they lead to an extravagant method of expenditure. With regard to school buildings, if the Board of Education are going to press local authorities to build new schools and repair existing buildings they ought to assist them to find the money.
  Sir GEORGE DOUGHTY: I have waited all the evening for an opportunity to put before the House the position of the ratepayer in regard to the smaller amount he is getting from the Exchequer as compared with what he was getting in 1907. This is a matter which I submit ought to have the attention of the House. Not one word has been said on that side of the question. Since 1906 the Government have not increased their proportion of grants for elementary education by one penny piece, and I believe it is a fact, and the returns show it, that last year the amount granted was considerably less than it was in 1907. At the same time the teachers' salaries have increased by

  623
  £1,000,000 and other charges by £250,000, and the burden of all the charges for the inspection of schools and medical attention has been thrown upon the ratepayers. An increased expenditure amounting to about £2,000,000 has been thrown upon the local ratepayers, and the Treasury have not found any portion of that amount. I think the time has come when we ought to have an opportunity of discussing the whole question of finance, both local and Imperial, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give us another opportunity of discussing this important question.
  I am sure the President of the Board of Education sympathises very strongly with the ratepayers. You cannot go on for ever calling upon the ratepayers to increase their burdens without the Treasury finding some of the money. I am sure this is a question which would be discussed on both sides in a fair spirit in the hope of getting the right hon. Gentleman to put pressure on the Treasury to bear their fair proportion of the burden. In 1907 58 per cent. of the cost of education came from the Treasury, but last year the proportion was only 50 per cent., and thus is becoming an intolerable strain upon the ratepayers and a serious impediment to the progress of education. This is a matter of deep concern to those who desire to see both elementary and secondary education materially improved in our great municipalities.
  Mr. KELLAWAY: I readily join with my hon. Friends in asking for a further extension of time for the discussion of this question, which I think is an obvious necessity. The speech of the President, although admirable in tone, left on my mind the profound impression that although his policy may be excellent there are those in his department actively engaged in defeating that policy. If what the right hon. Gentleman has stated represented the operative policy of the Board of Education he would have every hon. Member behind him who sits on this side. I can submit a statement which will prove that the policy laid down by the right hon. Gentleman is not the policy which has been operative throughout the country. Something has been said about the anxiety in the country which has arisen in regard to the way in which the teaching profession has been set in antagonism to the Board of Education by those miserable Holmes-Morant circulars. The first of these circulars was issued in 1908 and the second in 1910. Mr. Selly Bigge
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  having this Circular before him added to it this Minute and then forwarded it to his superior, Sir Robert L. Morant. This note, in my opinion, does demonstrate that the policy the President has laid down is not the policy upon which the Board of Education has acted. This is what the superior of Mr. Holmes said to his superior when he forwarded the Holmes Circular to that official:—
  "Secretary. I think this will interest you. I see no way of tackling the local inspection difficulty directly. Where we find the teachers of a locality in thrall to the mechanical and unenlightened and rigid methods of Local Inspectors, the best way of turning their flank—"
  I hope the House will realise the full significance of that expression—
  "seems to me to be the concentration of a selected-body of our inspectors on one or two of the most objectionable features, and their drastic condemnation! in a sort of full inspection report—"
  I ask the House to consider this further phrase.
  "We have done a little of this kind of work lately, and I wish we could do much more. A critical report on certain points of school work or methods impresses the Local Education Authority much more when it emanates from a body of our men drawn from different parts of England than when it comes from the District Inspector alone."
  This note is signed, "L. A. Selly Bigge," and is dated, "19th February, 1910." That note does prove that during the past three years the policy of the Education Department has not been the policy as outlined to-day by the President of that Department. You have had Mr. Holmes and Mr. Selly Bigge engaged in a flanking movement, backed up by the whole inspectorate of the country to defeat the policy laid down by the right hon. Gentleman. His policy is a good policy, but he has men in his Department determined to defeat it, and unless he is prepared to trust the party and those who believe in the principles for which he stands we have not heard the last of the Holmes Circular.
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Runciman): The main request which has been made to-night is that there should be an extension of the discussion by the granting of another day. I regret I should have had to occupy the time of the House so long, but as a matter of fact we were done with questions at a very early hour, and I certainly did not detain the House for two and a half hours as somebody has suggested. I think there is a good deal to be said for having a. further discussion on the Education Vote. It is quite certain we might well devote our attention to purely educational subjects. I do not propose at this hour of the night to reply to the speech that has been made by the hon. Member for

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  Grimsby (Sir George Doughty) or that made by the hon. Member for Stockton (Mr. J. Samuel), but I cannot accept the figures given by the hon. Member for Grimsby.
  Sir GEORGE DOUGHTY: They are in the Return.
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I do not think the hon. Gentleman has carefully compared the details of the Votes, of the Elementary Vote in particular, during the last few years. He will find there has been a very substantial increase in the amount of money spent by the Exchequer on elementary education during the past year, and there will be a further increase in the coining year. I do not propose to go into that now.
  Mr. J. SAMUEL: Is there any prospect of building grants?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I think it would be quite improper for me on this occasion to make any promise of building grants, but I do not think, so far as I know, there has at any time been any promise of any building grants. I have no recollection of that promise ever having been made. I should be very glad to have more money at my disposal, but I have not got it. I need not refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Kellaway) except to say the Minute he quoted shows exactly the opposite of what he himself says. If the hon. Member thinks for one moment I would tolerate any member of my staff not acting in complete harmony with my policy he is very much mistaken. If the hon. Member has any accusation to make against the staff I shall be glad to have it in specific terms. But he has so far given me no evidence that any member of the staff has acted in any way antagonistically to my policy. He is industrious and pertinacious, and if there be any foundation for his accusation he will sooner or later get hold of some specific act with which I can deal. But until he does produce a specific case I can only say I have no evidence of the disloyalty on the part of the staff, and unless I get such evidence I cannot say anyone is guilty of such disloyalty.
  Mr. KING: I desire to associate myself entirely with what has been said in different parts of the House in favour of extending the time for discussing our great educational system. Let me point out this: we have been asked to-day to vote a sum very nearly approaching ten millions sterling, and I do not think two
  626
  days is a whit too long to set apart for a Debate upon so large a sum and affecting so important a question as that of education. Let me also point out that thirteen. Members had on the Paper notices to move a reduction of the salary of the President of the Board of Education. There have been only thirteen speeches and of these eight occupied an average of forty minutes each. It is pretty obvious that a largo number of Members who are interested in this question have, like myself, sat here throughout the Debate, rising on every possible occasion and sustaining disappointment through being unable to make a desired contribution to a very interesting discussion. The President really must not think that he is satisfying us—and hero I speak not only for a large number of Members of the Liberal party, but for other hon. Members in all parts of the House—with what he has said, or with what the Parliamentary Secretary has said, on the subject of the Holmes Circular. This is a serious matter—one which affects deeply hundreds and thousands of people all over the land. The teachers are up in arms about it and are not yet satisfied. If the right hon. Gentleman desires to secure harmony in the educational world he must not think he can do it with a suspicious and discontented teaching staff. I ask the Government to find facilities for a further discussion on this Vote.
  Lord BALCARRES: On the question of procedure I would remind hon. Members that there is power for the Government to allocate extra days to Supply. Since 1906 the Standing Order conferring this power has never once been taken advantage of, although prior to that date it was invariably put into operation. It is therefore quite open to hon. Members to ask the Government to exercise its privilege in this respect and give an. additional day.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will acquaint the Committee with the result of his appeal to the Prime Minister as soon as possible.
  Mr. BOOTH: An extra day could me taken for Supply after the National Insurance Bill has been got through Committee. We could then return to this discussion with renewed vigour.
  Lord BALCARRES: In that case the Bill must be finished by the 5th August.
  Adjourned at Twenty-nine minutes after Eleven o'clock.

  Civil Service (Assistant Clerks).
  Civil Service (Assistant Clerks).
NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL.
  MID WIVES.
  MID WIVES.
  ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS.
  ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS.
  Application for Labourers' Cottages (Tanderagee, Armagh).
  Application for Labourers' Cottages (Tanderagee, Armagh).
  Old Age Pensions.
  Old Age Pensions.
  Petty Sessions, County Fermanagh.
  Petty Sessions, County Fermanagh.
  Reinstatement Application (County Cork).
  Reinstatement Application (County Cork).
  Coronation Medals.
  Coronation Medals.
  Woolwich Arsenal (Wages).
  Woolwich Arsenal (Wages).
  Army Service Corps (Ex-Staff Quartermaster-Sergeant.
  Army Service Corps (Ex-Staff Quartermaster-Sergeant.
  British South Africa Company.
  British South Africa Company.
  Indian State Railway Contracts.
  Indian State Railway Contracts.
  SS. "Strathord" (Tragedy at Sea).
  SS. "Strathord" (Tragedy at Sea).
  Cork Post Office Telegraph Staff.
  Cork Post Office Telegraph Staff.
  Government Coal Contractors (Fair-Wages Clause).
  Government Coal Contractors (Fair-Wages Clause).

Preamble
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:
Greater London Railway.
The same was ordered to lie on the Table.

MARPLE URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL GAS BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments: Further Amendments made: Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.
MERCHANT SHIPPING (STEVEDORES AND TRIMMERS) (No. 2) BILL.
Brought from the Commons.
LAND DRAINAGE PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 3) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 131.)
BOARD OF EDUCATION SCHEME (ALNWICK CORPORATION PAYMENT) CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to.
CHAPEL, WHALEY AND DISTRICT GAS BILL. [H.L.]
  WINCHESTER CORPORATION (ELECTRIC SUPPLY) BILL. [H.L.]
    SIDMOUTH GAS AND ELECTRICITY BILL. [H.L.]
    Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments considered, and agreed to.

PARLIAMENT BILL.
Order of the Day for receiving the Report of Amendments, read.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN): My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received.
Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Viscount Morley of Blackburn.)
LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH: My Lords, I have put down several Amendments for the consideration of the House, but before approaching them in detail perhaps your Lordships will allow me, on the Motion that the Report of Amendments be now received, to make a few remarks on the situation in which we find ourselves. I think such a course may possibly tend to shorten the subsequent work of considering my Amendments in detail. This is practically our last opportunity of considering the form in winch this Bill should be sent back to the House of Commons. At this stage we can make further Amendments affecting the character and construction of the Bill, but after this stage the Third Reading does not admit of any substantial change being entertained. We are therefore now on what may be called the final stage of considering in what shape we shall send back this Bill to the House of Commons, and I need scarcely press upon your Lordships that those who desire to get substantial alterations in the Bill accepted elsewhere may well take this opportunity to consider how those alterations should be made as little objectionable as possible.
This Bill was received by your Lordships in a remarkable manner. The question embodied in the Bill of a reconsideration of the relations between the two Houses of Parliament has been under consideration now for some time, and every one admits that the time has arrived when it is necessary to make substantial changes. More than that, the Bill itself in full detail was before the electors at the last election, and its meaning and consequences were pressed home on all sides for the consideration of the electorate. According to every test which is usual amongst us, two elections have approved of the principle of the Bill, during one of which the details of the Bill were before the electorate. The result of the two elections was substantially the same, and it was accepted that the mind of the nation had pronounced at least in favour of the principle of the Bill. Your Lordships so far recognised that as to pass the Second Reading without a Division. That being the case, it is not too much to expect that every attempt will be made to keep the character and the principle of the Bill as far as possible unchanged, and that some resentment might be caused, which your Lordships might be disposed to mollify and dissipate, if any appearance

