Sitting of 30 May 1918

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.
PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill (by Order), Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.
MINISTRY OF FOOD.
Copies presented of Order amending the Damaged Grain, Seeds, and Pulse (Prices) Order, 1917, and Order amending the Horse and Poultry Mixtures Order, 1917, made by the Food Controller under the Defence of the Realm Regulations [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
ORGANISATION OF GOVERNMENT OFFICES.
Copy presented of Interim Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the Organisation and Staffing of Government Offices [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
MEDWAY CONSERVANCY.
Paper laid upon the Table by the Clerk of the House: Copy of Statement of Receipts and Expenditure of the Conservators for the year ending 25th March, 1918 [by Act].
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.

    RUSSIA.
    Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Military Convention with Russia for the
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    mutual Conscription for military service of British and Russian subjects is liable to be determined before the end of the present War, or whether it is operative under all circumstances so long as either Great Britain or Russia is at war; what Minister of Russia is entitled now to grant exemptions from military service under this Convention to Russians in Great Britain; and whether there is any Russian Government still existing which is party to this Convention?
    The MINISTER of BLOCKADE (Lord Robert Cecil): Article 5 of the Convention provides that it shall cease to have force from the date of the conclusion of the present War. With reference to the second part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply returned to him on 30th April last. As regards the last paragraph, I would observe that international agreements do not cease to be valid because the Governments which concluded them are no longer in power.
    Mr. KING: Arising out of the first part of this question, is the Noble Lord not aware that, according to one interpretation, the present War, which existed when the Convention began, ceased when Russia went out, and, for the purpose of the Convention, this is a new war?
    Lord R. CECIL: I should have thought, without expressing any opinion on the legal matter, that the present War was still going on.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Has the Noble Lord or the Foreign Office received any protest from the British Agent in Russia against the Conscription of Russian subjects in this country for the British Army, and what reply has he been able to give?
    Lord R. CECIL: It is quite obvious that notice should be given of that question.
    Mr. ANDERSONasked the Prime Minister whether it is now proposed to recognised the de facto Government of Russia; whether he knows that the present official attitude of this country is endangering the future relations between the two countries and is conferring economic and commercial advantages upon countries with which Great Britain is at war; and what further action the Government intends to take?
    Lord R. CECIL: The answer to the first two parts of the question is in the negative. With regard to the third part, His Majesty's Government are most desirous of promoting increased economic and commercial intercourse between Great Britain and Russia, and are doing what they can to further this object.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: How long must a de facto Government be in existence before it is recognised by this Government?
    Lord R. CECIL: No rule can be laid down. It depends upon the circumstances of each case.

    ITALY AND ROUMANIA.
    Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, having regard to the fact that all information affecting foreign policy was open to President Wilson, he has communicated to President Wilson the treaties made by the Allies with Italy and Roumania, respectively, on their entry into the War?
    Lord R. CECIL: The reply is in the affirmative.
    Mr. KING: Has any communication on this matter or comments of President Wilson been received which might be made public?
    Lord R. CECIL: I must have notice of that; but I think not, so far as I remember.
    Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware of the civil and political injustices under which Jews have hitherto suffered in Roumania and the efforts of the late Marquess of Salisbury to remove their injustices; whether the treaty of peace recently signed by Roumania guarantees full and equal rights to Jews; and, if so, whether he will give an assurance that this country has no intention of setting this article aside?
    Lord R. CECIL: If the hon. Member will read these Treaty stipulations with care, he will observe that the enfranchisement obtained for the Jews is of a most limited and conditional nature, and that the Clauses have in fact been framed solely in order to give Germany an additional pretext for interfering in the internal affairs of Roumania.
    His Majesty's Government have the fullest sympathy with the cause of Jewish enfranchisement in Roumania and else-
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    where, but it is to the full programme of liberation which the Roumanian Government has themselves adopted prior to this Treaty, and not to this restricted scheme, that His Majesty's Government will adhere.
    Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Treaty of 26th April, 1915, concluded with Italy on Italy's entry into the War has been modified, superseded, or enlarged by any subsequent treaty, agreement, or understanding to which this country is a party; if so, what is the date; and what are the objects of such rearrangement of the terms and conditions of the original treaty?
    Lord R. CECIL: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. The rest of the question does not, therefore, arise.

    MR. ROBERT DELL (EXPULSION FROM FRANCE).
    Sir WILLIAM BARTONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been drawn to the expulsion from France of Mr. Robert Dell, the correspondent in Paris of the "Manchester Guardian"; and whether he received any communication from the French Government before the expulsion or has received any explanation since?
    Lord R. CECIL: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. We were semi-officially informed that the reason for the expulsion was that Mr. Dell had published reports of what took place in a confidential committee. Let me add that this is a matter which, according to accepted practice, is entirely within the discretion of the French Government.

    LEAGUE OF FREE NATIONS.
    Major DAVID DAVIESasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any proposals have been made by any Allied Government suggesting that a standing Allied advisory committee should be established immediately for the purpose of unifying the policy of the Allies and of preparing a practical scheme for the creation of a permanent league of free nations which will guarantee a permanent peace and will prevent war in the future; and, if so, what steps he proposes to take in the matter?
    Lord R. CECIL: The reply to the first part of the question is in the negative. I may, however, say that this question is receiving the constant attention of His Majesty's Government.

    CHINA AND JAPAN.
    Mr. ALDENasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has yet received the text of the China-Japan agreement; and, if so, whether there is any clause in that agreement describing the conditions upon which joint intervention in the case of Siberia might be under taken?
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will communicate to the House the full terms of the Convention, just agreed to between China and Japan?
    Lord R. CECIL: The answer to these questions is in the negative.

    ENTENTE (TREATIES).
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if the secret treaty of the 26th April, 1915, between Great Britain, France, Italy, and Russia has been annulled; if a new secret treaty has recently been agreed to between Great Britain, France, and Italy; and, if so, in what respect does this new treaty differ from the treaty of 1915?
    Lord R. CECIL: The reply to the first two parts of the question is in the negative. The remaining part does not, therefore, arise.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Do I understand from that answer that His Majesty's Government have not received the terms of this Convention?
    Lord R. CECIL: Yes, Sir.

  IRELAND.

    ALLOTMENT HOLDERS.
    Mr. PONSONBYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland what protection exists for allotment holders in Ireland against increases of rent during the War?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Edward Shortt): In fixing the rents to be paid by allotment holders a local
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    authority is bound by a Regulation made by the Local Government Board, in pursuance of Section 1 (2) of the Local Government (Allotments and Land Cultivation) (Ireland) Act, 1917, that allotments shall be let at rents of such amount as may be expected to cover the expenses of the council in connetion with allotments. Any rent made in contravention of this provision would be illegal.

    ARRESTS.
    Mr. KINGasked how many persons have been arrested in Ireland during this month and brought to Great Britain for internment or to await trial; whether they are to have the rights and liberties of per sons awaiting trial; and whether they will be tried in Ireland or Great Britain?
    Mr. SHORTT: Sixty-nine persons have recently been arrested in Ireland and deported for internment in Great Britain. The conditions of their detention are at present being considered. I can make no statement as to the last part of the question.
    Mr. KING: Is it really to be supposed that these arrests of a fortnight ago were made on such evidence as not to warrant a definite charge for trial being produced against those concerned?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of the question.
    Mr. PRINGLEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the solicitor instructed to act for the Irish interned prisoners has applied for leave to see his clients; and, if so, whether the application has been refused?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir G. Cave): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. A solicitor has applied for permission to visit the prisoners in question in his professional capacity. This application has been refused for the present, but any application by a prisoner to see his solicitor will be considered.
    Mr. HOGGE: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us why this solicitor, acting on behalf of interned prisoners, has been refused access; is it because he is acting collectively? Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that the only way in which a solicitor can have access to any prisoners is by individual application?
    Sir G. CAVE: I have no knowledge on whose behalf the solicitor is acting. But an interned person can say whom he wishes to see.
    Mr. HOGGE: Will the right hon. Gentleman say exactly why the solicitor was refused access?
    Sir G. CAVE: For the reasons I have given. It is for the interned person to say whom he wishes to see.
    Mr. KING: Is not the actual reason that it is not intended that a solicitor shall go from one prisoner to —
    HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"
    Mr. SPEAKER:The hon. Member must accept the reason stated, and must not suggest others.
    Mr. KINGasked the Prime Minister whether it is intended to bring any persons to trial who have been arrested in Ireland in connection with the German plot disclosed by the official announcement of 25th May?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law): I am not in a position to make any statement on this subject.
    Mr. KING: Is the matter under the consideration of the War Cabinet?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I have said that I could not make any statement.

    PASSPORT.
    Mr. PRINGLEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether J. H. Macdonell, solicitor, London, has applied for a passport to visit Ireland; and, if so, whether and on what grounds it has been refused?
    Sir G. CAVE: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. I am in communication with the Irish Government about this case.

    ALIENS (ANTEIM).
    Colonel McCALMONTasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he is aware that the urban district council of the county Antrim coast town, in which the presence of aliens has previously been brought to notice had already submitted resolutions to his Department and to the Prime Minister calling for the removal of such persons from the coast; whether he will state the grounds upon which such
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    resolutions were not accepted as showing local resentment on the question; and what steps he now proposes to take?
    Mr. SHORTT: I am aware that the resolutions referred to were submitted to the Prime Minister and my Department. The resolution of a district council is not necessarily based on local feeling and there was no other evidence of local resentment. The facts have been laid before the naval and military authorities, and no further steps on the part of my Department appear to be necessary.
    Colonel McCALMONT: Is the House to understand that the resolution of an urban district council is not to be taken as showing the local feeling of the town they represent; if it is so, will the right hon. Gentleman say how a town is to be expected to bring its feelings before the authorities?
    Mr. SHORTT: No, Sir; my hon. and gallant Friend is not to suppose anything of the kind. The resolution of a local council need not necessarily be based upon local resentment, but upon local feeling as to what is wise to be done, and so on.

    GOVERNMENT BILL.
    Mr. KINGasked the Prime Minister whether he can now state when the Government of Ireland Bill will be introduced; and whether, in view of the doubts occasioned by delay as to whether the Bill will ever be introduced, he will declare the present intentions of the Government?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I cannot add anything to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for East Edinburgh on the 28th May last,
    Mr. KING: Has the attention of the War Cabinet been given to the speech of General Smuts suggesting that the Irish question would find solution at the Imperial Conference?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should give notice of that question.

    CONSCRIPTION.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that, at a recent meeting of the Irish Council of Agriculture, the President of the Irish Board of Agriculture spoke against the Government's policy of Conscription; and, if so, whether he has received the-right hon. Gentleman's resignation?
    Mr. SHORTT: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. I have seen a full Press report of the speech referred to, and in it the President of the Irish Board of Agriculture expressly stated that the question of Conscription was one for the Government, and his remarks generally were directed to calling attention to the needs of agricultural labour. The answer to the last part of the question is in the negative.
    Mr. HOGGE: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether he has changed his views with regard to Conscription since his appointment?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of this question.

    CRUELTY TO ANIMALS (MINES).
    Mr. CHANCELLORasked the Home Secretary what was the total number of prosecutions throughout the country for cruelty to animals employed in mines during the year 1917?
    Sir G. CAVE: As I have already informed the hon. Member, the number of prosecutions for offences against the statutory provisions as to the care and treatment of animals which were instituted by the Home Office or by colliery managements in 1917 was seventy-nine. I have no information as to proceedings, if any, instituted by other parties.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: Is not a complete record kept of prosecutions of this kind?
    Sir G. CAVE: No, Sir.