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were made of making a complete and thorough change in the Bill.
I think there has been apprehension elsewhere that more changes have been effected in the Bill than your Lordships have actually made. The changes are substantially one only, but it has an appearance which elsewhere has been exaggerated. What was the primary cause of inciting this discussion as to the relative powers of the two Houses? It arose out of the action of your Lordships' House—I am sorry to have to refer to it again—when two years since you rejected the Budget. It was a question of finance, the question closest to the minds of the House of Commons, and there can be no difference of opinion that the country at large decided in favour of the claim of the House of Commons. The claim of the House of Commons to have exclusive power over the finances of the country has been approved by the nation. Now, how has that claim been treated by the Amendment inserted in the Bill by your Lordships? Your Lordships have not been content to pass unchanged the first clause of the Bill which deals with financial measures. On the contrary, you altered it in a way so as to withdraw from the House of Commons the exclusive power which it claims. Those amongst your Lordships who were long in the House of Commons will know how keenly that will touch the feelings of members of that House. I think it is not impertinent to observe that the change made in the first clause of this Bill relative to the financial powers of the House of Commons was made by one of your Lordships—the noble Earl on the Cross Benches, Lord Cromer—to whom we all listen with the greatest deference and respect, but who will willingly allow that he has had no experience of the House of Commons so as to be in touch with it in regard to its claim to have authority in finance. And I would beg your Lordships to reconsider, even at this late moment, whether you could not usefully restore the first clause of the Bill to the shape in which it came up to us from the House of Commons. Your Lordships have yourselves fully acknowledged the right of the House of Commons to its claim over finance, but you object to that claim being extended to matters which are not financial. That is a danger to which you have been exposed in the past, and the clause in the Bill as it came up
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from the House of Commons simply stated what was the practice in respect of finance before the year 1909. Questions as to whether a Bill was a Money Bill, and as to whether your Lordships interfered with the privileges of the other House in touching money clauses, were practically decided up to 1909 by the authority of Mr. Speaker, whom the House of Commons implicitly followed, and whose declarations your Lordships universally accepted. There can be no question before 1909 of the fact which I am repeating. I would therefore press on your Lordships the expediency of restoring this part of the Bill, before it goes back to the other House, to the shape in which it came to us from them, recognising and admitting the authority of Mr. Speaker as determining what are money matters, and leaving the action and the power of the House of Commons in respect to such matters absolutely undiminished.
I do not wish to press this in detail, but I cannot help referring for one moment to the remarkable speech of Viscount Peel when we last had this Bill under discussion, in which he rehearsed the occasions on which he had had to deal with the relations between the two Houses in respect of supposed intrusion or real intrusion of your Lordships' action in what was the proper domain of the House of Commons, and explained how he had ruled upon them, the House of Commons accepting the ruling and your Lordships deferring to it. That is all that the first clause of the Bill as it originally stood established; and I would earnestly press on your Lordships whether it is not, even now, expedient to restore Clause I to the shape in which it first came up to this House. I would with extreme earnestness bring this before the minds of those who desire changes in the second clause with respect to the power of this House over matters of general legislation. If you want to keep open, I will not say the chance, but if you want to keep open the power of persisting in that Amendment, it would surely be advisable to give way where you must be conscious that in the end you will have to yield. If you are certain that in financial matters the House of Commons will insist on its rights, and you will not insist in objecting to the maintenance of those rights on the part of the House of Commons, would it not be wiser in respect of the interest of your

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powers in regard to general legislation to give way in the first instance?
As to general legislation also, what was the position up till recently between the two Houses? It will be acknowledged that ever since 1832 what the nation manifested a clear determination to have, what the nation resolved upon, your Lordships accepted as necessary to be done; but that resolution had to be expressed always through the medium of a General Election. It came to this, that a General Election was necessary in order to bring about that expression of national feeling to which your Lordships profess, and honestly profess, you are always ready to submit. But that was a very awkward way of ascertaining the national mind, because you cannot, except on rare occasions, have a single issue decided at a General Election, and even if you have one issue decided you cannot carry the determination on that issue to other questions so as to declare with any weight and conviction that the determination of the one issue also gives the mind of the nation on others. This Bill as sent up from the House of Commons proposed, instead of referring all questions to a General Election, that when a matter is determined upon by the House of Commons in the commencement of its existence after a General Election and maintained for two years, there is an actual certainty that that represents the national mind. We shall always admit that it is a fair presumption that what the House of Commons after the first blush of a General Election decides and maintains for two years does approximately correspond with what is the national will.
It is impossible to my mind to refuse the admission of this truth, that under the new conditions which would be set up by this Bill, supposing it became law, our traditions would be changed, our ways of action would be changed, our procedure in respect of consultation and deliberation would be changed, and the atmosphere generally of the political world would undergo a serious alteration. We all know how in the past changes of procedure, and apparently of procedure only, have brought about a change in the way of thinking in the House of Commons and in this House also, and if we establish as a new matter of procedure that what is determined upon in the House
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of Commons in the first session of a Parliament and insisted upon for two years must prevail, I think we shall certainly lose during those two years the benefit of the consultation, the deliberation, the modifications which in past experience we have derived from delay under similar circumstances. Delay when it leads up to an uncertain General Election, when it cannot be peremptorily brought to an end, may well be productive of consequences which will not follow when the delay is for a fixed period after which the result is inevitable. Therefore I have myself supported, in voice at all events, the suggestion that on rare occasions and under closely-defined conditions and through the operation of a most responsible authority, an opportunity might well be given for matters of the highest moment to be referred, over the decision of the House of Commons even after two years of persistent declaration one way, to the determination of the popular will by way of the Referendum. The Amendments which I have put down are directed to making this reference available only on the rarest occasions on determination by an authority of the highest character, and again that it should be open equally to both sides. The action towards a Referendum might be set in motion by a requisition signed by 200 members of the House of Commons, thus allowing a minority in the other House to appeal against what night appear to be a perverse misrepresentation of the national will.
We have appealed in vain to His Majesty's Government to entertain any suggestion of a reference beyond the House of Commons to what may be the will of the electorate at large. Yet we are encouraged not to give up hope that even at the last there may be a possibility, under the strictest possible conditions, of having such a Referendum. The Prime Minister, who was almost the first of our public men to suggest that the question of the Referendum was one that might be seriously considered by political persons, has again and again reserved the possibility, on rare and extreme occasions, of resorting to the Referendum, and the last word spoken on this subject by the noble Viscount the Secretary of State for War reserved the same power, that on rare and special occasions and in respect to certain subjects of paramount importance it might be well to allow a Referendum.

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We are entitled to ask His Majesty's Government, if they object to what is proposed, to tell us how and when and under what conditions would they themselves allow the Referendum? Under what conditions, at the institution of what authority, or in what manner might the Referendum, which the Government now declare they will not look at, be entertained?
It may be that the Prime Minister and possibly the Minister for War think that upon some Bill going through Parliament a clause might he attached to that Bill keeping it back from becoming law until it had been submitted to and approved by a popular vote. In other words, whilst they object to the principle of the Referendum being enshrined in a general law, they would not object to annexing it to some special measure which might be going through Parliament. If that is the suggestion of the Prime Minister and of the Secretary of State for War, if that is what they rely upon, I do not quite know whether to wonder more at the simplicity or at the subtlety of such a suggestion. It is hardly likely that a House of Commons bent upon supporting a Bill and carrying it through all its stages would at the same time add this clause to its provisions, unless, indeed, it is to be taken that there is such insincerity in that House that some Bill is being promoted apparently with great earnestness and full force of conviction yet to which the members are in their hearts opposed, and on which they wish to see a defeat in the country. I am puzzled by both of these hypotheses, and I think we are entitled to ask, if the Referendum is to be used in any way on supreme occasions, what is the nature of those occasions on which it may be used and how may it be employed?
I will not refer to the special Amendments I have on the Paper more than to say this, that they reduce the Joint Committee from six to four, making it, I think, a very responsible and authoritative body. And whilst I am on that subject, perhaps I may refer to a question which was addressed to me when we were last considering this Bill by Lord Faber, who inquired whether I had realised what the power of the Speaker would be if the Committee were a Committee of four only, and the Speaker had a casting as well as an original vote. Yes, I had fully realised that power. I think that the Speaker,
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if he carries one member of the Committee with him, should carry the day. I felt also that that was a suggestion which would not be regarded with an unfriendly eye in the other House of Parliament, because the practice of the House of Commons in respect to Private Bills is to refer them ordinarily to Committees of four, and give to the Chairman a casting vote as well as an original vote, so that they are quite familiar with this practice. It may be that everything is already settled, preordained, predoomed; that, indeed, there are men about us who at this moment are able to tell exactly what the remaining stages and ultimate fortune of this Bill will be as surely as if those stages had already been passed through. It may be that. I am wasting your Lordships' time. If so, I accept the responsibility. In dealing with these Amendments in detail I do press on your Lordships the considerations which I have ventured to offer.
The claim for the passage of this Bill is that the mind of the nation must prevail, and that the mind of the nation is expressed in the House of Commons. It is the second proposition which we know is not always accurate, not always true. The mind of the nation is not always accurately expressed by the House of Commons, and the sense of conviction of the failure of the House of Commons occasionally—I might say often—to convey the mind of the nation, and of its untrustworthiness as expressing the mind of the nation, is a growing conviction. You hear it on all sides. You hear it not merely from Conservatives, you hear it from the most democratic quarters; and a similar feeling has been entertained in other democratic countries, and has resulted in action in consequence there. I admit that the Referendum has not been long before the public in this country, though the late Lord Salisbury some eighteen years ago said a word in favour of it, and the Prime Minister some eight or nine years ago spoke of it, and other men have spoken of it from time to time. Still, it may be that the Referendum will not now be entertained, but the thing upon which the strength of the claim for the Referendum stands—namely, the conviction of the uncertain character of the House of Commons as a reflection of the national will—remains and will remain, and it becomes greater with the giving of further power to the House of Commons.

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When this Bill is made an Act it will become of transcendent importance that the House of Commons should be a real mirror of the mind of the nation, and our work should be to set to work to make it so in future. Whatever else comes out of our deliberations, I think there must come a practical resolve to take into consideration not merely the reform of this House but the reform of the House of Commons, so as to give to the other House some substantial reason for asserting the claim On which this Bill is founded. Burke gave to the House of Commons more than a century ago the title of being the express image of the nation. How far it is from being that now we all know. If no other result follows from these deliberations, I hope that at all events there will follow an earnest conviction of the necessity of taking the reform of the House of Commons in hand, so as to make its character such as it is claimed to be in this Bill.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, I should like to say one word on what the noble Lord has just said, because I think it may be misunderstood by others. He spoke of our having assented to the Second Reading of this Bill as if that was conclusive proof that we had all assumed that the Bill was to pass. That is a great mistake. I can answer for myself and for a good many of my noble friends beside me that their object in voting, for the Second Reading was simply to have the opportunity of discussing at full length the different clauses of the Bill in Committee. So far from assenting to the principle of the Bill, I may say for my part—I cannot speak so positively for others—I would never have assented to the principle of the Bill, and I do not undertake to say now that I shall vote for the Third Reading.
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN: My Lords, may I say a word in reply to the noble and learned Earl who has just sat down? The noble and learned Earl says that he will not undertake even now that he will vote for the Third Reading of this Bill.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: I say I am not sure.
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN: Supposing the noble and learned Earl takes his seventeen, or whatever the number may be, noble Lords with him, what will
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be their position? Noble Lords opposite have read the Bill a second time. They have then amended it freely, and made it just such a Bill as they would like. [Opposition cries of "No, no."] At all events, you have amended the Bill. Yet after doing that is it to be suggested that you should refuse to go any further? With all respect to the noble and learned Earl's experience, I do not think that such a case as that has ever happened.
I turn for a moment or two to the speech of my noble friend behind me. I believe noble Lords in all parts of the House will agree that my noble friend Lord Courtney owed us no apology for making those observations. I listened to them, as we all did, with close attention, and I confess that I have very little to quarrel with my noble friend upon until he came to a certain practical suggestion. We on this Bench agree with my noble friend that the necessity for the Bill is admitted—it is admitted partially by what offends the noble and learned Earl, the passing of the Second Reading. It cannot be denied that another of my noble friend's observations is perfectly good. He referred to the result of the General Election after the Parliament Bill in full detail had been before the electors. By far the most cogent part of my noble friend's speech—I feel sure it must have been felt to be cogent even by noble Lords who detest this Bill—was that in which he pointed out—and it was a matter on which the noble Viscount, Lord St. Aldwyn, had spoken—that the very thing to provoke and irritate the House of Commons is the persistency of the. House of Lords, with no really good and sound object, in the claim to interfere with finance. Noble Lords opposite reproach us on this Bench with not being conciliatory and refusing concessions. Yet to insist on this claim, as you do under Lord Cromer's Amendment, is the very way to make an understanding impossible. All my noble friend's arguments on that head were as cogent as they could be. In effect, it comes to where the noble Viscount opposite left it the other day when he did not vote with his friends, but voted with his opponents. The noble Viscount, Lord St. Aldwyn, asked why you should interfere with the recognised position of Money Bills and demand a power for the House of Lords which has never vet been claimed by it. So far I go entirely with my noble friend.

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There are now, since my noble friend has put his Amendments on the Paper, three schemes before the House. First, there is the scheme of the Bill. Secondly, there is that of Lord Lansdowne, winch in our view, as I have ventured to say since his scheme was propounded, is a traverse of the Bill. The third is Lord Courtney's proposal, which if he will allow me to say so, is a rather amphibious kind of scheme. He quarrels with some of the proceedings of the noble Marquess and of noble Lords opposite, and on the other hand he goes with the Government in very important particulars. For example, he replaces the first clause—the Money Bill clause—as it was originally proposed. What is the cardinal proposition we have to resist? It is the Amendment of the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition. My noble friend behind me is for giving up the special exemptions—the exemption of a Home Rule Bill or such a Bill—from the operation of the Parliament Bill. But then my noble friend appears to find no fault with subsection (c) of the noble Marquess's proposal. Then my noble friend would omit from the Committee proposed by Lord Cromer and the noble Viscount opposite the Chairman of Ways and Means of the House of Commons and the Lord Chairman in your Lordships' House. I should have thought, with all deference to my noble friend and to the other persons proposed on this Committee, that that would be to omit the two men whose advice the Speaker would most like to have, and I should think the noble Viscount would agree with me there.
Then, lastly, the Bill says that the Speaker of the House of Commons may, if he thinks fit, refer a given Bill to the Joint Committee to ascertain whether it does or does not raise an issue of great gravity; and, second, whether the opinion of the country has been effectively taken upon it. My noble friend proposes to make that compulsory—that the Speaker shall refer to the Joint Committee the question whether a given Bill does or does not raise an issue of great gravity, and whether the opinion of the electorate has been ascertained. My noble friend adds a proposition which he has taken from the Reference to the People Bill introduced by Lord Balfour of Burleigh in March last, and which since then has been in a state of very suspended animation, if animation is the right word. My noble
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friend borrows from that Bill the proposal that the Speaker shall be bound to call the Committee together and set them to work to settle this question if a Minister of the Crown requests him to do so, or if a Resolution of either House is passed calling for it, and he provides that a minority of 200 members of the House of Commons may make such a request. My noble friend is an expert in these matters, and I put this point, to him. Can we suppose that this House would let a Bill pass under Clause 2 without a Resolution—I mean after it has gone through all its stages in the Lower House and been rejected here—would they let it pass under Clause 2 without passing a Resolution calling upon the Joint Committee to set their powers in motion? Therefore I submit that my noble friend's proposal is, shall I say, nugatory?
LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH: My noble friend has not understood the proposition. I referred to the case of a Bill passed by both Houses. A minority in the House of Commons would still be able to make the recommendation.
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN: Then. I have read the words wrongly. But that fact does not much affect the point. My noble friend's scheme, meritorious as the spirit of it may be, is not a scheme that we at all events can look upon with favour. Nor do I think it will be looked upon with favour elsewhere, because it includes an almost imperative recommendation of the Referendum. And then he proceeds—shall I say somewhat coolly?—to call upon us here to say what would be a good way of passing the Referendum. We are against it.
LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH: Not always.
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN: That may be. My noble friend quoted some sentences that fell from two important members of His Majesty's Government, but those words did not arise on any proposal now before the House. It would be fairer if my noble friend asked the noble Marquess opposite to tell us what the Referendum means and all the rest of my noble friend's catechism, because the noble Marquess has put the Referendum into the Bill. In a sentence almost as dubious as if it were a preamble, he says

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that if the Joint Committee think fit the issue is to be submitted to and approved by the electors "in manner to be hereafter provided by Act of Parliament." Why does not my noble friend ask the noble Marquess to tell us how? You have introduced a tremendous innovation in the Joint Committee. That Joint Committee you entrust with the power of deciding whether a question is of such magnitude as to make it proper to refer it to the constituencies. We naturally ask how this is to be done. There is no suggestion in the Bill as to how the machinery of the Referendum is to be adjusted for the purposes of the noble Marquess's Amendment. Therefore I think our withers are unwrung after my noble friend's catechism, though I am grateful to hint for the way in which he has expounded his views, and the spirit and temper, in which I beg earnestly to join him, in which he asks the House at this hour to consider the proposals and the arguments that will come before us this afternoon.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I have often observed that members of this House who have had the advantage of sitting in the other House are fond of telling us who have not had that advantage that our habits of debate are somewhat irregular and disorderly. I must confess that it seems to me that the conversation which has been taking place certainly daring the last twenty minutes has been of a most desultory and inconvenient description. I take no exception whatever to the introductory statement made by my noble friend Lord Courtney, but since he unfolded, as he was entitled to do, the general outline of his scheme we have been discussing seriatim the Amendments which are on the Paper, and which we shall have to discuss over again seriatim when we get further into the business of the evening. I certainly prefer to reserve what I have to say on the different Amendments—and I have something to say upon them—until we reach those Amendments.
But I desire to enter a respectful protest against two statements which were made by the noble Viscount during the course of his speech. In the first place, he told the House that he conceived that by the insertion of certain Amendments in this Bill we had rendered it one of which,
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in a general way, we were prepared to approve. Nothing could be further from the fact than that statement. We read the Bill a second time, reluctantly I admit, and we deemed it our duty during the Committee stage to make such Amendments as seemed to us essential in order to deal with some of its most objectionable features; but if every one of those Amendments was accepted we should still regard the Bill as a very dangerous measure and one of which we could not approve. We regard it, above all, not as a measure which would permanently take its place upon the Statute Book, but as admittedly—and I think the admission is made on both sides of the House—a provisional measure intended to deal with a temporary state of things. The other statement to which I take exception is the noble Viscount's assertion that we on this side desire to claim for your Lordships' House powers over finance which we had never ventured to claim before. That is not the case. We desire to prevent this House from being deprived of rights in the region of finance which we conceive to be ours and which, beyond all question, are taken from us in the most arbitrary manner by the Bill on the Table.
Only one other point will I notice. The noble Viscount took me rather severely to task—I do not exactly know how he introduced the subject into the course of his speech—because I had moved an Amendment to the Bill which contemplated resort in certain circumstances to the Referendum, and he said with perfect truth that there is at the present moment no machinery for the Referendum in existence. But if the noble Viscount Will kindly recall what I said the other evening he will remember that I dealt fully with that point and that I called his attention to the fact that there were already two schemes for the machinery of the Referendum before your Lordships' House, and I added that if we received the slightest encouragement from noble Lords opposite we were prepared at two or three days' notice to lay a Bill On the Table containing our views as to what that machinery should be. I hope, my Lords, that we shall now be allowed to approach the discussion of the Amendments.
On Question, Motion "That the Report be now received" agreed to.
Clause 1 as amended in Committee:
Powers of house of Lords as to Money Bills.
1.—(1) If a Money Bill, having been passed by the House of Commons, and sent up to the House of Lords at least one month before the end of the session, is not passed by the House of Lords without amendment within one month after it is so sent up to that House, the Bill shall, unless the House of Commons direct to the contrary, be presented to His Majesty and become an Act of Parliament on the Royal Assent being signified, notwithstanding that the House of Lords have not consented to the Bill.
(2) A Money Bill means a public Bill which in the opinion of the Joint Committee contains only provisions dealing with all or any of the following subjects, namely, the imposition, repeal, remission, alteration, or regulation of taxation; the imposition for the payment of debt or other financial purposes of charges on the Consolidated Fund, or on money provided by Parliament, or the variation or repeal of any such charges; supply; the appropriation, receipt, custody, issue or audit of accounts of public money; the raising or guarantee of any loan or the repayment thereof; or subordinate matters incidental to the provisions of such Bill; but if, in the opinion of the Joint Committee, the governing purpose of a Bill, or of any portion of a Bill, is such as to bring the Bill within the category of general legislation, the Bill, or such portion thereof as aforesaid, shall be subject to the provisions of section two of this Act. In this subsection the expressions "taxation," "public money," and "loan" respectively do not include any taxation, money, or loan raised by local authorities or bodies for local purposes.
(3) There shall be endorsed on every Money Bill when it is sent up to the House of Lords and when it is presented to His Majesty for assent the certificate of the Speaker of the House of Commons signed by him that it is a Money Bill.
LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH moved an Amendment to leave out "Joint Committee" at the commencement of subsection (2) and to insert "Speaker." The noble Lord said: This Amendment is to reinstate in the clause the Speaker as the authority to determine whether a Bill is a Money Bill.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 2, leave out ("Joint Committee") and insert ("Speaker").—(Lord Courtney of Penwith.)
VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYN: The noble Lord has moved to restore this Bill, so far as Money Bills are concerned, to the position in which it was when it was introduced, by substituting the Speaker for the Joint Committee to which your Lordships agreed. We have discussed this matter on two occasions already, and on both occasions your Lordships accepted the substitution of the Joint Committee for the Speaker, the second time without a Division. Therefore I hope I may be excused
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if I do not repeat the arguments with which I troubled your Lordships on former occasions.
But the noble Lord opposite has raised to-day two fresh arguments. He suggests that because the noble Viscount, Lord Peel, who addressed your Lordships the other clay with so much authority on this matter, had informed your Lordships that on the only two occasions on which he had to decide questions of privilege against the action of this House your Lordships had assented to his decision, it was therefore practically agreed that the Speaker was the proper tribunal to decide such questions; but the noble Lord entirely forgot that, even while he said that, Lord Peel expressed his own very strong opinion that the Speaker was not the proper tribunal on which to impose this duty. Further, I would entirely controvert the statement of the noble Lord opposite that it has been universally agreed that the decisions of the Speaker of the House of Commons in this matter are conclusive.
I can refer to two occasions during the last few years, long after Lord Peel's Speakership, when certain decisions on the question of privilege were given by the Speaker of the House of Commons and were energetically protested against by your Lordships' House. The first case was in the year 1906 on the Irish Labourers Bill, when some change, made by your Lordships, I believe in the process of arbitration, was held by the Speaker of the day as possibly imposing some increased charge upon the ratepayers. Your Lordships protested against that view, and did not agree with the reasons which the House of Commons gave for considering it a question of privilege. Again, there was a very notable instance in the year 1908 upon the Old Age Pensions Bill. That was not a Money Bill; nobody will contend that it was; but, of course, it contained provisions with regard to the application of funds towards old-age pensions. Your Lordships made two Amendments, among others, in that Bill. The first was to decrease the period of imprisonment which disqualified a person from receiving a pension; the second was merely to substitute borough councils in London as the pension authority in place of the London County Council as proposed in the Bill. For some mysterious reason both of these Amendments were