    TRIAL BY JURY.
    Mr. ELLIS DAVIESasked the Home Secretary in what number of civil cases, besides those involving questions of libel, slander, seduction, and breach of promise of marriage, the trial was by jury during the year 1917?
    Sir G. CAVE: The figures for 1917 are not yet available; but in 1916 the number of actions tried for libel, slander, seduction, and breach of promise of marriage was 203, and the total number of cases tried before juries in the same year was 909.

  PRISONERS OF WAR.

    HAGUE AGREEMENT.
    Mr. ALBION RICHARDSONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is the intention of the Government to endeavour to secure the repatriation of our soldiers of all ranks who are prisoners of war in Germany on the lines of the agreement recently concluded between Germany and France; whether any and what steps have already been taken by the Government to this end; and within what time they anticipate the necessary agreement with Germany will be concluded?
    Mr. HUME-WILLIAMSasked the hon. Member for Sheffield (Central Division) whether efforts are being made to induce Germany to consent to an enlargement of The Hague Agreement, which now provides for the internment of officers and non-commissioned officers in Holland who have been prisoners in Germany for eighteen months, so as to include also men who have no non-commissioned rank; what is the present state of the negotiations; and whether a conference on the subject is to be held with German delegates and how soon?
    Mr. JAMES HOPE (Lord of the Treasury):I regret that I am not at present in a position to add to the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject on Tuesday.
    Mr. RICHARDSON: Have the Government yet nominated delegates?
    Mr. HOPE: They have not yet nominated delegates, but I understand they will do so shortly.
    Mr. RICHARDSON: Will the House of Commons have an opportunity of considering the appointments before they become effective, and will Lord Newton be included?
    Mr. SPEAKER: Notice should be given of that question.

    TREATMENT (REPORT OF COMMITTEE).
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Prime Minister whether the Government has considered the Report of their Committee on the Treatment by the Enemy of British Prisoners of War; whether they are satisfied that British prisoners are no longer kept at work immediately behind the German lines; and, if not, what steps they are taking, or propose to take, to prevent a continuance of the cruelty to our men mentioned in such Report?
    Major HUNTasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the starvation and cruelties inflicted on officers and men in some of the camps in Germany, he will at once give the German Government notice that, unless this treatment ceases, the treatment of German officers and men in this country will be very much altered and the most severe measures, short of cruelty, taken as reprisals for German barbarity?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Macpherson): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to these questions. The treatment of prisoners of war generally will, no doubt, be discussed at the Conference which, it is hoped, may shortly be assembled at The Hague.
    Major HUNT: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that British officers are being flogged, and that the same treatment has been meted out to the men?
    Mr. WHYTE:Is my hon. Friend aware of the widespread anxiety in this country owing to the fact that prisoners recently taken by the Germans are now being employed immediately behind the German lines on what is actually combatant work?
    Brigadier-General McCALMONT: Will the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that something will be done before this Conference meets, or are we to understand that nothing is to be done before it is held?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I have just said that the most practical of all ways would be to discuss it at the Conference which is about to be held.
    Major HUNT: Is not the Government yet aware that the Germans take no notice of anything except retaliation, and is the Government going to leave these wretched men to have this sort of treatment continually inflicted upon them without practically doing anything?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I have no doubt that the delegates sent by this Government will make the strongest possible representations.
    Mr. G. FABER: Is not the Conference likely to last for weeks, and during all that time will not something be done to protect these men?
    Mr. WHYTE: May I ask whether the scope of the Conference includes the use
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    of these prisoners behind the lines, or whether it is simply restricted to the exchange of prisoners?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: It includes the employment of prisoners.
    Sir E. CARSON: Could not the hon. Gentleman lay down a general rule- that whatever treatment is meted out to our prisoners will be meted out to the German prisoners here?
    Captain CARR-GOMMasked the Prime Minister whether the Government have selected the persons to represent Great Britain in the forthcoming negotiations with Germany concerning prisoners of war; and, if not, whether they will appoint as one of the delegates a discharged or disabled soldier who has served in the ranks during the present war?
    Mr. BONAR LAW.: As I said in reply to a supplementary question on Tuesday last, I am not yet able to make a statement on this subject.
    Captain CARR-GOMM: Would my hon. Friend seek some discharged soldier or someone who has been a prisoner and who may have a knowledge of German, in order to allay the feeling of annoyance about this matter and in order to strengthen the delegation?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is putting the same question again, and not so well worded.
    Mr. G. FABERasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the treatment of our prisoners in Germany, the War Cabinet will forthwith endeavour to promote a direct exchange of prisoners, privates as well as officers and non-commissioned officers, with Germany and also with Turkey and Bulgaria; and whether some high official can at once be appointed whose sole duty it will be to carry such exchange into effect as soon as possible, and meanwhile to ameliorate the lot of our prisoners as much as possible?
    Mr. HOPE: The possibility of extending existing arrangements with Turkey and Bulgaria will, of course, be considered. As to the rest of the question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the statement made by the Leader of the House.
    Mr. FABER:asked a question which was inaudible in the Reporters' Gallery.
    Mr. HOPE: There is the greatest possibility that the extending of the existing arrangements would be considered by the Governments.

    DEFENCE OF THE REALM ACT(LEAFLETS).
    Mr. ANDERSONasked whether a printed resolution circulated by the secretary of a trade union or other organisation among the branches of such trade union or other organisation is to be regarded as a leaflet within the meaning of Regulation 27c of the Defence of the Realm Act?
    Sir G. CAVE:I am advised that such a resolution would come within the Regulation if it were intended or likely to be used for propagandist purposes in relation to the present War or to the making of peace. It is a question of fact in each case.

    RUSSIAN SUBJECTS (DEPORTATION)
    Mr. ANDERSONasked for what reason Edward Sœrmus, the Russian violinist, has been ordered to return to Russia, seeing that he has taken no part in political propaganda and has been rejected for military service both in Russia and this country; whether he is aware that this musician was ordered to return within a week to Russia at a time when his wife was lying ill and unable to travel with him; and whether he is aware that such actions on the part of the British authorities are deeply affecting the minds of the Russian people and will adversely affect the future relations of the two countries, including the trading and commercial relations?
    Mr. SNOWDENasked if a deportation order has been made against Mr. Edward Sœrmus, and, if so, on what grounds; if this order has been carried into effect; and, if not, will he, in view of the fact that Mr. Sœrmus is an Esthonian subject, reconsider the matter?
    Sir G. CAVE: I understand that, as this man was engaged in revolutionary propaganda in this country he was warned by the police that an application would probably be made for his deportation; but that in the present circumstances and particularly in view of his wife's state of health it is not intended to press the application at the present time. No deportation order has in fact been made.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Will the right hon. Gentleman state what the nature of the seditious propaganda was in which he was engaged?
    Sir G. CAVE:No, Sir. The matter has not yet come before me. If it should come before me I shall require to be informed as to the nature of the propaganda.

    ENEMY ALIENS.
    Mr. JOYNSON - HICKSasked whether one John Faller, born in Germany, unnaturalised, is now manager of the Swan Hotel, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, within 25 miles of Avon-mouth; whether he is openly a supporter of his own countrymen; and why his internment was refused by the Home Office?
    Sir G. CAVE: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, and to the second, so far as is known to my Department, in the negative. No question of internment arises in this case, as the man is sixty-four years of age, but in the year 1915 he was exempted from repatriation on the recommendation of the Advisory Committee, who had before them a memorial signed by 160 British-born inhabitants of Wotton-under-Edge and the neighbourhood testifying to his loyalty. He has been in England forty-two years, and has a British-born wife and family. He is reported to be most loyal to this country, but if my hon. Friend has any information to the contrary I shall be glad to be furnished with it. He has volunteered for national service.
    Mr. STEWARTasked whether any further steps have been taken in regard to Mr. Ungebauer, the German recently naturalised in Lagos, or whether he still enjoys the privilege of British citizenship in that colony?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Hewins): His certificate of naturalisation was revoked on 23rd May under powers given by an Ordinance which was enacted in April.

    BRITISH MOTOR CAB COMPANY (PETROL ALLOWANCE).
    Major HUNTasked (1) whether, in view of the fact that the men formerly employed by the British Motor Cab Company are now out of employ-

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    ment because this company closed down on account of not being allowed Is. a mile, he can see his way to allow these unemployed men to be employed by other cab owners and the same amount of petrol allowed for their employment as that used by the British Motor Cab Company before it closed down; (2) whether, in view of the fact that the supply of two gallons per week for a taxi-cab is only enough for four days, he will consider the advisability of supplying each licensed driver with petrol weekly instead of at present supplying it to the cab owners?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Wardle): I have been asked by my right hon. Friend to answer these questions. Motor spirit licences for taxi-cabs are issued only to the registered owners of vehicles after the vehicles have been certified to be taxi-cabs licensed to ply for hire by the local licensing authorities, and a licence cannot be issued either to a licensed driver as such, or to a cab owner in respect of a driver's employment. The quantity allowed for taxi-cabs in. the metropolitan area is 60 gallons per month, or, approximately, 2 gallons per day, and not 2 gallons per week, as suggested by the hon. and gallant Member. In view of the urgent necessity of conserving supplies of petrol, it is not possible to increase this quantity.
    Major HUNT: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether anything can be done to stop the waste of labour entailed by the men only being able to work four days a week on account of not having enough petrol?
    Mr. WARDLE: I should like notice of that.

    CRUELTY TO HORSES (PROSECUTIONS).
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked for the number of prosecutions since 1st January for cruelty to horses by overloading, overworking, or underfeeding?
    Sir G. CAVE: The number of prosecutions in the Metropolitan Police District since the 1st January last for cruelty to horses is 1,258; but, owing to the depletion of staffs, it is not possible to ascertain how many of these cases have arisen from overloading, overworking, or underfeeding. I have no information as to the number of prosecutions in the provinces.

  MILITARY SERVICE.

    CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
    Mr. SNOWDENasked if a conscientious objector named Parker, of Aberdare, was recently released under the exceptional employment scheme and permitted to take up employment with Parker and Company, motor repairers, of Aberdare; whether, after this young man had been in this employment for a few days, he was informed by the committee by telegram that he must find other employment within fourteen days; whether the committee have since insisted that he must find work more than 50 miles away from Aberdare; will he say what is the reason that the committee, having approved this employment as satisfying their requirements, should so quickly discover that it was unsuitable; will he say whether the action of the committee was due to representations made from Aberdare by the political opponents of the man's father; whether it is the practice of the committee to lend itself to persecution to satisfy political spite; and under what Clause in the conditions regulating exceptional employment the committee are authorised to insist that a man must find employment 50 miles away from home?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY Of STATE for the (HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Brace): The answers to the first three questions are in the affirmative. This conscientious objector was required to find fresh work because it was discovered that his original application had not fully disclosed the facts, and, further, that he was doing work other than that which the committee had authorised. There has been no persecution. The committee have full discretion to revoke any authority they may have given for individual employment; and in this case the only alternative to attaching special conditions to the new authority would have been to revoke the authority altogether and recall him to the work centre.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Is it not a fact that before this lad was permitted to take up this work the committee made full inquiries, and will he say in what particulars it was afterwards discovered that misrepresentations had been made as to the nature of the work in which the lad was to engage; and is it not a fact that the Home Office Committee took action through representations that were made from Aberdare by the political opponents of the lad's father?
    Mr. BRACE: No. In reply to the last part of the supplementary question, I do not think it would be accurate to say that the Home Office took action because of complaints of the political opponents of this lad's father. One of the reasons why the committee took action was that the application both of the lad and the company was of a disingenuous character.
    Mr. SNOWDEN:Will the right hon. Gentleman explain how these facts cams to the knowledge of the Committee?
    Mr. BRACE: No; I am not disposed to do that.

    GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.
    Mr. ROWLANDSasked the Prime Minister what committees have been appointed in connection with the combing out of the Government Departments; and whether he is aware that some of the members of the committees are of military age?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of NATIONAL SERVICE (Mr. Beck): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply. As already announced in the Press, a panel has been appointed from which military service committees will be selected to review exemptions held by men of military age employed in all Government Departments. A preliminary meeting of the panel will be held in the course of the next few days, at which the selection of the committees will be finally arranged. The answer to the second part of the question is in the affirmative.
    Mr. HOGGE: Does my hon. Friend intend to take off this committee all men of military age?
    Mr. BECK: Certainly not! Mr. HOGGE: Why not?
    Mr. ROWLANDS: Is my hon. Friend aware of the great amount of annoyance caused to men who are called up by men who themselves ought to be serving?
    Mr. BECK: That is not the question. The military age has been extended to fifty-one. This is a policy for which the House has pressed, and the Ministry with which I have the honour to be connected has established a panel of persons who will go through the Government Departments with a view of discovering what men, I think under the age of forty-three, can be spared for the fighting force.
    Mr. HOGGE: What moral force can the recommendations of this Department have when it puts men below the military age on a panel to put other men under their age into the Army?
    Mr. BECK: If that standard is applied a great many Members of this House would have to resign their seats.
    Captain SMITH: Is the panel composed of men who are now serving in the Army or Navy, or of civilians, or of both?
    Mr. BECK: No; it comprises a great number of persons, Members of this House and of the other place, business men, and so on. It is really a representative panel, which will, I think, satisfy the House when it is published.
    Mr. FABER: Why need men of military age be put on the panel? Is it beyond the competence of this House to discover men above military age who are fitted to be on this committee?
    Mr. BECK: I do not think that my hon. Friend quite understands the question. It is suggested that no men under fifty-one should be on this panel. That is not a practical proposal.
    Major HUNT: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether all the members of these committees will be altogether disinterested in the sense that they will not have anything to do with the Departments?
    Mr. BECK: That is so. They are persons not connected with the Departments.

    RHODESIA (RAILWAY POLICY).
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the general purport of the Report of Mr. Acworth on Rhodesian railway policy and administration, whether favourable or otherwise; and whether the Report will be made available for Members in the Library?
    Mr. HEWINS: I have not yet seen this Report.

    EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
    Mr. KINGasked the Secretary for Scotland whether and, if so, when he proposes to reintroduce the Education (Scot-

    957
    land) Bill; and whether the delay in re-introducing this Bill is due to the opposition which its provisions have evoked?
    Mr. WHYTEasked whether the Scottish Education Bill will be introduced immediately?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. Munro): I would refer my hon. Friends to the answer which I gave on the 16th instant to the right hon. Member for Dumfries Burghs.
    Mr. HOGGE: Can the right hon. Gentleman not give some more definite date as to when he expects to introduce this Bill?
    Mr. MUNRO: I am sorry that I cannot state a definite date, but there will be no unavoidable delay.
    Mr. KING: Is the delay because changes are being made in its details?
    Mr. MUNRO: It is being reconsidered in view of the present opposition to the administrative provisions. The educational provisions have been well received, and I am very anxious that even in the matter of administration the Bill should go through with a minimum of friction and a maximum of agreement.
    Mr. KING: Why not introduce the educational provisions and drop the administrative ones?

    SCOTTISH WAR MEMORIAL.
    Mr. WHYTEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he can now make a statement on the Scottish War Memorial?
    Mr. MUNRO: I regret that I am not as yet in a position to add to the information which I have already given to the House in this matter.

    SCOTTISH MINISTRY OF HEALTH BILL.
    Mr. HOGGE:asked the Secretary for Scotland when he proposes to introduce the Scottish Ministry of Health Bill?
    Mr. MUNRO: Until the general proposals for a Ministry of Health have been discussed and adjusted in the War Cabinet, I fear I cannot make any statement as to the policy of the Government with regard to Scotland.

  FOOD SUPPLIES.

    MILK.
    Sir J. D. REESasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Government proposes to nominate an official of his own, or of any other Department, to a seat on the Board of any of the great companies which deal with the question of the supply of milk?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Mr. Clynes): I have been asked to reply. The precise steps proper to be taken in order to secure effective control of the wholesale collection, utilisation, and distribution of milk are still under consideration. I hope to be able to make an announcement shortly, but the matter is obviously one of great complication and importance.
    Sir A. FELL: Will you take this idea, into consideration?
    Mr. CLYNES: Yes.
    Sir JOHN SPEARasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food if he is aware that the retailer of milk in London who buys direct from the producer is allowed to charge the consumer Is. per gallon for selling such milk, while the maximum price the producer can charge the retailer is 1s. per gallon; and, having regard to the much greater cost of producing milk over that of retailing it, will he take steps to secure a fairer distribution of payment?
    Mr. CLYNES: My hon. Friend is no doubt aware that the producer may add his railway transport charges to the maximum price. In view of the fact that the ratio between the amount received by the producer and that received by the retailer is rather smaller than that which prevailed before prices were controlled it can hardly be suggested that the present distribution of payment is unfair.
    Sir J. SPEAR: Does not the hon. Gentleman consider that the unequal remuneration to the retailers compared with the producer is calculated to reduce the supply of milk?
    Mr. CLYNES: One can easily be deceived by these comparisons. If the producers feel aggrieved by the price they are receiving their grievance can be considered.
    Sir J. SPEAR: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that milk producing is being given

    959
    up because of this inequality and therefore it is in the interests of the consumer that the matter should be dealt with at once? May I further ask if it is not the fact that the retailer is prepared to take less remuneration provided the producer is encouraged to continue the supply by having the increase which the retailer is prepared to give up?
    Mr. SPEAKER:That is rather too complicated a question. I should like to see it on the Paper.

    TEA.
    Mr. CURRIEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether grocers, co-operative or other, can now sell tea at less than 2s. 8d. per 1b.; whether all suggestions of objections on the part of the Government to their doing so have been publicly withdrawn; whether a similar line of action has been announced or is under consideration in connection with other articles of food, such as margarine, for which a maximum price has been fixed; and whether any limitation is placed upon the right of a retailer to raise his price for, say, tea again to the fixed maximum after having once reduced it so as to secure registration of customers?
    Mr. CLYNES: The retail price of tea has been fixed by the Tea (Retail Prices)

    Cattle.

    Sheep.

    Pigs.

    Oxen and Heifers.

    Cows.

    Bulls.

    Ewes.

    Others.

    Sows.

    Others.

    1917—

    January

    …

    170,000

    53,000

    8,000

    160,000

    539,000

    25,000

    264,000

    February

    …

    148,000

    54,000

    9,000

    98,000

    555,000

    21,000

    220,000

    March

    …

    154,000

    57,000

    12,000

    80,000

    647,000

    21,000

    208,000

    April

    …

    142,000

    45,000

    10,000

    65,000

    622,000

    22,000

    198,000

    1918—

    January

    …

    102,000

    42,000

    5,000

    166,000

    707,000

    25,000

    176,000

    February

    …

    96,000

    39,000

    6,000

    53,000

    386,000

    16,000

    139,000

    March

    …

    103,000

    40,000

    9,000

    48,000

    512,000

    10,000

    88,000

    April

    …

    97,000

    35,000

    9,000

    31,000

    534,000

    7,000

    72,000

    BUTTER AND BACON.
    Sir WALTER RUNCIMANasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he is aware that 5,000 casks of Danish butter arrived at Newcastle-on-Tyne on Friday, the 17th May. and was put on the quay, and still remained there on 27th May, awaiting
    960
    Order, 1918, dated the 4th May, at 2s. 8d. per lb. To sell at a lower price constitutes a summary offence against the Defence of the Realm Regulations. The latter half of the question does not appear to arise.
    Mr. CURRIE: Does the hon. Gentleman's answer apply to traders of all kinds, both co-operative stores and retail traders?
    Mr. CLYNES: Certainly.

    CATTLE, SHEEP AND PIGS SLAUGHTERED.
    Major HUNTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he can state the approximate statistics recording the slaughtering in Great Britain, during the months of January, February, March, and April, of cattle, distinguishing oxen, bulls, cows, and heifers; of sheep, distinguishing the total of ewes; and pigs, distinguishing the total of sows, for the years 1917 and 1918 respectively?
    Mr. CLYNES: While, no complete data exist for a comparison such as that referred to in the question, I have had an approximate estimate prepared, which will be printed in the Official Report.
    The following is the estimate referred to:
    orders from the Food Controller; if this is perishable food that the public are very much in need of; if he will give instructions immediately to have the butter distributed to the different shopkeepers so that the public may be supplied; and if there are 14,000 boxes of bacon lying on the quays at Hull awaiting distribution,

    961
    exposed to the weather and deteriorating, so that it is becoming unfit for human food?
    Mr. CLYNES: On 19th May 5,444 casks of Danish butter arrived at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and were put into cool storage, as no cold storage was available. This butter is now being distributed in Scotland and the North of England, the delivery orders having been posted on 27th May. In answer to the last part of the question, I may refer the hon. Baronet to the answer given last Tuesday to the hon. Member for West Newington. I feel bound to add that the circulation of these unfounded reports causes unnecessary public apprehension, and is, in my opinion, much to be deprecated.
    Mr. LOUGH: Will the hon. Gentleman state why there was ten days' delay in issuing the order for the distribution of this butter?
    Mr. CLYNES: It was not a case of ten days' delay. That is not at all admitted in my answer.

    FOOD DISTRIBUTION COMMITTEES.
    Major HUNTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether it was proposed to appoint a Mr. Carmichael as Labour representative on a committee to control food distribution arrangements at Smithfield; whether this gentleman was proposed as a speaker at the prohibited revolutionary demonstration in Fins bury Park lately; what connection has he ever had with the meat trade; whether he was aware that Smith-field men had already passed a vote of no confidence in him; and whether, when a labour representative is appointed on this committee, he will see that he is the direct nominee of the men employed in the market?
    Mr. CLYNES: The Journeymen Butchers' Federation of Great Britain were asked by my Department to appoint a Labour representative on a committee to control food distribution at Smithfield, and they nominated Mr. Duncan Carmichael, who is Secretary of the London Trades Council. I understand that this gentleman was asked to speak at a May Day demonstration in Finsbury Park and that he declined the invitation. Mr. Carmichael has been connected with distributive trades for nearly twenty years. I have no knowledge of the suggestion made in the
    962
    fourth part of the question. In asking the men concerned to nominate a representative, I stated that he should be a man who would have the confidence of the workers and in other respects be qualified for his duties.

    ROAD TRANSPORT BOARD.
    Mr. ALDENasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether the Road Transport Board is about to take over the whole of the road transport of the country, with a view to the better distribution of food; and if he can make any statement as to the methods to be employed?
    Mr. WARDLE: I have been asked by my hon. Friend to answer this question. It is not proposed to take over the road transport of the country, but the. Road Transport Board has been appointed to take such measures as may be necessary to ensure the most economic use of road transport vehicles and their efficient allocation for meeting such requirements as may arise from time to time for the transport of food, munitions, and other war material, and for the essential needs of the trade and industry of the country. Powers have been taken under a Defence of the Realm Regulation to enable the Road Transport Board to carry out its functions.
    Mr. FRANCE: Does the Board propose to appoint local committees, who understand local conditions?
    Mr. WARDLE: Local committees are being appointed to co-operate.