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ruled by the Speaker to be questions of privilege, and were dissented from on that ground by the House of Commons. Your Lordships did not insist on your Amendments, but while accepting that position you protested most strongly by a special Resolution against the action of the House of Commons and expressed your opinion that it ought not to be taken as a precedent. Therefore I contend that the noble Lord opposite was entirely wrong in saying that the decisions of the Speaker had been universally accepted or, matters of finance. Of course, there are always two sides to a question of the kind. I must not be understood for a moment as saying that the Speaker of the day decided wrongly on those matters. I am not qualified to express an opinion; but it is the fact that your Lordships held a totally different view, and it is also the fact that it is now proposed to make the arbitrator deciding between the two Houses on disputed questions of this kind the Speaker of the House of Commons alone. I hope your Lordships will adhere to the Bill as it stands.
THE EARL OF CROMER: My Lords, I trust that Lord Courtney will acquit me of any want of courtesy if I do not go again into all the arguments in connection with this question. They have been thoroughly threshed out, and I do not think they need be repeated. But I do desire to make one remark on something which the noble Lord said. He said with truth that this proposal had been made by a member of your Lordships' House—that is to say, myself—who had no House of Commons experience. I am painfully aware of that, but I would. point out that this proposal has received very warm support from many of your Lordships who have had that experience; and although the noble Lord invoked Lord Peel's testimony in his favour, I think my proposal had the singular good fortune of being supported by Lord Peel, who can speak with greater authority on this subject than any one in the country. My only regret is that we cannot have the opinion of the noble Viscount's successor, the present Speaker of the House of Commons. That it is impossible to have I know, but if the Speaker could have given his opinion it would have been received with the utmost attention.
Both Lord Courtney and the noble Viscount opposite proceeded on the assump-
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tion that we propose to take away from the House of Commons the exclusive right to deal with finance. I know that is the way in which it will be represented in the country, but it is wholly incorrect. Let us come back to what we are really discussing. Is the Speaker to be the sole arbiter as to whether a Bill is a Money Bill or not, or is he to have a Committee joined with him to advise him? That is the sole question we are discussing. Our proposal is not only supported by noble Lords on this side of the House, but I certainly had imagined that there was a considerable section of the Liberal Party who entertained grave doubts as to whether the Speaker should be left with sole power. I therefore hope most earnestly that your Lordships will reject the Amendment and adhere to the Bill as it stands.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
THE EARL OF CROMER*THE EARL OF CROMER moved an Amendment to omit from subsection (2) the words "but if, in the opinion of the Joint Committee, the governing purpose of a Bill, or of any portion of a Bill, is such as to bring the Bill within the category of general legislation, the Bill, or such portion thereof as aforesaid, shall be subject to the provisions of Section 2 of this Act," and to insert—"But if, in the opinion of the Joint Committee, the main governing purpose of a Bill imposing taxation, or of any portion of a Bill imposing taxation, is not purely financial in character, the Bill, or such portion thereof as aforesaid, shall be subject to the provisions of Section 2 of this Act."
The noble Earl said: It will be within your Lordships' recollection that when subsection (2) of Clause 1 was under consideration the Amendment as it now stands was passed, but on the distinct understanding that some further change would be made when we reached the Report stage. I hope that the Amendment which I now propose will at all events meet one of the objections raised by Lord St. Aldwyn. My noble friend said with perfect truth that the Amendment as originally drafted would enable Money Bills which dealt with loans to be referred to the Joint Committee, and I think he gave as illustrations Naval and Military Works Bills and the Uganda Railway Bill. It was never the intention either of myself

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or of those who have been co-operating with me in this measure that these matters should be brought within the cognisance of the Joint Committee. Those are Money Bills properly so called. They have always been in the exclusive province of the House of Commons, and there is no reason why they should not remain so. I hope the change now introduced will meet that objection. Your Lordships will observe that under the proposal now made the matters which are brought to the cognisance of the Joint Committee will be limited to Bills imposing taxation.
I pass on to the question of the necessity on occasion of referring Bills which impose taxation to the Joint Committee. Surely a provision of this sort is very necessary. I should like to remind your Lordships that we have to safeguard ourselves against two different forms of tacking. There is, first, the old form of tacking which has been called by noble Lords opposite "extraneous tacking," by which I understand the addition to a Money Bill of some matter which is entirely foreign to the immediate purpose of the Bill. And then there is the other, and as I venture to think much more dangerous, form of tacking, which has been called "moral tacking"—that is, the endeavour to accomplish by a side wind in a Money Bill some important political and social change which ought to come in the category of general legislation. In the Resolution which your Lordships' House passed last November the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition safeguarded himself against both of these forms of tacking. That Resolution declared that—
"the Lords are prepared to forego their Constitutional right to reject or amend Money Bills which are purely financial in character,"
thereby leaving it to be inferred that they were not prepared to forego their rights in regard to Bills which were not purely financial in character. In voting for this Amendment your Lordships will be doing nothing inconsistent with the Resolution passed last November.
Noble Lords opposite virtually recognise that there is a defect in the Bill, and that an abusive use might be made of the powers which it is proposed to confer on the House of Commons. The noble Viscount the Secretary of State for War said, in the course of last week, that a definition
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of tacking was difficult to give, but that it was clear there were things which came in the category of tacking. Then the noble Viscount said we could get at this by illustration. We can; and a good deal of illustration has been given during the course of this debate. But the noble Viscount went on to say "It is impossible to define tacking." Does not an admission of that sort in itself constitute a very scathing condemnation of bringing in a Bill of this sort at all? It amounts to this, that there is an admission of the evil but the English language is not flexible enough to provide a remedy. Other nations have solved these linguistic difficulties and why should not we? The reason is obvious. It is because under this Bill we are going to live under a hybrid Constitution unknown to any other country in the world. Our Constitution in the future is to be partly written and partly unwritten, and it appears to me that it will possess all the disadvantages and none of the advantages of both systems. All those portions which will give the most absolute and complete liberty to a Government which is daily becoming bureaucratic and a House of Commons which is daily becoming more caucus-ridden are to be written, but those portions which would provide checks on the democracy such as have been elsewhere considered necessary will be unwritten. Surely that can hardly be considered a satisfactory state of affairs. I venture to assert that it is not our business to find a remedy for this evil. Our business is to point out the defect, and if the defect is not denied it is for the authors of this Bill to find some remedy for it. As they cannot do so we must try our best to help them. It is no answer to my argument to say that this Bill will provide a remedy against the old form of tacking—that is to say, extraneous tacking. That may or may not be the case; but we now have to deal with a situation which has been created by this Bill. Formerly there was a guarantee against moral tacking. It rested in the power which resided in your Lordships' House, but now that that is to be done away with I say something else ought to be substituted in its place.
It has been stated in the course of this debate that every financial Bill that comes up from the House of Commons embodies some sort of policy. I agree, and I know it is very difficult to draw a distinctive frontier line between those

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matters which should be referred and which should not be referred to the Joint Committee. But I say that an attempt should be made to do this, and that the constitution of the Committee affords ample guarantee that the powers entrusted to them will not be abused. In practice they will bring into the category of Money Bills all such Bills as can reasonably be brought into that category, and, moreover, all Bills which according to ancient custom have always been brought into that category. But on the other hand they will have the power, when there is a manifest attempt to evade the Act of Parliament and to bring in some social and political change in the garb of a Money Bill, of allowing your Lordships to have a say in the matter. For these reasons I hope your Lordships will accept the Amendment which I now move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 11, leave out from ("Bill") to ("In") in line 15, and insert ("But if, in the opinion of the Joint Committee, the main governing purpose of a Bill imposing taxation, or of any portion of a Bill imposing taxation, is not purely financial character, the Bill, or such portion thereof as aforesaid, shall be subject to the provisions of section two of this Act").—(The Earl of Cromer.)
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN: The noble Marquess reproached me just now, good naturedly enough, with speaking at too great length. I hope I shall not now be charged with being perfunctory if I say only a few words on the Amendment of my noble friend. He will be well aware that it is not from any want of respect for any course that commends itself to him. The only question to-day is how this Amendment which the noble Earl has just moved affects the Amendment inserted in Committee. The only difference that I can discover is that my noble friend's new Amendment is rather wider in language. It remains that if the main governing purpose of a Bill imposing taxation is not purely financial, then it is to be treated not as a Money Bill but as a Bill coming under Clause 2. My noble friend has altered his Amendment in consequence of what was said about loans and so forth by the noble Viscount, Lord St. Aldwyn, and has confined it to Bills imposing taxation. In that I am sure the noble Earl has taken a wise course, but the difficulty we have in accepting my noble friend's Amendment is one of principle.
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I would ask my noble friend how anybody, how any board or committee, can decide what is the main governing purpose of a Bill. The question must be really one of the motives, intentions, purposes, and principles of those who introduce the measure. How is it in the power of any committee to decide the intentions, purposes, and so forth? If the committee looks at a Bill from a political point of view, they will decide on political grounds. In the Budget of 1909, along with certain financial provisions inserted only for raising revenue, were proposals which had a more general object, and the committee would have had to answer the question whether those social provisions did or did not destroy the financial essence of the Bill. How they could have found that out I am really at a loss to imagine. A non-political committee, an ideal committee such as my noble friend desires, would be bound to decide without material to decide upon except what they found in the Bill itself—the internal evidence in the Bill itself. If it had nothing but provisions such as are mentioned in my noble friend's Amendment imposing taxation, they would obviously have to decide that it was a Money Bill. The alteration in the form of the Amendment makes no difference in our view. Has my noble friend considered that it is possible and not at all improbable that this Joint Committee might come to a conclusion that would impinge upon the undoubted money privileges of the House of Commons? That is a very serious contingency and one which might lead to an extremely critical and disagreeable situation. That is only a by-point against my noble friend's proposal.
LORD FABER: Your Lordships will remember the difficulties that this House had to encounter in the years 1908 and 1909. In the year 1908 a more or less stringent Licensing Bill was sent up to this House, and, rightly or wrongly, your Lordships thought it an unjust Bill and threw it out. There was no difficulty in getting at the intention of the framers of that Bill. They went about the country and said that the Licensing Trade had been lashed with whips in 1908, but that in 1909 as regarded the Licensing Bill they would be whipped with scorpions. When the Budget of 1909 was introduced the Licensing Bill was added to it. Your Lordships did not, in the true sense of the word,

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throw out that Budget. You threw out the Licensing Bill, which, entirely contrary to every rule of this Muse, had been tacked on to the Budget, and I venture to think that if in those days there had been a Joint Committee such as is now proposed that Committee would have said that the Licensing Bill could not be tacked on to the Budget.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, I am quite unable to understand the objection of the noble Viscount to the change made in this Amendment. I understood him to say that he thought it widened the scope of the provision—that the change made was rather to widen the scope of the Bills which would come before the Joint Committee.
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN: I did not mean to say that I objected to its widening the scope. I meant that that was the only change in the Amendment and we should object to it equally.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: I will not pursue that further. But take the words of the Amendment as they stand. If you really mean what you say, what can be the possible objection to it? It is admitted on all hands that what is called tacking is an unfair invasion of the privileges of this House. Now can you draw words which would give more strictly a definition against tacking? Look at the words—
"If, in the opinion of the Joint Committee, the main governing purpose of a Bill imposing taxation, or of any portion of a Bill imposing taxation, is not purely financial in character …"
If it is purely financial in character, then every member of this House admits that it is within the sphere of the House of Commons and the House of Commons alone. But if it is not purely financial in character, surely it ought to be stopped; or else you have what I understand even noble Lords opposite admit to be an invasion of the just privileges of this House.
Lord Courtney, in his first speech, gave us to understand that the decision of the Speaker had always been accepted. That was proved by the noble Viscount, Lord St. Aldwyn, not to have been the case. Admitting to the full that the other House of Parliament is to be supreme in matters of finance, is it not necessary that there
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should be some definition of what pure finance means and some authority to decide whether any particular proposal comes fairly within that definition? What can be more fair than this, that if it is not purely financial in character it should come under the general provisions of Clause 2? If I understand rightly the object of the noble Earl, Lord Cromer, in moving this Amendment, it is to go more in the direction of the wishes of the Government than his original words did, and to make it perfectly clear that there is no intention on the part of this House to invade the just privileges of the other House.
In the first speech which he made the noble Viscount used words to the effect that if such and such an Amendment were not withdrawn it would make an understanding impossible. I have not had the privilege of being present at all the debates on this important Bill, but I can truly state that I have read every word which has been reported. Those who are outside sometimes get even a more distinct view of what is going on than those who are engaged in the contest. When the noble Viscount says that if we do not do so and so it will make an understanding impossible, I should like to ask the Government whether they think that their conduct of the Bill, their answers to the Amendments and the arguments which have been made on this side, have been such as to encourage us to think that any understanding is possible? If there is one thing distinct to my mind in the whole procedure on this Bill, it has been the absolutely unyielding front on the part of noble Lords opposite; and it does not seem to me to come fairly from them to say that anything which has been said on this side of the House has been with any desire to make an arrangement impossible. Surely, if you are going to have any distinction between Bills which are financial and Bills which are not financial, you could not have a more favourable or reasonable set of expressions than those in this Amendment.
LORD EBURY: My Lords, in order that I may account for the value which I attach to this Amendment, perhaps I may be permitted to recall the attention of your Lordships' House to an incident which occurred on June 29, when we were discussing an Amendment from the same source and somewhat similar in terms. My noble friend Lord Midleton, in the