    FILMS (EXPORT FROM AMERICA).
    Sir J. D. REESasked the President of the Board of Trade what action he proposes to take in regard to the embargo lately placed on the export of films from America, in view of the fact that no less than 90 per cent. of all the films shown in the cinema theatres in this country, and at the front, including many absolutely necessary for the proper presentation of the case of the Allies, are American films, and of the fact that the cargo space occupied by films is an altogether negligible quantity?
    Mr. WARDLE: I am not aware of any special embargo on the exportation if films from the United States of America other than the general prohibition on the exportation of all goods except under

    963
    licence. In granting licences for the exportation of goods to the United Kingdom the United States Government are guided to some extent by the views of the British War Mission, and refuse licences where the recommendation of the Mission is not forthcoming. The Board of Trade will be prepared to convey through the Mission a recommendation in favour of the grant of licences for any suitable cinematograph films which firms in this country may wish to import from America.

    RAILWAY SEASON TICKETS.
    Mr. ALBION RICHARDSONasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is prepared to amend the new Regulations relating to the issue and the renewal of season tickets so as to give to men who were serving in the Army or Navy prior to 1st January, 1917, and who have since been or who are hereafter discharged there from, the same rights of obtaining season tickets in the districts in which they live as they would have had if they had been season ticket-holders in such districts prior to 1st January, 1917?
    Mr. WARDLE: I do not think that it is necessary to amend the Regulations to meet this point. Applicants under such circumstances will have the same rights of obtaining season tickets in the districts in which they live as. they would have had if they had been season-ticket holders in such districts prior to 1st January, 1917.
    Mr. RICHARDSON:Is my hon. Friend aware that the Regulations as they stand clearly show that a man who had a season ticket before the 1st of January, 1917, is in a better position than those who had not?
    Mr. WARDLE: It may not be quite clear, but the Regulations will be carried out in the spirit of my answer.
    Mr. RICHARDSON: Will the hon. Gentleman make them clear?

    PILOTAGE LICENCES.
    Colonel BURNasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is prepared to introduce legislation at the earliest possible moment to prohibit the use of pilotage licences for home waters to all aliens and to confine the same strictly to British subjects?
    Mr. WARDLE: At the present time no alien holds a pilot's licence for any port in the United Kingdom, and, so far as I am aware, such licences have never been granted to aliens. A pilotage certificate may be granted to the master or mate of a ship under certain conditions enabling him to dispense with the services of a licensed pilot in a specified district. Such certificates can only be issued to British subjects except in certain special cases for which provision is made by Section 24 of the Pilotage Act, 1913. All such certificates held by enemy aliens before the War have lapsed, and no provision exists for their renewal. As regards other aliens, provision is made for the renewal of certificates which were in force before the 1st June, 1906. No new certificates can be granted to aliens in any district if the Admiralty at any time consider that on the grounds of public safety this should not be done. In these circumstances, as at present advised, my right hon. Friend does not consider that any further legislation is necessary.

    WORKMEN'S RAILWAY TICKETS (WHIT-MONDAY).
    Mr. ROWLANDSasked the President of the Board of Trade whether on some railways no workmen's tickets were issued on Whit-Monday and that men and women going to work had to pay the full fares; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?
    Mr. WARDLE: It is not the practice to issue workmen's tickets on statutory public holidays, and some of the railway companies are expressly exempted from such an obligation by their Acts of Parliament. If, however, the hon. Gentleman will furnish me with particulars of the cases he has in mind, I will have inquiries made.

    TOWN HORSES.
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked the President of the Board of Trade whether it is proposed to make any alteration in regard to the control of horse transport, in view of the greatly increased mortality among working horses as a result of overworking and underfeeding?
    Mr. WARDLE:The question of the condition of the town horses is under consideration, and the Controller of

    965
    Horse Transport has in contemplation the making of certain Regulations on the subject both of the feeding and the use of horses.

    ELECTRICITY POWER SUPPLY COMMITTEE
    Mr. TOOTILLasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Committee on Electricity Power Supply has yet concluded its labours and submitted a Report; and, if so, in view of the wide spread interest in the subject, he can state if it is proposed to publish the Report
    Mr. WARDLE: This Committee has submitted a Report which has just been presented to Parliament.

    BRIGHTON WATERWORKS (COAL SUPPLY).
    Mr. THOMAS-STANFORDasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Corporation of Brighton, both directly and through its waterworks engineer, has during the last six months made frequent and urgent representations to the Coal Controller as to the short supply of coal received at the pumping stations of the Brighton Waterworks undertaking, the shortage amounting in eight months to 2,000 tons on the quantity allotted; that these representations have had no result; that it has now been found necessary to give notice to the War Office that the supply of water to the military camp and convalescent hospital at Shore- ham and to the numerous hospitals in the large area served by the undertaking is endangered and may have to be discontinued, one of the pumping stations having only six days' stock of coal; and whether, in view of the seriousness of the situation, he will take immediate steps to ensure that an adequate supply is forwarded?
    Mr. WARDLE: According to figures supplied by the Brighton Corporation Waterworks, they have in stock at present more than four weeks' supply of coal. Deliveries have fallen off during the past month, partly due to disputes between colliery companies and the contractors supplying the corporation and latterly through the effect of the comb-out of miners. The contractors to the corporation have promised to give the question of supplies special attention.

    COMRADES OF THE GREAT WAR.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Prime Minister by whose permission leaflets advertising the Ealing comrades day were dropped from Army aeroplanes on 16th May?.
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Major Baird): The permission referred to was given by a responsible Air Force officer. I would add that by a decision of the Air Council which had been arrived at before the date mentioned in the question but had not then been promulgated, the use of aeroplanes for the purpose of flying exhibitions or the dropping of leaflets has been prohibited.
    Mr. HOGGE: Could the hon. Gentleman explain why the Air Service, after repeated assurances by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House that they have nothing to do with the Comrades of the Great War, gave permission for propaganda for the purpose of this organisation to be dropped from national aeroplanes?
    Major BAIRD: I have seen the leaflet, and I can imagine that the commanding officer would look upon it simply as a charitable organisation to help men who had been wounded, and it would be quite a natural thing that he would give it his help without previous instructions.
    Mr. HOGGE: Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman agree that the Comrades of the Great War is a charitable organisation?
    Major BAIRD: I am not prepared to argue that point—I do not think it arises —but I am quite sure that the leaflet would give that impression to the officer commanding.
    Mr. G. TERRELL: Is not this question raised as a matter of spite and jealousy?
    Mr. HOGGE: No!

    POSTAL RATES.
    Mr. CHANCELLORasked the Post master-General whether, under the new Regulations, commercial papers, e.g., invoices, statements, credit notes, advices, etc., which are partly printed and partly written will be allowed postage at the

    967
    halfpenny rate when enclosed in unsealed envelopes; and whether, if printed on cardboard and filled in on one side and addressed on the other, they will be carried for one halfpenny without being enclosed in an envelope?
    The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Pike Pease): The alterations in the postal rates to be introduced on the 3rd June involve no change in the conditions under which printed or partly printed documents may be sent at the inland book rate, which will in future be known as the inland printed paper rate. A card complying with these conditions need not be enclosed in an envelope.

    POSTCARDS (SIZE).
    Mr. CHANCELLORasked the Postmaster-General whether the maximum size allowed for postcards will be increased so as to allow of their being used more largely for correspondence at the penny rate?
    Mr. PIKE PEASE: As promised, my right hon. Friend has considered the question whether the maximum size of postcards might be increased. The present limit, namely, 5½in. by 3½in., appears to allow ample space for a short letter, especially as the left-hand half of the address side can be used for the purpose as well as the back of the card, and, in view of the loss of revenue involved, he does not see his way to increase the size of postcards.

  ENEMY AIR RAID (LONDON).

    BURIAL OF DEAD AVIATORS.
    Mr. GILBERTasked the Prime Minister if he can make any general statement as to the enemy air-raid on London and district on 19th and 20th May; can he state the number of enemy machines that were brought down; the names of our airmen who brought them down; the number of enemy airmen captured, and if any of them were alive; and can he state by whose authority the bodies buried were given military funerals?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: As regards the first and second parts of my hon. Friend's question, I am afraid I can add nothing to the official statement which has
    968
    already been published in the Press. It is not desirable to publish the names of individual airmen or anti-aircraft gunners who bring down, or contribute in bringing down, enemy aircraft, except in so-far as their services justify inclusion in an Honours List or a mention in dispatches. Details regarding enemy airmen captured, whether dead or alive, are forwarded in due course to the enemy through the Prisoners of War Information Bureau, in accordance with Article 14 of the annexe to the Hague Convention of the 18th October, 1907, but it is not proposed to publish any information on the subject.
    As regards the last part of the question, the bodies of dead airmen are buried with military honours in accordance with Article 19 of the annexe to the-Hague Convention, and the practice prevails on both sides.

    IMPERIAL ADVISORY COUNCIL.
    Sir J. NORTON GRIFFITHSasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the memorial presented on 25th April, 1911, to the then Prime Minister, the right hon. and learned Member for East Fife, signed by 280 Members representing various parties in the House, that a permanent Imperial Advisory Council should be created; and will he endeavour to give immediate effect to this memorial by taking advantage of the presence in the country of many over sea statesmen at the coming Conference, so that the Government may thus have the benefit of constant advice and counsel on all matters affecting the Empire as a whole in relation to the War and the many points which must necessarily arise in connection with the organisation of trade and industry after the War?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The best method of effective co-operation in the War will, I am sure, be considered at the approaching Imperial Conference and Imperial War Cabinet.

    ECONOMIC CONFERENCE, PARIS.
    Sir EDWARD CARSONasked the Prime Minister when the Imports and Exports Bill will be reintroduced; and when it is proposed to make the promised statement as to the progress made by the Allies in carrying out the policy agreed to in the Resolution of the Paris Economic Conference?
    Mr. G. TERRELLasked the Prime Minister if the Government have been able to give consideration to the recommendations of the Report of the Lord Balfour of Burleigh Committee; and whether all action in regard to giving effect to some of the principal Resolutions of the Paris Economic Conference is delayed pending their coming to a decision thereon?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Owing to the pressure of other business, I cannot yet name a date for. the reintroduction of this Bill, but it is intended to make a general statement either before the Bill is reintroduced or on its reintroduction.
    Sir E. CARSON: Does my right hon. Friend recollect how long it is since he first made a promise to this effect?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not think it is very long, but my right hon. Friend will recognise that there is a great deal of business that is pressing to be done before this can be taken.
    Mr. WHYTE: Will the War Cabinet take into consideration the advisability of issuing a statement that the economic weapon is to be used for obtaining sound conditions of peace but is not to be used for prolonging the War?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: That subject must obviously be dealt with in the statement when it is made.
    Mr. HOLT: Is the statement to be made soon?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Yes

    MINISTERS' SPEECHES.
    Mr. PR INGLEasked the Prime Minister whether the speech made by General Smuts at Glasgow on 17th May was submitted to the Censor before publication; and, if so, whether any excisions were made.?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer to both parts of the question is in the negative.
    Mr. HOGGE: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain the great differences in the speech as reported?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I think the hon. Member is probably able to judge of that as well as I am.
    Mr. HOGGE: Is it the opinion of the War Cabinet, as General Smuts stated, that we cannot expect any military victory on the Western Front?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not think that General Smuts said anything of the kind.
    Mr. HOGGE: It is so reported.
    Mr. PRINGLEasked the Prime Minister whether the speech made by the right hon. Member for the Black friars Division of Glasgow on 27th May was submitted to the Censor before publication; and, if so, whether any excisions were made?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The report of the speech was submitted to the Censor by some newspapers, but not by all, and, with the consent of my right hon. Friend, a few words were deleted.