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course of that discussion, let fall the expression that the pretensions of the House of Commons in regard to privilege had increased, were increasing, and ought to be diminished. For that phrase my noble friend was gravely taken to task by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, who was, by the way, then not on the Woolsack, but formed part of the trilingual combination of law and literature on the Government Front Bench. He told my noble friend that his remark precisely reflected the attitude which he (Lord Midleton) and his friends desired to persuade your Lordships to take with regard to this Bill, but the noble and learned Lord admitted that this is a Bill intended to increase the privilege and power of the House of Commons. He also said that privilege and finance were synonymous terms, and, further on, that finance was at the root of all government and controlled policy. Well, if finance is at the root of all government and controls policy, and one House alone is to have complete control of finance and all that appertains to it, that is single-Chamber government, and it was single-Chamber government exactly that the first clause of this Bill, as originally drafted, aimed at establishing.
But, my Lords, the incident did not close there. After a few remarks from the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition the noble Earl on the Front Opposition Bench, Lord Selborne, pointed out to the Government that as Clause 1 was drafted a financial Bill might contain clauses practically involving the nationalisation of land, of railways, and, consequentially, of all other property and sources of production, and he asked the Government whether it was intended that the Second Chamber should have no control whatever over the House of Commons even if that House endeavoured to confiscate all the property in the country. I cannot say he got no answer, because he elicited the following, phrase, or a phrase to the following effect, from the noble Viscount the Secretary of State for War. The noble Viscount said that the object of the Government and the object of the Bill was to stereotype the true sense of finance—that was that the House of Commons was to have complete control. Yes, complete control of that finance which his colleague had just told us is "at the root of all government and controls policy."
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I am afraid that the Amendment of the noble Earl will not extend very far in the direction at which he is aiming, but I certainly hope that the House will adopt and adhere to it, because if the Bill is to pass this Amendment is the only available alternative to absolute and naked single-Chamber government.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I think, one word of acknowledgment is due to the noble Earl on the Cross Benches for the pains which he has taken to frame this Amendment in terms approved certainly on this side of the House, and, it seems to me, in terms which might well be accepted even by noble Lords on the other side. He has, to begin with, considerably narrowed the scope of his Amendment. We thought that the noble Viscount who leads the House was under a slight misapprehension on that point. The new version of the Amendment gives it a very much narrower scope than the original version. The clause in the Bill mentions, I think, from fifteen to twenty different subjects, which are all included as subjects to be dealt with by Money Bills My noble friend has taken only one out of that long enumeration. He has taken measures dealing with the imposition of taxation, and the imposition of taxation alone. That is a considerable curtailment of the original scope of the clause.
Then, with regard to the noble Earl's formula, his formula seems to be a considerable improvement on the original formula. He still depends upon what he describes as "the main governing purpose" of the Bill. We have repeatedly pointed out that those were the words used by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, and I desire, at the risk of wearying your Lordships by repetition, to ask the noble Viscount whether he cannot give us this evening some explanation of that speech of the Prime Minister's upon which we rely, and from which we have taken the expression "main governing purpose." Let me remind the House that the Prime Minister spoke of Bills the substantial governing purpose of which was not financial, but some large or social policy, and then he went on to say—
"The criterion here is not whether an Amendment made by the House of Lords to a Bill is a technical infringement of the privileges of this House. An Amendment of that kind would not fall within our definition."

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And he said further—
"The test whether a Bill is a financial Bill or not is whether that is its main governing purpose."
I think it is quite clear that when the Prime Minister was using those words he was not thinking or talking of tacking in the narrowest sense of the term—I mean that kind of tacking which consists in the addition to a Money Bill of provisions extraneous and not incidental to its financial purposes. Here are the two kinds of tacking described by the Prime Minister with utmost clearness. I want some noble Lord opposite to tell us what the Prime Minister meant by that distinction, or whether we are to understand that the Prime Minister did not really mean what he said; and if he did mean what he said, why the Amendment moved by my noble friend on the Cross Benches is considered as not giving effect to the Prime Minister's words.
Then my noble friend in his new version says that if the main governing purpose of a Bill imposing taxation is not purely financial in character, the Bill may become, or the part of the Bill may become, a Clause 2 Bill. I am glad my noble friend has used the words "not purely financial in character," because your Lordships may remember that those were the words contained in the Resolution which your Lordships carried in the year 1910, and that Resolution was, I venture to think, so drawn as to make it clear that just as the Prime Minister had in his mind the two kinds of tacking of which I have spoken, so we had in our minds the two kinds of tacking covered by the Amendment of my noble friend, and desired to deal with them both.
The noble Viscount dwelt, not for the first time, upon the insuperable difficulty of the task which we were going to impose upon this Joint Committee when we asked them to decide what is and what is not the main governing purpose of a Bill. He said, What can the Committee do? They have nothing before them but the Bill. They will have to limit their attention to the Bill itself and decide by internal evidence only whether it is a Money Bill or not. I am not at all sure that I should admit that the business of the Joint Committee would necessarily begin and end with the consideration of that which was contained within the four corners of a
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Bill submitted to them. Let the House remember that we are setting up, not a Court of law, but a tribunal intended to deal in a Parliamentary spirit with these questions, and surely it would be competent for a tribunal of that kind to consider not only the actual text of the Bill, but the facts and the circumstances which surrounded its introduction.
We attach very great importance to this Amendment, and I agree with what was said a moment ago by Lord Ebury. In our view this Amendment is a vital one. The danger which we desire to safeguard against is this, that if you have—I will not use a stronger word—a very enterprising Minister, assisted by an ingenious draftsman, it could be comparatively easy, without some safeguard of this kind, to draft a Bill which clearly came within the Prime Minister's definition, a Bill having the most far-reaching political and social consequences, and which vet, owing to the manner in which it had been drafted, would come within the comparatively strict terms of the Bill, and be taken away from the consideration of your Lordships' House. If the Bill, therefore, were to stand as framed by His Majesty's Government, this House would find itself at once warned off the whole vast field of legislation into which financial elements enter. Some of your Lordships will be better able to judge, but I believe that if we were excluded from that field we should be excluded from by far the greater part of the whole field of legislation, because in these day there is scarcely an important Bill which does not contain financial provisions of one kind or another. If that be done, it will then come to this, that we shall only have the very slender opportunities which we are allowed in regard to general legislation under the second clause, and we shall only be allowed to exercise those functions within a comparatively small fraction of the total field of legislation. That is for us a very serious matter, and as I said at first I think we owe a debt of gratitude to my noble friend for giving it so much attention.
THE EARL OF CROMER: If I understood rightly, the noble Viscount said that this Joint Committee might come to some decision which might impinge on the privileges of the House of Commons. I want to point out to your Lordships that

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the fifth clause of this Bill contains these words—
"Nothing in this Act shall diminish or qualify the existing rights and privileges of the House of Commons."
I quite admit that, in spite of that clause, the Committee might come to a decision which would dissatisfy one or other Party in the House of Commons, but the noble Viscount must remember that the same might be said about anybody who goes to law. As a general rule either the plaintiff or the defendant is dissatisfied with the judgment, but really that is no argument against this proposal.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT HALDANE): My Lords, the noble Marquess opposite made again the point about the two kinds of tacking. There is in your Lordship? Standing Orders, as a result of the Resolutions of the House, a fairly clear definition of what we have up to now understood by tacking. I agree, however, that there may be something outside that over which it is well that, there should be sufficient control to bring a case under Clause 2, and it was of that the Prime Minister was speaking when he used the words which the noble Marquess quoted. But it is plain that while it is right that under the guise of a Money Bill you should not set up something which is really quite different from a Money Bill, it is equally true that there is another difficulty which it is important to avoid, and that is hampering yourselves with regard to your Money Bills—it may be the Budget Bill of the year—by excluding from them important questions of policy. It may be that you want money, the governing reason being that you wish to build more ships. That is for the Executive of the day. It may also be that there is some clear part of the policy of the Executive which requires money to be raised for special purposes, or which requires that taxation should be imposed in a certain form in order to be fair.
THE EARL OF CROMER: Naval Loans are expressly excluded.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: I am not talking of Naval Loans. I am speaking of raising money for building ships. You might think of putting a penny on the Income Tax in order to build more ships, and that might be in the Budget Bill of the year.
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Although the new words of my noble friend are better in some respects than the old words, yet to say that a Bill imposing taxation, or any portion of a Bill imposing taxation, the main governing purpose of which is not purely financial in character, is to come under Clause 2 might be construed to apply to the Budget Bill of the year, with the result that the finances of the year might be imperilled. We are of opinion that you should hold by broad and simple principles in these matters, and that the tacking referred to should be the tacking which has always been understood by tacking. It is impossible to give abstract definitions which will cover all the intermediate ground, and our view is that the broad principle that the raising of the money which the Executive Government requires should be left to the House of Commons ought to prevail, notwithstanding that it is impossible to say that very important questions of policy will not arise as regard the shape which it assumes.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, I do not wish to refer at any length to the speech which has just been delivered by the noble Viscount opposite, but of all the instances be has given in the course of this debate I cannot think of a more unfortunate one than the one he gave just now as to Navy Estimates. The noble Viscount knows perfectly well that if money is wanted it is raised by the Budget, and if ships are to be built the money is provided for in the Estimates. I have never known of a ship being mentioned in connection with the Budget, and an instance more totally irrelevant than that put forward by the noble Viscount I cannot imagine.
LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, the point I wish to allude to is a different one from that of the noble Duke. Although the noble Viscount favoured us with a cloud of words lie really gave no answer to the question put by the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition. He said that it was impossible to give a definition. The whole point of this Amendment is that the Prime Minister did give a definition, and the noble Earl, Lord Cromer, has practically taken the ipsissima verba of that definition and included it in the Amendment which he has put before the House. The Prime Minister's words have been quoted over

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and over again, and I must apologise for quoting them once more. He said—
"We are dealing here with Bills which are Finance Bills, and the test whether a Bill is a financial Bill or not is whether that is its main governing purpose."
Those are the precise words the noble Earl has put into his Amendment. Might I remind your Lordships that in the same speech at a later stage the Prime Minister used these words—
"It may be a perfectly proper thing to tack what I may call political on to financial propositions, but a Bill of that character ought not to come under the exceptional machinery of this clause."
That is the whole of our case, and it is to meet that difficulty that the words of the Amendment as altered by Lord Cromer are about, I hope, to be put into the Bill.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH: I do not move the Amendment standing next in my name on the Paper—
Page 2, line 11, leave out from ("Bill") to ("In") in line 15.
Clause 2 as amended in Committee:
Restriction of the powers of the House of Lords as to Bills other than Money Bills.
2.—(1) If any Public Bill other than a Money Bill or a Bill containing any provision to extend the maximum duration of Parliament beyond five years is passed by the House of Commons in three successive sessions (whether of the same Parliament or not), and, having been sent up to the House of Lord's at least cue month before the end of the session, is rejected by the House of Lords in each of those sessions, that Bill shall, on its rejection for the third time by the House of Lords, unless the House of Commons direct to the contrary, be presented to His Majesty and become an Act of Parliament on the Royal Assent being signified thereto, notwithstanding that the House of Lords have not consented to the Bill: Provided that this provision shall not take effect unless two years have elapsed between the date of the second reading in the first of those sessions of the Bill in the House of Commons and the date on which it passes the House of Commons in the third of those sessions: Provided further that any Bill—

(a) which affects the existence of the Crown or the Protestant succession thereto; or

(b) which establishes a National Parliament or Assembly or a National Council in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, or England, with legislative powers therein; or

(c) which has been referred to the Joint Committee, and which in their opinion raises an issue of great gravity upon which the judgment of the country has not been sufficiently ascertained

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shall not be presented to His Majesty nor receive the Royal Assent under the provisions of this section unless and until it has been submitted to and approved by the electors in manner to be hereafter provided by Act of Parliament.
(2) Any question whether a Bill comes within the meaning of paragraphs (a) (b) of subsection (1) of this section shall be decided by the Joint Committee.
(3) When a Bill is presented to His Majesty for assent in pursuance of the provisions of this section, there shall be endorsed on the Bill the certificate of the Speaker of the House of Commons signed by him that the provisions of this section have been duly complied with.
(4) A Bill shall be deemed to be rejected by the House of Lords if it is not passed by the House of Lords either without amendment or with such amendments only as may be agreed to by both Houses.
(5) A Bill shall be deemed to be the same Bill as a former Bill sent, up to the House of Lords in the preceding session if, when it is sent up to the. House of Lords, it is identical with the former Bill or contains only such alterations as are certified by the Speaker of the House of Commons to be necessary owing to the time which has elapsed since the date of the former Bill, or to represent any amendments which have been made by the House of Lords in the former Bill in the preceding session and any amendments which are certified by the Speaker to have been made by the House of Lords in the third session and agreed to by the House of Commons shall be inserted in the Bill as presented for Royal Assent in pursuance of this section:
Provided that the House of Commons may, if they think fit, on the passage of such a Bill through the House in the second or third session, suggest any further amendments without inserting the amendments in the Bill, and any such suggested amendments shall be considered by the House of Lords, and if agreed to by that House, shall be treated as amendments made by the House of Lords and agreed to by the House of Commons; but the exercise of this power by the House of Commons shall not affect the operation of this section in the event of the Bill being rejected by the House of Lords.
LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE moved an Amendment, after the words "in pursuance of this section" at the end of subsection (5), to insert "Provided that every Amendment inserted by the House of Lords in a Bill sent up to that House in pursuance of this section shall be considered by the House of Commons severally and separately."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I was unavoidably prevented from moving this Amendment in Committee, and therefore I have brought it forward on the present occasion. Its object is simple. It is to ensure that after the passing of the Parliament Bill any Amendments inserted by your Lordships in subsequent Bills shall

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be fully considered by the House of Commons. Before dealing with the merits of the Amendment itself, I should like to take a point that perhaps will be raised by the noble Viscount the Leader of the House—namely, that this is an attempt to interfere with the procedure of the House of Commons. I should like to call your Lordships' attention with regard to that to the last subsection of Clause 2 of this Bill, which says—
"Provided that the House of Commons may, if they think fit, on the passage of such a Bill through the House In the second or third session, suggest any further amendments without inserting the amendments in the Bill, and any such suggested amendments shall be considered by the House of Lords."
The House of Commons, if they think fit, may direct your Lordships to consider certain Amendments, and your Lordships will then have to proceed to do so whether you wish it or not. If His Majesty's Government think that for the smooth wording of this Bill it is necessary that a clause of that kind should be inserted, it is not, I think, unfair to argue that it may help to make it smoother still if an Amendment such as I propose is inserted with the object of ensuring that Amendments which have been passed by your Lordships shall be considered in the House of Commons.
I would recall to your Lordships what happened in the year 1906 with regard to the Education Bill. I suppose there never was a Bill more thoroughly considered with the object of securing a reasonable compromise than was that Bill. Every sentence was discussed, every clause carefully considered; day after day we sat here, and time after time we tramped through the Lobbies in favour of Amendments to improve the Bill. Yet when at last the Bill was returned to the House of Commons what happened? On the motion of the Minister in charge, the whole of the Amendments of your Lordships were disagreed to without any discussion and without any opportunity being given to the House of Commons to consider whether some of those Amendments in themselves might not have tended to improve the Bill. I cannot say that I blame the Government for having done that, because for tactical reasons it may have been a very good thing to do. His Majesty's Government at that time were not only engaged in passing measures but
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were trying to pick a quarrel with this House—as one of His Majesty's Ministers picturesquely and pithily expressed it, "to catch the rats in a trap." But circumstances have now changed; the rats have been caught in a trap, and we have the Bill before us showing what His Majesty's Government think should be the relations between the two Houses of Parliament. This Bill proposes that, for the time being at any rate, this House should be given power as a revising and advising Chamber. I venture to submit, therefore, that it is desirable that the advice which your Lordships give and the revision which you make of Bills should be considered, not by an arbitrary Minister of the Crown, but by the representatives of the people in the other House.
I appeal to the noble Viscount to give his careful consideration to this point. I am not particular about the exact words. I provide that every Amendment shall be considered, but it is more the spirit of the thing than the exact wording that I care about. I am anxious, if possible, that these matters should be fully considered, that the fact that this House is an advisory one should be recognised, and that when measures are returned with Amendments to the House of Commons they should not be treated with the contumely to which I have referred, and with which, if rumour speaks truly, the present Amendments of your Lordships are to be treated when this Bill is returned to another place. I hope the noble Viscount will recognise that this is not a root and branch Amendment that I am suggesting, but only a means of improving the procedure of carrying out the Bill.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 35, after ("section") insert ("Provided that every amendment inserted by the House of lords in a Bill sent up to that house in pursuance of this section shall be considered by the House of Commons severally and separately").—(Lord Oranmore and Browne.)
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN: My Lords, I entirely agree with the spirit of the noble Lord's Amendment. It is, of course, desirable that any deliberative legislative body should consider carefully, considerately, and respectfully any proposition that is brought before it from another body, of similar authority. But let me put a practical point to the noble Lord. Is it conceivable that this House

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is to pass a Statute telling the House of Commons how to manage its business? And with regard to serious consideration, is it certain that the consideration would be more serious and more deliberate if every Amendment was taken separately and. severally? I am not at all sure of that. But, apart from that, the objection to it is this, and I am sure every member of this House will appreciate it. We talked earlier this afternoon of proposals likely to irritate the House of Commons, and if this attitude were seriously taken by your Lordships' House—that the House of Commons are to be told by Statute how they are to manage their proceedings—I cannot conceive anything which would be more likely to give the House of Commons an excuse for irritation. Though I fully recognise what the noble Lord desires, it is quite impossible to accept this Amendment.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, after what has been said by the noble Viscount I hope that my noble friend will not press this Amendment. Although undoubtedly the spirit of the proposal is, as the noble Viscount admits, a reasonable one, I think it is fair to suggest to my noble friend that he would not find it easy to compel a reluctant House of Commons to consider Amendments made by this House separately and severally. I am afraid he would find that, whatever words were adopted, some means would be found of driving a coach and four through them.
LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE: After the admission which the noble Viscount has made that any Amendments inserted by this House ought to receive consideration in the House of Commons, and after what has been said by the noble Marquess, I will with the permission of the House, withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD NEWTON LORD NEWTON moved an Amendment inserting at the end of the Clause the words—"And provided also that if the Bill rejected as aforesaid by the House of Lords be a Bill for the alteration of the provisions of this Act, so as to impose any further limitations on the powers of that House in relation to the rejection of Bills sent up to it by the House of Commons, such Bill shall, on its rejection for the
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third time by the House of Lords, unless it has been referred to the Joint Committee under this Act, be postponed until after the general election then next ensuing, and shall not become law unless it be passed by the House of Commons during the following Parliament, but when so passed it may be presented to His Majesty and become an Act of Parliament on the Royal Assent being signified thereto notwithstanding that the House of Lords have not assented to the Bill."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this Amendment I do not propose to detain the House more than a few minutes, because I have already explained the provisions of it at an earlier stage. Briefly stated, the position is as follows. If this Bill becomes law it is the general if not the universal opinion of everybody sitting upon this side of the House that your Lordships' House will be reduced to something little better than a debating society, and will be left with only one asset of any value at all—namely, the power of delay—but under the Bill as drafted by the Government there is no guarantee whatever that this safeguard will remain. Personally I am quite prepared to admit that I do not entertain any distrust of the three noble Lords opposite who are acting, if I may say so, in the capacity of a political Cerberus in guarding their Bill. These noble Lords, I am inclined to think, are discharging their duty without very much enthusiasm, and I feel perfectly certain in my own mind that they have not the smallest desire either to humiliate this House or to take any unfair advantage of this Bill supposing it becomes law. But on the other hand, it would be perfectly absurd and ludicrous to ignore the fact that there are in the House of Commons a number of gentlemen who openly proclaim themselves to be single-Chamber men, and if there is one prediction that can be made with any approach to certainty with regard to this Bill it is that if we put into force the statutory powers of delay which we are accorded under the Bill a demand, possibly an irresistible demand, will be at once made from quarters well known to noble Lords opposite for the abolition of this power of delay; and I submit, as I submitted the other day that this House has a clear right, supposing this Bill becomes law, to be protected against any action of that kind by interposing a General Election in

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the natural course of events before any such thing can be brought about.
The noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition made the remark the other day when I moved this Amendment that it was perfectly intolerable that any advantage should be taken of this Bill for the purpose of altering the machinery of the Bill itself, and my Amendment, not exactly in identical terms, was received by Lord Morley in a comparatively sympathetic spirit—I might almost say in a markedly sympathetic spirit compared with the spirit in which he received other Amendments. The noble Viscount evidently found extreme difficulty in resisting it at all, and he committed himself to the view that it was not unjustified, and that it did? not contradict the fundamental principle of the Bill. Altogether the noble Viscount was so sympathetic and encouraging that my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition thereupon invited me to bring forward the Amendment on the Report stage, an invitation to which I have responded. Now, my Lords, whilst I am desirous personally of acknowledging the friendly and sympathetic spirit of the noble Viscount opposite, I do not entertain any very sanguine hopes that he is going to accept even this Amendment, because it appears to me that he, in common with the other two noble Lords who are in charge of this Bill, is bound by some mysterious punctilio to resist every Amendment that is proposed, whether it is important or unimportant or reasonable or unreasonable. At the same time, in spite of this unyielding front I have endeavoured to meet the objections of the noble Viscount to the best of my ability by altering the phraseology of my Amendment and endeavouring to make the object clear. My object, I repeat, is confined solely to endeavouring to secure the safeguard to which I have already alluded.
The Amendment as it stands represents a desire upon my part that at all events the following should be secured to us—namely, that with regard to rejections the period of three sessions shall not be interfered with, that the interval of two years shall equally not be interfered with, and that the duration of Parliament shall also not be interfered with, so that there shall be no opportunity of dealing with us in the way in which I have indicated unless a General Election has taken place
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in the meanwhile. I do not know whether I have succeeded in my purpose. I always feel considerable doubt with regard to matters of this kind, and I am rather inclined to predict that with the ingenuity which characterises the old Parliamentary hand the noble Viscount opposite will not have very much difficulty in finding some word or words which will render it impossible to accept the Amendment. That at all events I am prepared for, but I do not altogether abandon a lingering hope that the noble Viscount will accept the principle of the Amendment, as to which I propose to say nothing more.
Before I conclude I would like to take this opportunity of dispelling some remarkable delusions which have arisen since this Amendment appeared on the Paper, and which have invested it with possibly greater importance than it deserves. Some lynx-eyed and imaginative critics have discovered in this Amendment a sort of corrupt bargain between the two Front Benches for the purpose of mutually selling the pass. In times past I have myself ventured to accuse the Front Benches of acting in collusion, but so far as I know there is not on the present occasion any justification for any suggestion of the kind, and as far as I am concerned the occupants of the two Front Benches may leave the Amendment without a stain upon their characters. There is also another point I desire to make clear. This Amendment, although it was suggested to me by the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition, is an Amendment for which the Front Bench is not responsible. I put it down entirely upon my own responsibility.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I did not suggest it.
LORD NEWTON: The only thing the noble Marquess had to do with it was to advise me in this House to bring it up again on Report. I do not know whether it is necessary for me to make the assertion, but in case any noble Lords on this side feel any doubt on the point I should like to assure them that I am not in the confidence of the Government, however strange it may appear to them. I wish that I was. I should like also to point out that though, as we all know, everybody who puts down an Amendment is usually enamoured of it almost to the point of infatuation, I have never felt so