    LUXURY DUTY (SELECT COMMITTEE).
    Mr. CURRIEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether any special instruction or guidance has been communicated by the Government or any Department of it to the Committee upon the Taxation of Luxuries as to the treatment to be applied to or withheld from any kind of excisable liquor sold wholesale or retail?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer is in the negative.

    INCOME TAX (GOLF AND BOWLING CLUBS).
    Mr. CURRIEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, assuming that the Finance Bill passes into law without modification, golf clubs and bowling clubs, or either of them, will pay Income Tax upon twice their rents without the benefit of being assessed at their own option on an alternative basis?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: A Government Amendment to Clause 23 is under consideration, and I would ask my hon. Friend to await its terms.

    NAVAL OFFICERS' WIVES (RAILWAY FACILITIES).
    Sir B. FALLEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider the granting of concession railway tickets to the wives of officers of the Royal Navy if such wives have to travel over fifty miles in order to meet their husbands on their return from service on leave?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. In view of the facilities which enable naval officers to visit their homes when leave is granted, either free of cost or at a reduced expense, I am unable to recommend the grant of concession fare tickets to officers' wives, especially as it is necessary in the public interest to restrict railway travelling as much as possible. I should, however, add that naval officers' wives are granted cheap tickets for the purpose of visiting husbands when sick or wounded in hospital; also that where an officer is in a serious condition and his wife is summoned by telegram to visit him a free warrant is granted to her on application.
    Sir B. FALLE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in some cases a ship may be at, say, Rosyth for ten days and the officer is not allowed more than shore leave, in which case his wife may have to come from London or Southampton to see him? In those cases I ask that she should have a ticket.
    Dr. MACNAMARA: If my hon. Friend will look at the Regulations under which, when leave is granted, facilities are given for travelling by officers, perhaps he will put another question to me. He had better look at them first.
    Sir B. FALLE: I have done so.

    DISTILLERS' LICENCE.
    Mr. STEWARTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer on what grounds distillers who do not make yeast are asked to pay for a licence to manufacture spirits when the Defence of the Realm Act Regulations prohibits them from distilling?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Under the Spirits Act, 1880, a person remains liable to Distillers' Licence Duty even though he does not manufacture spirits, so long as he continues to keep his stills and a stock of "feints," or "low wines." The licence, however, obviates the necessity of his taking out a wholesale spirit dealers' licence—duty £15 15s.—for the sale of spirits of his own manufacture remaining at his distillery, and, under the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, if the quantity of spirits manufactured in one year does not exceed 50,000 proof gallons, the duty on the distiller's licence next year is only £10.

    TEACHERS' PENSIONS.
    Mr. SHIRLEY BENNasked the President of the Board of Education if he recognises the financial difficulties of retired teachers who are dependent on pensions granted to them under the Elementary School Teachers (Superannuation) Acts, owing to the pensions being inadequate to cover the increased cost of living owing to war conditions; and whether he can see his way to grant sufficient temporary increases to the pensions to cover the increased cost of living until normal times return?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Lewis):My right hon. Friend would refer the hon. Member to the answer which he gave to the hon. Member for West Newington on 10th July last, of which I am sending him a copy.

  NATIONAL SERVICE.

    INSURANCE COMPANIES, BANKS AND STOCK EXCHANGE.
    Mr. ANDERSONasked the Minister of National Service whether any agreement has been reached between his Department and insurance companies, bankers, and the Stock Exchange in regard to military service on the part of those carrying on those concerns; and, if so, whether he will state the terms of such agreement?
    Mr. BECK: The general practice is for officials of the Ministry to consider with advisory committees the cases of the employés of such concerns in relation to-the total staffs with a view to presenting an agreed case for the decision of the tribunal, but the ultimate decision is a matter for the statutory tribunals.

    LAY PREACHERS.
    Mr. TOOTILLasked the Minister of National Service (1) whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the new Man-Power Act will deprive a number of Nonconformist places of worship of the assistance of the lay preachers on whom the conduct of their services depends; in view of the importance of such services as a source of confidence and strength to the nation, will he issue an Order to the tribunals to exempt from military service those men who

    973
    produce evidence to show that they are duly accredited lay preachers of one of the recognised Churches who for the last four years have been continuously engaged in the conduct of divine worship; (2) whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the conduct of religious worship in many Nonconformist places of worship depends upon lay preachers, and that, although they are performing similar duties to those carried out by ordained clergy and ministers, yet no provision has been made for their exemption from military service; that hitherto they have not claimed such exemption, and that thousands of them are serving in His Majesty's Forces to-day; and will he state what steps he proposes to take?
    Mr. BECK: The provision as to application to the statutory tribunals for exemption from military service applies to lay preachers in the same manner as to other classes of the community, who are at liberty to apply on either occupational or personal grounds, as laid down in the Military Service Acts. The question whether an individual lay preacher should be exempted in view of the importance of his services is decided by the tribunal on the merits of his case in the ordinary course. I am aware of the extent to which a large number of Nonconformist Churches are dependent upon the services of lay preachers, and any proposals which may be submitted by the representative bodies concerned will always receive careful consideration.

  NATIONAL SHIPYARDS.

    COMMISSIONS FOR ENGINEERS.
    Col. Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHSasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Shipping Controller whether he will state the number of special commissions which have been given to men of military age for the purpose of training as shipyard engineers for the national shipyards; if he is aware that there are a large number of discharged officers, non-commissioned officers, and men who have high technical qualifications and who could fill such vacancies; and whether he can undertake that preference will be given to such officers, non-commissioned officers, and men, so that all medically fit men of military age may be free for active service with His Majesty's Forces?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: My hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. No special commissions such as those referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend have so far been granted. Special commissions for this purpose will not be granted until the men have passed a probationary period and are ready for drafting to the national yards. Up to date twenty such probationers have reported, and out of this number six only are officers, the remainder being civilians. None of the officers are fit for general service, and preference is always given to officers at present unfit for general service, dischargd officers, non-commissioned officers, and men. The suggestion contained in my hon. and gallant Friend's question has, as he will observe, not been, and will not be, lost sight of.

  MUNITIONS.

    TRADE UNION CUSTOMS.
    Mr. ANDERSONasked the Minister of Munitions whether he is now in a position to state the intentions of his Department with respect to the repeated promises to give legal sanction to official pledges regarding the restoration of trade union customs; whether it is intended to introduce legislation on this question; and, if so, when?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of MUNITIONS (Mr. Kellaway): No decision has yet been taken as to the introduction of legislation this Session.
    Mr. ANDERSON: Seeing that the hon. Gentleman promised long ago that it would be introduced, what steps are likely to be taken, or is any decision going to be reached at all?
    Mr. KELLAWAY: The hon. Member will recognise that recent events have not made it easy for the Government to take a decision with regard to introducing new legislation. I cannot say more than that at the moment.

    STAFF INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE.
    Major HUNTasked the Minister of Munitions whether, in the Committee appointed by him as the Staff Investigation Committee there are three members out of the seven appointed who are officials of the Ministry, including Mr. J. W. Dulanty. who is the person responsible for sanctioning appointments to the Ministry; whether

    975
    the secretary of the Committee is also in the Ministry of Munitions; and whether, as these members of the Committee will be in the position of defendants sitting to judge their own case, he will consider the necessity of appointing persons who are wholly disinterested?
    Mr. KELLAWAY:My hon. and gallant Friend has misunderstood the purpose of the Staff Investigation Committee, which has been appointed by the Minister of Munitions, with the concurrence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to see whether economies of staff can be secured, and to this extent is intended to strengthen the hands of those responsible to the Minister for the conduct of establishment business.
    The Committee includes among its members the hon. Baronet the Member for the Wellington Division of Shropshire as chairman; the hon. and gallant Member for Wolverhampton, Sir Woodman Burbidge, Mr. C. F. Wood, and the hon. Lady Mackworth, and I think that my hon. and gallant Friend may rest assured that with such a personnel the independence of the Committee is amply secured.
    I may add that the chairman of the Committee, on behalf of himself and his unofficial colleagues, has informed the Minister of Munitions that without the assistance and co-operation of official members it would be impossible for the Committee to continue its work.
    Mr. G. TERRELL: What is meant by the co-operation of official members?
    Mr. KELLAWAY: They have the advantage of the experience and advice of these official members.
    Mr. TERRELL: Is that advice being at present withheld from them?
    Mr. KELLAWAY: No, they are already on the Committee.
    Major HUNT: Could not these gentlemen give their advice without being on the Committee? Will they not be able to outvote the other members of it to a great extent?
    Mr. KELLAWAY: It will not be easy for three members out of eight to outvote the other five.

    MOTOR LOBBIES.
    97. Colonel GRETTON: asked the Minister of Munitions if he is aware that
    976
    numbers of motor lorries have been sent empty by road from Scotland and the North of England and that this practice continues; and if arrangements will be made to load these lorries with food or goods urgently required in London and the South that this waste of transport may be stopped?
    Mr. WARDLE: I have been asked by my right hon. Friend to answer this question. I am not aware that it is the practice to send empty motor lorries from Scotland and the North of England to London and the South. The Road Transport Board of the Board of Trade was recently informed that a number of new motor lorries manufactured in Glasgow for the Ministry of Munitions were not being used to their full capacity on the journey to London. Inquiry was made into the allegation, and it was found that these lorries were running fully loaded, and that the manufacturers and the Government Departments concerned were making adequate arrangements for using available space at all times.
    Colonel GRETTON: Will the hon. Gentleman also make inquiries as to motor lorries in Manchester and other places in the North of England, as well as in Scotland?
    Mr. WARDLE: I shall be glad to make inquiries.

    RAILWAY WARRANTS.
    Mr. WILKIEasked the Minister of Munitions whether the concessions to war Munitions Volunteers and other munitions workers with regard to the issue of free railway warrants and cheap week-end vouchers have been withdrawn altogether or restricted; and, if the latter, will he state to what extent?
    Mr. KELLAWAY: In view of the difficulties of the railway companies in dealing with war traffic, it has been found absolutely necessary to make further restrictions on travelling facilities. It has therefore been decided that the issue of the cheap week-end tickets to munition workers in controlled establishments who are living away from their homes must be cancelled, and no such vouchers have been supplied since' the week-end, 25th to 27th May. The withdrawal will apply also to the arrangement by which these vouchers have been extended to cover holiday periods. As regards W.M.V's and A.R.M.W's who have been assigned to

    977
    work away from home, these will, under present arrangements, continue to receive free railway warrants to their homes and back upon the occasion of a generally observed trade holiday.

    LINER REQUISITION AGREEMENT.
    Sir W. RUNCIMANasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Shipping Controller what were the reasons which induced him to agree in the liner requisition agreement to hire for liners being paid during periods of inefficiency due to marine risk contributed to or prolonged by war conditions; whether, moreover, the rates of hire for liners are higher than for what are called tramps; whether in a very large number of cases modern tramps are more expensive and higher-class vessels than many vessels called liners; and for what reason he has placed the tramps in respect to these two hire conditions in a worse position than liners?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of SHIPPING (Sir Leo Chiozza Money): The arrangement referred to in the first part of the question was agreed to as part of a comprehensive bargain with the liner companies. As regards the remainder of the question, the rates of hire for tramp vessels under requisition have recently been increased, and in arriving at the new rates the contingencies referred to by the right hon. Member have been fully taken into account. As a result the rates for tramps are now, in some cases, above those for cargo liners of similar size and speed.