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enamoured of this particular Amendment as to imagine that it constituted a key which would unlock the Constitutional difficulty, either by means of affording an adequate substitute for the Amendment of the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition or even as suggesting a form of what is called compromise. A compromise is an arrangement under which both sides agree to give up something. But in this particular case there is no compromise suggested. All I ask for is that if the Government get their way upon a particular point they shall not utilise that fact for the purpose of getting something which they are not asking for at the present moment.
In conclusion I may say that I only move this Amendment because it seems to me to be a perfectly just and fair and reasonable one, as was indeed admitted by the noble Viscount. It appears to me that it is one which the Government might assent to without loss of dignity and without the least inconsistency; and although I believe there are a number of noble Lords who, for some reason which is not plain to me, entertain a suspicion that if this Amendment were assented to it might tell to our disadvantage, I still hold to the opinion that it would be extremely valuable to us, and for that reason I respectfully commend it to the consideration of the House.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 5, after ("Lords") insert ("And provided also that if the Bill rejected as aforesaid by the House of Lords he a Bill for the alteration of the provisions of this Act, so as to impose any further limitation on the powers of that House in relation to the rejection of Bills sent up to it by the House of Commons, such Bill shall, on its rejection for the third time by the House of Lords, unless it has been referred to the Joint Committee under this Act, be postponed until after the general election then next ensuing, and shall not become law unless it be passed by the house of Commons during the following Parliament, but when so passed it may be presented to His Majesty and become an Act of Parliament on the Royal Assent being signified thereto notwithstanding that the House of Lords have not assented to the Bill").—(Lord Newton.)
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN: My Lords, the noble Lord, if he will allow me to say so, seems to me to have made a very sensible speech. He talked, however, in a passing sentence about this House being reduced to little better than a mere debating Chamber. I would remind him, and perhaps console him by pointing
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out that this House is only a debating Chamber now over most of the area of Government and foreign policy. It is quite true to say that it is only a debating Chamber now over the great area of public policy, as it will be when this Bill becomes law. The noble Lord spent not too much time in clearing his own character, if it needed it, of anything in the nature of subterranean compromise or compact with the Party on these Benches. I most emphatically and sincerely confirm that statement so far as I am acquainted with the facts. It is a great weakness in political reform to be always seeking for some sinister motive and some underground machination in the conduct of others. The noble Lord put an Amendment on the Paper last week when we were in Committee. I considered it, and, as he has truly said, I used not unfriendly, but rather sympathetic language about it. The noble Marquess who spoke after me was, I think, equally sympathetic, and certainly not more unfriendly than I was to the Amendment, and he recommended the noble Lord to endeavour, if he could, to meet, at the Report stage, the objections which I had raised to his proposal. I thought then that the noble Lord would find it impossible, in view of the Amendment of the noble Marquess, which was carried by so enormous a majority the other night, so to remodel his own Amendment as to make it possible for us to accept it. Therefore I was not suprised, when the Amendment appeared for the Report stage, to find that it was not one—and I was sorry for it—that the Government could accept. If he will allow me to say so, it would have been far better if the noble Lord, instead of putting in general words like "further limitation" and so forth, had abrogated the use of the Parliament Bill itself to alter its own provisions and had said that the Parliament Bill must not be altered in those particulars to which the House takes objection—that the provision about the three Sessions or about the two years must not be altered; and he might, if he had thought fit, have said that the provision limiting the duration of Parliament to five years must not be altered. Those are the three great operative points in the Bill, and if the Bill is regarded as something in the nature of a compact between the House of Lords and the House of Commons, I can imagine something being said for a provision to prevent the machinery of the Act being used to alter

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the contents and provisions of the Act. But that is not the way the Amendment now stands. It is improved in this respect, that it is not so vague as the Amendment in Committee was, but it unquestionably and to my surprise carries with it subsection (c) of the noble Marquess's Amendment. I am surprised that the noble Lord should introduce that element, because your Lordships will remember that when the Bill of Lord Balfour of Burleigh was before the House the noble Lord, in characteristically straightforward and vehement language, as did the noble Earl, Lord Ancaster, entirely repudiated it.
LORD NEWTON: Not with regard to disputes between the two Houses.
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN: I have the noble Lord's speech here, but I will not go into it. That was the impression he left upon my mind at the time, and I think his words confirm it. But be that as it may, the introduction of subsection (c)—that is the reference to the Joint Committe of the question whether a Bill is of great gravity and so forth—is a proposal which we cannot in any shape or form, directly or indirectly, entertain. There is another curious point in the noble Lord's Amendment. He leaves to the House of Lord's when they have rejected a Bill three times, the choice of a Referendum through the Joint Committee or a General Election. I submit to anybody acquainted with legislation or policy that the House of Commons could not accept a proposal which left this House the opportunity of pleasing themselves whether upon a given occasion they would insist on holding a Bill up until there had been a General Election, or whether they would proceed by way of a Referendum. That is an obvious defect in any proposal of this kind.
There is another point that I ventured to raise in Committee. Let us suppose that a Bill is rejected by this House three times and passed three times by the other House, and that that Bill bad very speedily followed a General Election. Is it to be taken, as this Amendment would allow, that a Bill of that kind should be hung up until there had been another General Election or until there had been a Referendum, which I have always contended is tantamount to a General Election? Is that a rational proposal to put before a deliberative
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body? I do not think it is. I pointed that out to the noble Lord on a previous occasion. I think it is an unanswerable difficulty, and I am sorry that he has not even attempted to deal with it. One other point about not altering the present Parliament Bill when it becomes an Act. I hinted at this on the previous occasion, and I return to it. Suppose there was a Lords Reform Bill on the Table, and suppose that that Bill contained a proviso for Joint Sessions, which is a conceivable thing. That Bill might come within the definition in the noble Lord's Amendment of a Bill further limiting the powers of this House. The Lords Reform Bill, for example, might provide that, instead of giving the House of Lords three chances of rejection, a Bill might become law by a majority vote in the Joint Session. In that case it might become law after one rejection, and both Parties might agree that it, was desirable that such a Bill should pass. But it would be necessary, in order that it; should go through, to alter the proviso which the noble Lord would have us introduce and enact. That is only one illustration. I could give more, but I have put the point, and I believe it is one which is thoroughly worthy of the consideration of those who are enamoured of this Amendment, and who may be angry with us because of that "mysterious punctilio" which the noble Lord referred to which makes us reject all Amendments. It is not punctilio and it is not mysterious—but still, there it is.
There is one other point in connection with this Amendment that I would like to make. It concerns what we have heard so much of to-night—tacking in connection with Money Bills. I could imagine such a thing as tacking an Amendment to this Bill. It is rather an abstruse sort of point, but I would like, if the House will allow me, to put it on record, and I commend it to the noble Lord for his consideration if he goes forward with his project. Will the noble Lord find answers to the following two questions. Do you intend that this should apply to a Bill which only incidentally alters the provisions of this Act, as, for example, in the case of the Lords Reform Bill, to which I have just referred, which made provision for Joint Sessions and so forth? Is that what the noble Lord and those who sympathise with him intend, or do you only intend your Amendment to apply to a deliberate alteration of the Bill

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for the purposes of diminishing the powers of the House of Lords?
LORD NEWTON: Yes.
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN: It is not an easy point to put in a sentence or two, but it is a very important point which will be heard of later. In deliberating on all proposals of this kind, you have to consider whether you mean that you will not allow any of the provisions of the Parliament Bill to be meddled with, or whether you mean to limit your proposal only to cases where the cardinal and deliberate intention is to further limit the powers of this House. If the noble Lord proceeds with his Amendment I would commend that for his consideration. I have seen it observed, but it is entirely a delusion to suppose that the Bill will be immune from Conservative attack. It is quite obvious to everybody that if there be a case of Conservative attack, the Conservatives being in a majority in the House of Commons or being in control of Ministerial power, all that they have to do, if they want to amend or alter this Act—it is the simplest thing in the world—is to pass an ordinary Act of Parliament, without any reference whatever to the machinery of this Bill. I have kept you rather too long. I wish that I had been able to go further than I have done, but as it stands this Amendment is wholly inadmissible.
LORD NEWTON: With the indulgence of the House perhaps I may explain that my sole object in moving this Amendment was to provide against this Bill being utilised for the purpose of cutting down the period of delay which is accorded to us under the Bill.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I do not know whether I ought not to say one word, perhaps, in the guise of a witness to character. I desire to support what was said by Lord Newton towards the close of his speech when he told the House that the Amendment which he had moved was one for which the Front. Bench on this side had no responsibility. I understand that it had been suggested that there was some kind of conspiracy between my noble friend and myself. All I can say is that if I wanted what, I believe, is commonly called a "bonnet," I do not think I should have employed
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my noble friend in that capacity. He seems to be made of stuff out of which "bonnets" are not usually manufactured. The Amendment of my noble friend really has no connection whatever, unless it be incidentally, with the Amendment which your Lordships accepted at my suggestion, and the idea of setting my noble friend's Amendment against mine was obviously an absurd idea. The fact is that my noble friend's Amendment was intended to prevent this Bill from being altered. My Amendment, on the contrary, was intended to alter the Bill very considerably. If we regarded this Bill as anything in the nature of a final compact, to use the noble Viscount's expression, it might be a very attractive thing to some of us to frame it in such a way as to prevent any alteration of the restrictions which are placed under the Bill upon your Lordships' House. But, as we have said again and again, we do not regard this Bill as anything in the nature of a final settlement; we look upon it only as a provisional measure intended to cover an interval which we are assured is to be a short one. I ask myself how my noble friend's Amendment would operate in that interval. Now I confess I do not think that the particular danger which he desires to guard against is one of which we need be, after all, so very apprehensive, because I cannot bring myself to conceive that within the next three years we shall find noble Lords opposite desiring to disturb that part of the Bill which deals with the privileges and opportunities which are to be left to your Lordships' House. Apart from this, if it were indeed the case that His Majesty's Government did desire to pass during the next two or three years any particularly subversive measure without touching the present Bill they would have ample time to do so, because, after all, the life of this Parliament will, I presume, endure until the end of the year 1915, and within that time they will have ample opportunities of passing their measures, if this Bill become law, without any further encroachment upon the rights, slender as they are, which this Bill preserves to your Lordships' House.
The noble Viscount, I must say, raised several points in regard to the operation of the Amendment which seemed to me rather difficult to answer. I do not know whether my noble friend is prepared to answer them, but I confess that I am not,

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at any rate at this moment. But the argument of the noble Viscount throughout was based upon one very important reservation—a reservation which I think my noble friend must regard as greatly affecting his position with reference to the Amendment. What we understood the noble Viscount to say was that if my noble friend's Amendment had been one forbidding any alteration in the restriction placed upon the powers of your Lordships' House it would be differently regarded by His Majesty's Government from the present Amendment, because the present Amendment deals only with the question of the tightening of the restrictions to which we are to be subject. I think that was the noble Viscount's suggestion—that if it had been a case not merely of tightening but also of relaxation of the restrictions, His Majesty's Government would have regarded the proposal in a somewhat different light.
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN: May I point out that it was a preliminary condition that it was confined to three points—namely, the three sessions, the two years, and the duration of Parliament.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I think the noble Viscount suggested, in regard to those three points, that if my noble friend's Amendment were so framed as to prevent any change in the Bill whether in the direction of tightening or relaxing the restrict ions which it imposes he would regard it in a different light. I am glad I did not misapprehend the noble Viscount. That alters the whole case, because I feel sure that what my noble friend desired was to prevent the limitations on this House being made stricter still. But supposing we find ourselves in power with what I suppose would be called a mandate from the people of this country, and supposing we desire to relax some of the restrictions upon your Lordships' House, then under the noble Viscount's proposal we should not be able to do so until after a second General Election. I do not think that would suit our book at all. It would place us in what the noble Viscount himself described the other evening as an absurd position. He will remember the speech, and I will not quote it to your Lordships. I rather hope, in these circumstances, that my noble friend will think twice before he presses his Amendment. Our desire is that our
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Amendments to this Bill should be few in number, and that they should be of a kind which will really make the Bill less dangerous as we conceive it to the liberties of this House. I am reluctant to add another Amendment, that moved by my noble friend, particularly as I am not altogether convinced that it is one which would greatly improve our position under the Bill.
LORD MARCHAMLEY: My Lords, the noble Marquess says that he does not intend to support the Amendment moved from the Back Benches opposite, but if it goes to a Division I shall myself support it. So far as I can at present judge, I do not see any connection between the Amendment of the noble Lord opposite and the Amendment of the noble Marquess already incorporated in the Bill, except the words "referred to the Joint Committee." It seems to me that the purport and scope of this Amendment are entirely different from those of the Amendment of the noble Marquess. The noble Lord says that this Bill, establishes certain relations and working arrangements between the two Houses of Parliament, that noble Lords on his side of the House have a right to the complete establishment of those relations, that if they are willing to accept the Bill there ought to be some guarantee of finality in the matter, and that the provisions of the Bill itself ought not to be used in order to further curtail and clip the powers of this House as formulated in the Bill. If that be his view, I am entirely in accord with him. I think noble Lords on that side of the House have a right to claim, if the Bill becomes law, that it should not be used for further limiting the powers of this House and increasing those of the House of Commons. The Bill itself I think is a fair and proper one, but I do not think it ought to go further. I am of opinion that we on this side and noble Lords on the other side of the House should have some guarantee that the provisions of this Bill will not be used to further curtail your Lordships' powers unless the people at a General Election have given their assent to that curtailment.
THE EARL OF ANCASTER: My Lords, I moved in Committee an Amendment very much of the same kind as that of my noble friend. The effect of that Amendment would have been to make it impossible to cut down the period of two

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years and the number of times a Bill had to pass the House of Commons. I rather gathered from the speech of the noble Viscount in Committee that if Lord Newton had moved an Amendment with the mere intention of stating that the suspensory period of two years should not be cut down he thought the Government would very likely have accepted it. They accepted an Amendment moved by another noble Lord to prevent the cutting down of the period of five years as the duration of Parliament, and it seems to me that the two things go together and have, as the noble Lord opposite said, very little to do with the Amendment of the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition. It appears to me that this Amendment is a very important one. It only gives effect to the declaration of the Government that by this Parliament Bill there is to be a period of delay, and personally I can see no reason given by the noble Viscount for not embodying the Amendment in the Bill. I do not know whether it would be possible to move an Amendment to Lord Newton's Amendment, but it seems to me it would meet the case if the Amendment were to read as follows—
"And provided also that if the Bill rejected by the House of Lords be a Bill to impose any further limitation on the powers of that House in relation to the rejection of Bills sent up to it by the House of Commons, such Bill shall not be subject to the provisions of this Act."
Such words would embody in the Bill the declaration of the Government themselves, and would stop the power that undoubtedly would be in the House of Commons to immediately sweep away, at the first breath of opposition to delay on the part of your Lordships' House, any safeguards which your Lordships would possess under the Bill.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I confess I am somewhat disappointed at the result of this debate. Although the Amendment I brought forward the other day was not received with a chorus of approval nobody found any fault with it and I was invited to bring it up again. It seems to me that, after all, there is some conspiracy between the two Front Benches, but as I do not want to complicate the situation I will, with your Lordships' leave, withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 as amended in Committee:
Joint Committee.
3.—(1) At the beginning of each Parliament a Joint Committee (in this Act referred to as "the Joint Committee") shall be appointed, consisting of the Lord Chancellor, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords, the Chairman of Ways and Means of the House of Commons, a Lord of Appeal to be chosen by and from the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary and other Peers of Parliament holding or who have held high judicial office, and a member of the House of Commons to be appointed by the Speaker, for the purposes of this Act. The Speaker of the House of Commons shall be chairman, and he shall have a casting vote.
(2) The Speaker of the House of Commons may, if he think fit, and shall, if so requested in writing by a Minister of the Crown or upon a resolution of either House of Parliament in that behalf, call together the Joint Committee for the purpose of deciding any question which under the provisions of this Act may be decided by them.
(3) The decision of the Joint Committee on any question so referred to them shall be final and conclusive for all purposes and shall not be questioned in any court of law.
LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH: I do not move the Amendments standing in my name on the Paper—
Page 4, line 9, leave out from ("Commons") to ("a") in line 11.
Page 4, line 9, lines 17 and 18, leave out ("may if he think fit, and")
Page 4, line 9, line 20, after ("behalf") insert ("or on a requisition signed by not less than two hundred members of the House of Commons.")
The last one is an Amendment which I borrowed from Lord Balfour of Burleigh's Bill, but I understand that the noble Earl on the Cross Benches, Lord Cromer, proposes to move a similar Amendment with the exception that he suggests 150 members instead of 200 as I proposed.
THE EARL OF CROMER*THE EARL OF CROMER moved to amend subsection (2) so that it would read—
(2) The Speaker of the House of Commons may, if he think fit, and shall, if so requested in writing by a Minister of the Crown or upon a resolution of either House of Parliament in that behalf, or on a requisition signed by not less than one hundred and fifty members of the House of Commons, call together the Joint Committee for the purpose of deciding any question which under the provisions of this Act may be decided by them.
The noble Earl said: When we were in Committee I think it was fully recognized that there was a good deal to be said in favour of allowing a minority of the House of Commons to be allowed to set the machinery of the Joint Committee in motion. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Clause 3, subsection (2), line 20, after the word ("behalf"), insert ("or on a requisition signed by not less than one hundred and fifty members of the House of Commons."—(The Earl of Cromer.)
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I do not know what His Majesty's Government intend to do in this matter. We are waiting for their guidance.
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN: I thought I had said more than once that we regard this proposal with the strongest objection.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: That makes it difficult for my noble friend to persist with his Amendment, because its drafting as it stands is not sufficiently accurate to make it an effective Amendment to the Bill. If your Lordships think it worth while to look at the last paragraph of the Amendment which bears the name of my noble friend Lord Lansdowne, you will see that under that Amendment the provision does not take effect until a Bill has been three times rejected by your Lordships' House. I do not see, therefore, how that is to fit in with this intervention of a requisition by 150 members of the House of Commons. It requires further drafting, and in the face of the opposition of the Government I do not think my noble friend can persist in it. Whether his proposition is a right one or not is a different question. As I understand, he wants a minority of the House of Commons to have power to bring Lord Lansdowne's Amendment into operation. My noble friend's object in his Amendment was to solve the question of deadlocks between the two Houses of Parliament. Whether that should be carried further or not is another question, but I do not think the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Cromer as it stands can possibly carry it any further.
THE EARL OF CROMER: I think that in the circumstances perhaps I had better withdraw the Amendment. It is a point about which I have no very strong opinion myself, and if anything of this kind is required it can be easily introduced by the House of Commons. If the Bill were sent back here embodying something of the kind I do not think we should have the least objection to it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN moved to insert after Clause 3 the following new clause—
.—(1) In every Bill presented to His Majesty under the preceding provisions of this Act, the words of enactment shall be as follows, that is to say:—
"Be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, in accordance with the provisions of the Parliament Act, 1911, and by authority of the same, as follows."
(2) Any alteration of a Bill necessary to give effect to this section shall not be deemed to be an amendment of the Bill.
The noble Earl said: Your Lordships will remember that in Committee I proposed a new clause which I have again put down on the Paper. My object was, and is, to provide a formula of enacting words which, when dealing with a Bill passed under the operation of this Act, will correctly describe the part which has been taken by each of the two Houses of Parliament. The noble Viscount opposite, as your Lordships may remember, said in reply on that occasion that the Government preferred to have one formula applying both to what I may call the old form of Acts of Parliament—namely, Acts passed by the two Houses—and this new form of Act passed by the authority of one House only. The noble Viscount rather doubted whether I knew the difficulties of framing such an Amendment, and he said that the matter had been under the consideration of the Government for a long time and that they wished to consider the matter further. On that understanding I withdrew the Amendment, and I rather hoped that they would be successful in finding a formula such as they desired. I must admit that I was fully aware of the difficulty, and I believe it to be quite impossible to frame one formula which would correctly describe an Act of Parliament passed by the authority of one House and an Act of Parliament passed by the two Houses. But, of course, that was a matter for the Government. The Government have not put down any Amendment for this purpose, and therefore I suppose I may presume that they have found that the matter requires still further consideration. How much further consideration will it require? That is the question. This matter has been in their minds now for several months, and specially in their minds during the last week, and I think we should have been given some intimation when we are likely

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to obtain a result. In the absence of any step by the Government, I am afraid I must proceed with my Amendment as originally framed. If this formula is to be effective it must be enacted in this Bill, otherwise there will be only the old formula which says that Bills are enacted by and with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons. For your Lordships' protection, therefore, I put this forward in the mere cause of justice. It has nothing to do with the Bill itself; it merely provides that the Bill shall contain a formula which correctly describes the action of this House, with regard to Bills passed under it. I do not think that I need argue the question further to-day, seeing that I placed the case so fully before you on the last occasion.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, insert the following new clause—
—(1) In every Bill presented to His Majesty under the preceding provisions of this Act, the words of enactment shall be as follows, that is to say—
"Be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, in accordance with the provisions of the Parliament Act, 1911, and by authority of the same, as follows."
(2) Any alteration of a Bill necessary to give effect to this section shall not be deemed to be an amendment of the Bill.—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, no one wishes to state at the commencement of an Act that the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal has been given when in point of fact such assent has not been obtained. What was said in the
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House of Commons was that it would be better to have a form of words which could be at the commencement of all Bills. That is what was said, and it will be clone. Of course, that is the intention. The view of the noble Earl is not the view taken by the Government, but if he places this clause in the Bill it will recall attention to the matter and give the House of Commons another opportunity of considering it, and it may be that they will come to the same view as the noble Earl holds. At all events it is not a thing on which we need have any dispute, because the purpose of everybody must be the same—that at the commencement of a Bill the enacting words should correspond with the facts.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Will the noble Viscount tell me whether I am correct in believing that he desires to take the Third Reading of the Bill on the 20th—this day week
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN: Yes, the noble Marquess is quite right. I propose to take the Third Reading this day week.
Bill to be read 3a on Thursday next, and to be printed as amended. (No. 132.)

MERCHANT SHIPPING (STEVEDORES AND TRIMMERS) (No. 2) BILL.
Read 1a, and to be printed. (No. 133.)
House adjourned at twenty minutes past Seven o'clock, till Tomorrow, half-past Ten o'clock.