    MINISTRY OF SHIPPING (EMPLOYMENT OF OFFICERS).
    Sir J. NORTON GRIFFITHSasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Shipping Controller whether he can state the number of officers who have served in France or on any of the other battle fronts who are now employed on the strength of the Ministry of Shipping; the number of officers employed who have not so served and are of military age; and the number of civilians employed of military age?
    Sir L. CHIOZZA-MONEY: The number of military officers employed in the
    978
    Ministry of Shipping who have had service abroad is fifty-four. The number who have not so served is four, all medically unfit for general service. The total number of civilians of military age, including men medically rejected graded in low categories or discharged from the Army, and including also, of course, those brought in under the recent Military Service Act, is 534. Of these, only eleven are Grade 1 men under thirty-one years of age.

    SHIP CONSTRUCTION (AMERICA).
    Mr. ALDENasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Shipping Controller whether it is possible to state the rate at which America is now able to turn out vessels for mercantile purposes built either of steel, wood, or concrete; and whether any figures are available as to the loss of American ships already constructed?
    Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: I am not able to answer this question with any degree of precision, and I can only refer my hon. Friend to the details which have been given in the Press. Rate of output cannot be ascertained in a rapidly expanding industry by reference to recently published figures. As to American losses, I shall be glad if my hon. Friend will consult the Admiralty.

    ROYAL DOCKYARDS (SERVICE BADGES).
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he can see his way to issue some badge to be worn by men engaged in His Majesty's dockyards before the War and whose services were retained owing to their technical skill, with a view of distinguishing these men from those who have entered the yards since hostilities commenced?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: My hon. Friend is aware that the workmen referred to are in possession of the Admiralty War Service Badge; and I may remind him that the Medal of the Order of the British Empire has been awarded in a number of cases in which special services have been rendered.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Does the right hon. Gentleman fully realise the point of my question? What is the position

    979
    of the men who have not these badges in regard to the men who went into the yards since the War started?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I do fully realise the point of the question. I hope that the question of award for faithful service in the dockyards will be considered at the proper time.

    MERCANTILE TONNAGE LOSSES.
    Mr. FRANCEasked how many ships of 1,600 tons or over on the British register have been lost toy enemy action and marine risk during the four weeks ending Saturday, 25th May?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: By a recent decision of the War Cabinet after very full consideration, and in agreement with the Allies, mercantile losses are now published monthly in the form of "tonnage" figures. It is not proposed to supplement this information by publishing also the number of vessels lost in any month or other period.
    Mr. ALDENasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the recent reduction of shipping losses published for last month indicate a more successful resistance to attacks by submarines or are the result of fewer attacks by submarines due to withdrawal for refitting by the German Admiralty; if he can state whether ship production has yet begun to balance ship destruction; and, if not, when he anticipates that we shall begin to wipe off arrears of shipbuilding?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Until final figures of world output for April, May, and June are available it is not considered desirable to make any more definite statement than that of the Prime Minister in his speech of the 24th May at Edinburgh, to the effect that the Allies as a whole are building merchant ships faster than the Germans can sink them. The reduction in losses is of course not due to any one cause, but to a combination of all factors, offensive and defensive.

    INSURANCE SOCIETIES (WAR BONUS).
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Minister of Labour if the Committee appointed to inquire into the ability of insurance societies and companies to pay a war
    980
    bonus to their agents have reported; if so, what is the decision; and will he publish the evidence given on both sides, together with the full findings of the Committee, as early as possible.
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Bridgeman): The Minister has received the Report, and is now considering the question of giving publicity to the findings of the Committee.
    Mr. SNOWDEN:Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that that was the reply I got three weeks ago?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am not aware of that, at any rate, we have now received the Report, and it is being considered.

    CUSTOMS AND EXCISE (WATCHERS AND EXTRA MEN)
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Secretary to the Treasury if the watchers and extra men employed in the Customs and Excise Department are paid overtime at the rate of 6d. an hour; if a circular was issued last month by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise giving notice to merchants and traders that the charges for extra attendance given by watchers and extra men at the request of merchants and traders was increased from the 24th April from 8d. to 9d. per hour; and will he explain where the difference between the sum charged to the traders and that paid to the watchers and extra men goes?
    Mr. S. BALDWIN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury):Watchers are paid overtime at the rate of 8d. an hour, and any night attendance between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. is reckoned at the rate of six hours counting as seven for overtime purposes. Extra men are paid 6d. to 8d. an hour overtime, according to locality. The circular mentioned in the second part of the question was issued because the watchers' overtime rate has recently been raised from 7d. to 8d. an hour. The charge to the merchant for all grades of officials, including watchers, is higher than the overtime rate of the particular grade, in order to cover any incidental expense for night attendance, supervision, etc.
    Mr. SNOWDEN:Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in Liverpool these extra men;

    981
    are being paid 6d. an hour overtime and the traders are charged 9d.? Does he mean to say that the incidental expenses make up the difference?
    Mr. BALDWIN: If the hon. Member will send me particulars of that case, I will make inquiries.

  HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE OF WALES.

    VISIT TO VATICAN.
    Colonel Sir JAMES CRAIGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the visit of the Prince of Wales to the Pope was made on the advice of His Majesty's Government?
    Mr. BONAR LAW:Yes, Sir; His Majesty's Government take full responsibility for the visit, which was made on their advice, and was in strict accordance with precedent.

    London Borough Council Employés (Superannuation).
    Mr. GILBERTasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he has received any applications from London borough councils to increase the amount of their superannuation payments to their old employés; if he has refused consent to such additional payments; and will he favourably consider any further applications of a like character from any local government authority?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Walsh): My right hon. Friend has received one application. There was no legal authority for the payment of the increased pensions, and he did not feel that he could properly undertake to sanction under the Local Authorities (Expenses) Act, 1837, recurring payments of this character.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: May I ask what business will be taken next week?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: On Monday and Tuesday, the Committee stage of the Finance Bill.
  On Wednesday, the Education Bill, if, as I hope, the Committee stage of the Finance Bill be finished on Tuesday; if not, it will be taken on Wednesday.
  On Thursday, Supply.
  Mr. HOGGE: Is there any chance for the introduction of the Home Rule Bill On Friday?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I think not.
  Ordered, That the proceedings on the Education Bill and on Finance [Expenses, etc.] Report have precedence this day of the Business of Supply.—[Mr. Bonar Law]
  Resolved, That this House do sit Tomorrow (Friday). —[Mr. Bonar Law.]

  EDUCATION BILL.
  Considered in Committee.—[Progress, 38th May.]
  [Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

  EDUCATION BILL.

    CLAUSE 8.—(Provisions as to Compulsory Attendance at Elementary Schools.
    (3)The question whether a child, who is not attending a school recognised by the Board of Education as efficient, is under efficient instruction within the meaning of the Education Acts, or any by-laws relating to school attendance made there under, shall be determined by the local education authority, or, in the ease of a child attending a school or educational institution which the Board of Education or the local education authority are enabled to inspect, if the parent of the child so desires, by the Board of Education, and any such determination shall be final and conclusive.
    (4)A local education authority may with the approval of the Board of Education make a by law under Section seventy-four of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, providing that parents shall not be required to cause their children to attend school or to receive efficient elementary instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic before the age of six years:
    Provided that in considering any such by-law the Board shall have regard to the adequacy of the provision of nursery schools for the area to
    1006
    which the by-law relates, and shall if requested by any ten parents of children attending public elementary schools for that area hold a public inquiry for the purpose of determining whether the by-law should be approved.
    (5) The power of a local education authority under Section seven of the Education Act, 1902, to give directions as to secular instruction shall include the power to direct that any child in attendance at a public elementary school shall attend during such hours as may be directed by the authority at any class, whether conducted on the school premises or not, for the purpose of practical or special instruction or demonstration, and attendance at such a class shall, where the local education authority so direct, be deemed, for the purpose of any enactment or by-law relating to school attendance, to be attendance at a public elementary school:
    Provided that if by reason of any such direction a child is prevented on any day from receiving religious instruction in the school at the ordinary time mentioned in the time-table reasonable facilities shall be afforded for enabling such child to receive religious instruction in the school at some other time.
    (6)In Section eleven of the Elementary Education Act, 1876 (which relates to school attendance), for the words "there is not within two miles" there shall be substituted the words "there is not within such distance as may be prescribed by the by-laws."
    (7)Nothing in this Section shall affect the provisions of the Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf Children) Act, 1893, or the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Childen) Acts, 1899 to 1914, relating to the attendance at school of the children to whom those Acts apply
    Amendment moved [29th May], to leave out Sub-section (3).—[Mr. Marriott.']
    Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    Sir M. BARLOW: At the adjournment last night the question under discussion was the deletion of this Sub-section, the question involved being what the effect would be so far as the freedom of instruction was concerned from the point of view of the parents. Though we are grateful for the concession suggested by the President of the Board of Education, I do not think it goes quite far enough for those who are concerned in this matter. I would like to ask the attention of the Committee to the Sub-section. The Subsection says that the local education authority, generally speaking, is to be the body to decide what is efficient in the way of instruction. It is the local authority under the Sub-section, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that will have to determine the question. There is an exception in the case of inspected institutions—that is to say, where an institution is inspected the Sub-section

    1007
    provides that if a parent so desires the Board of Education may come in. The President has suggested to us—and this is the first criticism which I have to make on his speech—that it might be possible to have a council of laymen, or something of that kind, co-operating with the Board of Education. That might be all very well if in every case the parent would appeal to the Board of Education, but under the Sub-section a sit stands it is the local education authority which generally decides the issue, and it is only in the very small percentage of cases that come under the heading of inspected institutions that there would be any seisin in the Board of Education whatever. Therefore I do hope that the President is going to meet us in a conciliatory manner, as I am sure he will if he possibly can. If he is going to make any suggestion of that kind we should have it not only in the cases which I believe would go to the Board of Education under the Sub-section, but in the enormously preponderating number of cases which would be decided by the local education authority.
    Suppose you have a strong layman's Committee—for instance, the local County Court judge, or people of that kind accustomed to weighing evidence and taking a broad view, working with the education authority, then a certain amount of our difficulty would disappear. But it is quite clear that no concession which is restricted to the Board of Education itself would meet our difficulty, because the vast majority of cases under the Sub-section would never come to the Board of Education at all. Then the President said, "But if the case came before the magistrate, even if the local authority had decided that the particular kind of instruction given was inefficient, the magistrate need not impose a fine." But a statutory duty is imposed on the magistrate to fine unless he can find an excuse. There are only two forms of excuse which he can find. The first is that the instruction given elsewhere is efficient, and, if he finds that, he is at once in direct conflict with the local authority, because ex hypothesi it is only because the local authority has found the instruction elsewhere inefficient that it brings the case before the magistrate. Therefore you have at once that conflict between the judicial and executive authorities which has been so much deprecated. Just think what would happen. Suppose
    1008
    the local authority found the education inefficient. They set the Board in motion and get the parent fined because the child is not receiving- efficient instruction in a proper elementary or certified efficient school. Then the magistrate lets the parent off, because, in his view, the instruction is efficient. He must either do that, if the suggestion is made by the President is to amount to anything, or he must let him off on some other ground of reasonable excuse.
    If the magistrate is driven to that kind of subterfuge, if he has got to find, for instance, that the child is supporting his parents at home, or something of that kind, and so gets out of the difficulty created by the decision of the local authority on the material point, which is the point of efficient or non-efficient instruction, I think that that is very unsatisfactory, and I feel that now that we have the matter in hand here we ought to deal with it in some more statesmanlike way than this. Therefore I suggest that both those grounds of hope which the President held out to us are really grounds of hope that are going to land us in greater difficulties than ever. All of us who have been interested in education and its administration for a great many years would like to see some power of speeding up the private venture school. I do not think that it is beyond the wit of the Board of Education to devise some Clause which shall give increased powers of inspection of the private venture schools, so that, whether by public reports or pressure of some kind through the local authority, or, if you like, by some carefully guarded scheme of prosecution, scandals of the kind which the President related to us last night could no longer occur. I think that the incident which was given last night was not only very unsatisfactory from the educational point of view, but was something like a grave danger to the public, and therefore should have been suppressed on that ground alone.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: What is the School?
    Sir M. BARLOW: The President did not give us the name, but no doubt if the hon. Member asks for it he will be told.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: What is the remedy proposed?
    Sir M. BARLOW: That there should be inspection followed by reports, and, if that

    1009
    is not sufficient, I think that some carefully guarded power of prosecution might be given either to the local authority or to the Board of Education. But, having said that much, I think that all who have taken an interest in the Debate would agree that the power of the parent to give home education, or to send the child abroad, or do things of that kind must equally be safeguarded. And our great difficulty with regard to this Clause is that it is much too wholesale and wide sweeping. Some of the most eminent men now living have been educated entirely at home, and it is a quite conceivable use of these powers to hold that that is not efficient instruction and to force the child into the elementary school. I do not think that that would meet with the approval either of this House or of the country generally. I think that the difficulty might be met by giving the board of the local authority increased power of inspection in private venture schools, and also safeguarding the right of the parent and allowing a reasonable latitude in the matter.
    Sir J. YOXALL: The Debate, as far as it relates to this particular Sub-section, has implied a meaning which was not intended, I think, by the framers of the Bill. My hon. Friend who has just addressed the Committee has spoken as if this Sub-section referred to all kinds of private venture schools. I do not think that it can be shown to do that. Under this Clause as it stands in the Bill Dr. Blimber's Academy for Young Gentlemen would be quite safe, and so would the seminary for young ladies in Chiswick. The hon. Member for Oxford appeared to think that it referred to secondary schools. I do not think that it does.
    Mr. MARRIOTT: I did not say that
    4.0 p.m.
    Sir j. YOXALL: I beg the hon. Member's pardon. The impression which I gathered was that he thought that it was a source of danger to the secondary school. Now the matter is argued on grounds of danger to the private venture schools. It is suggested that in order to bring about the closing of these wretched places which are not really schools, which exist in many cities and towns, and which could be put down very simply and which ought to be put down, there should be introduced a large system of inspection and reports and prosecution for all private venture schools. The remedy
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    would be worse, I think, from the point of view of the champion of the private schools, than the disease itself. I am told that in the city of Birmingham there are 8,000 children attending schools of the kind described by the President of the Board of Education last night. Why do the parents of these boys and girls send them to that kind of school and pay from 2d. to 6d. a week in school fees rather than send the children to schools of the ordinary public elementary kind where no fees are chargeable at all? Children are sent to those schools because attendance at those schools is a mere sham. There is no register and no records are kept of absences. Mothers keep children at home when they please, they send them as late as they like in the day, they take them away as early as they like in the day, and these schools exist and are now being defended in this Committee as being institutions of freedom and liberty, rights of conscience and individual right. It is a very small and simple problem. Everybody acquainted with the details of education is aware of what this particular kind of school is. It is the old-fashioned day school of another day. It is not now proposed to interfere with parents who send their children to schools with costly fees—-they may be indifferent—but where you compel parents to send children to schools, then those schools should be efficient, should be healthy, should be wholesome, should be provided with proper sanitary accommodation, with proper playgrounds, with light and air. You make these rules in the elementary schools of the country, and in most schools. In Birmingham itself, the city in which the Education Reform League began so many years ago, a body which has done excellent work ever since, up to the present they have been unable to put down these schools containing these 8,000 children, because there is no power given to the education authority or the Board of Education to take action. What is the alternative? The magistrates are asked by the local education authority to fine the parents who send their children to these schools on the ground that they are not suitable; but who is to tell the magistrate whether a child is going to a proper school or not? You now bring an alternative method before the Committee in regard to these schools, a kind of Brewster Sessions. Will you have

    1011
    licences issued, will you have education committees appointed, members of which will go round and examine whether a school ought to be continued or not? Surely the education authority should decide whether a given school is or is not a fit place for education! Members have expressed fear as to the action of the education authorities driving out private adventure schools, but so far as I have been able myself to see what is the desire of local education authorities, I think that it is not at all to build schools, or to provide extra places, and you may depend upon it that the local education authority is never going to undertake the cost of replacing private schools if they possibly can avoid it. I do not think "there need be any fear of the local education authorities in that respect; still, they cannot go on continuing these unsuitable places. My hon. Friend did not quite express the views of the local education authorities, though he may have expressed powerfully the historic feeling of Englishmen for liberty, and liberty must be guaranteed at all costs. But in what respect is liberty here in danger? A magistrate has a parent before him for not sending his children to a proper school; the local education authority certifies that it is not a proper school; and they can still satisfy themselves, if they choose, when an appeal is given under "the Clause.
    Sir RYLAND ADKINS: The point, as we understood it, is that under this Clause the local education authority decides whether proper instruction is given, which is quite a distinct issue from the fact of whether or not the school itself is proper and suitable, and it is maintained that this should be decided by the local education authorities.
    Sir J. YOXALL: Take the case of other schools, of which there are a number in the country, that are not public elementary schools, but in every respect resemble them. For some reason or other the promoters of these schools do not wish to have them under the Board of Education, and therefore they do not rank as public elementary schools. The Board of Education, by their inspectors, have certified them as suitable schools. Take the Jewish schools, the reformatory schools, the industrial schools, they have to be guaranteed or certified as suitable places by the central authority upon the repre-
    1012
    sentations of the local authorities. Efforts are being made by philanthropic women to establish creches and nursery schools all over the country, and the next thing you will have will be day nursery schools, to which parents will send their children at 2d. and 3d. a week, and these schools will be held to satisfy the authorities as suitable, healthy, and satisfactory in every possible way. I cannot see what objection there can be to this Subsection, and I do not believe that it is objectionable. In my own experience the magistrates have laid great stress upon the representations of the local authorities, and there is, further, the guarantee afforded by the Press and by municipal elections in regard to any action taken. Certainly I shall vote for the Clause as it stands.
    Mr. WILSON-FOX: I think the hon. Gentleman has absolutely misconceived the intention of the Amendment before the Committee, and I believe that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Education will be the first to acknowledge that the remarks made on this subject by Members of the House who are intensely anxious that the educational system of this country should be placed on a satisfactory basis and administered efficiently have been directed to a very important question of principle, and have been made, and are being made, in no factious spirit. There is a very important question of principle involved, and I hope from the concluding portion of the speech made by my right hon. Friend last evening, that we may gather that there is a disposition to review the matter in a conciliatory spirit, and make concessions to those who hold that this principle is exceedingly important. I, therefore, wish to associate myself with the appeal made by my hon. Friend below me (Sir Montague Barlow). The ground of objection to this Clause as it stands does not seem to me to have been met or fully covered. The constitutional view and the educational aspects of it were put to this Committee yesterday by other Members of eminence in connection with education, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow University. But what has not yet been laid before the Committee are certain arguments which might, perhaps, be described as of a somewhat political character. I should like the House to consider whether, in passing a Clause of this kind, it has not wholly misconceived the temper of the people of this

    1013
    country at this moment. This great War is being fought in defence of liberty, and I feel certain that our thoughts are so centred upon that, for liberty has become to be so deeply desired that all want to resume at the earliest possible moment, and, so far as possible, the liberty which existed in pre-war days.—[Interruption.] I have no doubt that certain Members of this House, especially those who sit on a certain Bench opposite, have different ideas of what liberty is. With the exception of the occupants of that Bench, I think every Member of this House abhors Prussianism in all its forms, and also abhors bureaucratic control; so that it is a bad moment, or not a tactful moment, to endeavour to shackle the inhabitants of this country with further bonds. In popular language, they are fed up with them. This is not the moment, I think, in which parents who are already tied hand and foot in many directions, should have imposed upon them further obligations, and be prevented from moulding the lives of their children according as they desire.
    I think most Members of the House would feel safe if they were satisfied that the President of the Board of Education was going to hold his position in that Department permanently, but we cannot be sure on that point. There is, I think, a very natural fear about giving to Departments these increased and wide powers. There is a very general impression, and in some instances I think it is correct, that Government Departments are apt to be the natural lairs of cranks, and that the Board of Education perhaps offers the most promising harbourage to some of the finest specimens of that genus. Of the many specimens of cranks with which we are familiar, perhaps the pedagogic crank is the most unpractical, stubborn, and ferocious. I do not think it can be right to hand over the bodies and minds of the children of this country to the un-supervised prejudices and activities of cranks of this genus. The President of the Board of Education last evening, inadvertently, but perhaps fortunately, let the crank out of the bag. We had a peep at him, and we were not too pleased with him, and when the President had seen him previously, it was evident, from what he told us, that he had himself been surprised and shocked, for he hastened to put the crank back again into the bag as quickly as he could. He told us that he had already had this matter considered by a Departmental
    1014
    Committee, and he told us what were the recommendations of that Committee which he had been unable himself to support and had swept aside. The general idea of Departmental Committees, which it is true do sometimes very valuable work, is that they are conceived in secret and work in the dark, and their recommendations are only as a rule permitted to come into the light when they are agreeable to the Department through whose instrumentality they have been established. On this occasion the President has had the courage to inform us of opinions expressed by a Departmental Committee with whose recommendation he did not agree. I think the action of that Committee affords the fullest possible justification for the action of those who, like myself, are determined that the liberty of the subject in this matter shall not be interfered with as has been proposed. As I have said, we all agree in desiring the most efficient education, but what we are not agreed upon is the means and machinery by which effect shall be given to that view. I, for one, should certainly regard standardised education as the greatest evil that could fall on this country.
    The Englishman is accustomed to regard his home as his castle. It is equally true that he regards the King's Courts as the bulwarks of his liberties, and he is perfectly right. Certainly in this House the onus is on those who seek to deprive him of his natural bulwark. What I have been unable to understand is what the President himself and those who think with him fear, because it is purely a question of submitting evidence in a right and convincing form to a Court of law. It is nothing more than that. If the Board of Education is able to give itself a final opinion on any matter it proceeds with, it must have studied the matter, and have made what in sections and examinations are necessary. Otherwise it is not qualified to form an opinion. If it has qualified itself to form an opinion I cannot see any reason whatever why it should not be able to produce evidence in support of that opinion before a Court of law, and I have sufficient faith in the Courts of law to believe that they will attach due weight to any evidence produced. There was a rather shocking case which the President cited to us last evening, but it does not appear to me to prove very much. It is notorious that hard cases make bad law, and I do not think this House can be

    1015
    asked to decide in an important matter of this character on a mere tale of this nature of which we do not know the whole facts—we do not know in what way they were brought before the magistrates, and many other circumstances which ought to be before us—if we are to be guided by it in forming an opinion. That case, I think, must be swept aside. It is one of those cases we should all wish to be dealt with as such cases deserve.
    In concluding his speech my right hon. Friend offered us a panel. I do not know in what way such a panel would work. I agree with my hon. Friend below me in thinking that if this panel is merely to be an appendage of the Education Department it would be as objectionable as the present proposal. He is clinging again to those hole-and-corner methods of doing justice with which we are not familiar in this country, and which we are determined shall not be imposed upon us. These panels and secret inquiries are dear to the official mind, but that is no reason why the House of Commons should accept them. This proposal will not do, but it should be possible for the President to make to us a proposal with which we should all agree. It should be based, in my judgment, on increasing his powers of examination and inspection and, if necessary, of giving to a Court of magistrates, or any other body that may be concerned with the exercise of judicial powers, such assistance in the way of advisers, assessors, and otherwise as may be advisable to give the confidence to the Board of Education which it seeks to possess. But I do beg of him not to attempt to substitute this bureaucratic method of doing justice for the proper recourse to Courts of law which it is the privilege of every inhabitant in this country to possess.
    Mr. CHARLES ROBERTS: I cannot but think that the last speaker has put the case somewhat high. I doubt if the liberty of the subject or even those liberties for which we are fighting in the War are really in sight in a practical problem of this kind, but I do wish my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Education would give us a little clearer view of the alternative suggestion he was outlining last night, for it seemed to me it offered a rather promising way of getting out of the difficulty in which the Committee finds itself. For my part I cannot feel that the Law Courts are ideal
    1016
    bodies for deciding what is an efficient school or what is an efficient instruction to be given to a child. It does not appear to me really to be a judicial question at all. It is an administrative question to be decided doubtless in a judicial spirit, and I am quite willing to admit that in making that administrative decision private rights may be affected, but it is not surely a case between parties such as those cases which come into the Law Courts, and I should have thought the problem which it has to decide—whether a school is efficient or whether efficient instruction, is being given —could best be decided in the first place by the local education authority and then by the Board of Education. I think the Committee does feel that there is a real educational case which was made very convincingly by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Education, but what I imagine is in the mind of the Committee is that you might get an autocratic Education Minister or an Education Minister with a bias, that he might exercise his powers in a very ruthless, unfair way, and, perhaps do some harm and some economic damage to a private individual. That really is the point. Well, I think such an Education Minister would find it very difficult, for, after all, the first persons to decide on this matter are the local education authorities, and they would be a great obstacle to his carrying throughout England a policy which could not be commended by common sense or which perhaps laid too great a stress on some idea he had in his own mind. The President seemed to me to make a suggestion which met that danger. If he could establish a panel of independent men, who would not work, I imagine, in a hole-and-corner way, that does seem to me to meet the case. I do not know what practical arrangements the President of the Board of Education has in mind, but I think it would help us to come to a decision if he could give us words which would carry out his idea. I hope in that way it may be possible for us to arrive at a solution which would, on the one hand, protect all individual rights that really require safeguarding, and, on the other hand, enable us to get a common-sense decision on what is efficiency from the body most qualified to pronounce a decision.
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD Of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Fisher): I am anxious to carry the general sanction of the Committee with me on this matter, and

    1017
    I realise that this very interesting and instructive discussion on this Sub-section has brought out into prominence two general propositions. First of all, we have got a great educational evil to combat in some way or other. In the second place, it has brought out the proposition that there are a large number of members of this Committee who have very genuine apprehensions that the machinery of this particular Sub-section will be inimical to liberty. I am quite conscious that that is a very genuine feeling, and a feeling which I think deserves to be treated with great respect. I did at the end of the last sitting throw out a suggestion that possibly the views of my right hon. Friend might be met by the establishment of a panel, and the suggestion which I had in view was something of this kind, that we should leave out the words "Board of Education" and insert "a person chosen by the chairman or vice-chairman of the consultative committee constituted under the Board of Education Act, 1899, from a panel of referees nominated by that committee." Such a committee established under the Board of Education Act, 1899, is very representative. It is a committee representing gentlemen in various walks of life interested in education. It is not an official committee such as would incur the censure of my hon. Friend behind, and I think it could, be trusted to do even justice in any case that might be referred to it. If the suggestion finds favour with the Committee, I should be very glad to bring forward the words on the Report stage.
    Sir R. ADKINS: May I, while thanking my right hon. Friend for the pains he has taken, point out, with great respect, that the Board of Education on the Clause before the Committee only comes in the second part, and only with reference to children attending schools which the Board can inspect? For one such case there would probably be many which come within the first part of the Clause, which deals with the local education authority—an interested party—deciding its own case as judge. Therefore my right hon. Friend's suggestion, though of great value from other points of view, does not meet the particular point, which has had a good deal of support in this Committee from Members of many different types. Might I, therefore, make this suggestion? As it stands it is for the magistrate—Court of law is rather a lofty description for a humble justice—to decide whether a child who is
    1018
    not attending an elementary school is properly excused from doing so. Could he not strengthen the magistrate's decision by giving power to the local education authority to inspect any place where the child was being educated against whom the charge is brought that it is not being efficiently instructed? The report of the inspection would be before the magistrate, who would decide the issue, but decide it partly on such valuable evidence given after inspection by an education officer. That is going a very long way, but it does preserve the special point, namely, that the decision is to be taken by the magistrate who is furnished with special information, and just as in the case of any house suspected of being in sanitary the sanitary inspector can visit it and make his report and the magistrate decides whether the house shall be closed, so, if it is suspected that any child is not being properly educated, the inspector can go and make a report, and it would be simply for the lay magistrate to decide the issue.
    Mr. FISHER: I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his suggestion, and I should like to have a little time to think it over. If the Committee will allow me, I will withdraw the Sub-section and consider an Amendment on the lines suggested. [Hon. Members: "No!" and "Hear, hear ! "] I will consider the possibility of framing an Amendment on the lines suggested by my hon. Friend, having regard always to the great importance of securing that, in the case of a defence being offered on the ground that a child is receiving efficient instruction, the magistrate shall have before him a report submitted by the local education authority as to that instruction, and a report furnished after inspection.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: We have now reached a very unfortunate position with regard to the Debate on this Amendment. A great number of us believe that the Amendment, and the reasons urged for it, are, from an education standpoint, wholly reactionary in spirit. We have remained silent because the President of the Board of Education last evening resisted this Amendment, and resisted it, we venture to think, on sound educational grounds. Unfortunately yesterday on an early Amendment I came into some collision—merely rhetorical collision—with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, but I was attacking him wholly on certain arguments he addressed

    1019
    to meet a specific Amendment. But I desire to say I recognise quite fully the high educational ideals which inspire him and inspire the President of the Board of Education, and that was why we were quite content to allow this attack against an important Section of the Bill to be developed, because it was resisted and, I thought, met with quite unanswerable force by the President of the Board of Education. But the situation suddenly changes. Notwithstanding that this Debate occupied an important hour of the sitting yesterday, and has occupied the whole of the sitting so far to-day, at the very last moment, when the case for this Amendment—which I believe to be a very reactionary Amendment indeed—has been put again and again, the President gives way, and I think he has hardly gathered the real sense of the Committee in desiring to do so. I am going to support the attitude which he took up yesterday, and the attitude which I know is felt so sincerely by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education on this point.
    It becomes necessary to state the case once more, and I shall do so, but I shall not imitate the hon. Member who treated us to that very interesting essay on liberty. I was very glad the hon. Member had brought these lessons on liberty back with him, with his unique experience in that connection, but I thought the occasion was hardly relevant for that lecture on liberty, nor do I associate myself with the very extraordinary attack he made upon the advisers of the President of the Board of Education. Under this Sub-section which it is proposed to omit, this will be the procedure: If a child is attending an inefficient school, or a school that is believed by the authorities to be a wholly improper school, there are two safeguards for the school under the President's proposal. First of all, there is the local education authority, and then there is a Court of Appeal in the Board of Education itself, so that there are two eminently satisfactory and responsible safeguards for the proprietors of these private schools, and, for my own part, I cannot understand the great affection which is so suddenly developed in this Debate for magistrates and magistrates' decisions. I should have thought that when considering such a very complicated subject as what is educational efficiency,
    1020
    that whatever authority was a good authority the magistrate and the magistrate's Court were not the suitable authority for this, and I should have thought, too, that even the schools affected would have preferred not to have been dragged into the Courts, which are such an inadequate tribunal.
    The hon. and learned Member for Middleton suggested that the very considerable compromise that was offered by the President of the Board of Education did not meet the case. I think, perhaps, the President hardly appreciated that it was really not a sound point that was being made. The President's compromise was objected to on the ground that it would not meet the case of schools that were not inspected, but the answer to that is that any school that is not open to inspection can be open to inspection by its own action. Any private school that has not been inspected, but which is pronounced by the local education authority, or by the Board of Education, not to be a proper school within the meaning of the Act, can at once open its door to inspection and invite the Board of Education to inspect it, and I am bound to say that the system of public education we have set up depends for its efficiency upon the fact that it shall be controlled ultimately through Parliament working through the Board of Education. Therefore I think to set up side by side with Parliament the magistrate's Court, or, indeed, any competing-authority, is taking a backward step on educational grounds. I can only speak for myself and for those with whom I have the privilege of acting, that we support the position taken by the President at an earlier stage of this Debate, and we shall oppose the deletion of this Sub-section. If the President, in view of the discussion, wishes to make some alteration in it, we feel that the compromise he offered was a very fair compromise indeed, and I venture to suggest, with great respect to the Committee, that it would be a perfectly fair and proper course for the Amendment to be with-drawn, and for the President's amending" words to be submitted for insertion in the Bill upon the Report stage.
    Colonel Sir MARK SYKES: I should like to repel the charge which the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark (Mr. White-house) has made, which is practically

    1021
    that those who support this Amendment are reactionary and against education. I really think he ought not to make that charge.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: Will the hon. and gallant Member allow me to say at once that I did not intend to make any such charge'? I was speaking wholly of the educational influence of this Amendment.
    Sir M. SYKES: I have some notes of what the hon. Member said, but, fortunately for the hon. Member, they are practically illegible. I can assure him that there are no people who are keener, and no people who could be keener, on education than those who are associated on this particular matter. The hon. Member ought to recognise that it is not only officials and education authorities who ought to have a say in education, but that the parents are people whose views are of very great value and should certainly be taken into consideration. I submit that the opposition of the hon. Member is based upon this, that he makes many mistakes. He imagines, for instance, that uniformity is equality, that rigidity is justice, and that routine is progress. I think he does not realise that it is quite possible for people who have nothing to do with the technical part of education, or even the administrative part of education, to have quite useful views upon educational matters. Our object is not to produce sealed pattern citizens. The view here is that the questions that will arise will really be questions between the parent—that is the man-in-the-street—and the Department and a State organisation. If we are to have any decision on that matter—I do not think that magistrates are infallible —certainly not—but I think if we are to have a decision in the matter the magistrate is the sort of person who is more likely to give a right decision than any of the interested parties. One may give this example, and I am sure my case is not an uncommon one in this Committee: Many of us have had in our lives the double function of being magistrates in one walk of life and officials in another. We know that when we are officials we are hard and unyielding, and we try to enforce the official view, whereas, once on the bench, we are judicial. That being so, I submit it is not going too far to ask that the magistrate should be called upon to decide in these cases.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The position reached on this Amendment is somewhat unfortunate. We are not discussing a matter of primary educational value, and it is a great pity we should have had to spend so much time on a topic which is very largely one of administrative machinery. I cannot believe that anybody, in the course of this Debate, has deliberately used this Amendment for obstructive purposes, and I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire (Mr. Whitehouse) did not intend to convey that when he let slip certain words. But the fact remains that we have lost a great deal of time. If I thought it possible to come to a general agreement to support the Bill exactly as it stands, I would urge on the President to press it exactly as it is. But it is apparent from the discussion we have had here, and from views which have been expressed outside, that if this part of the Bill is to go through with any general assent it must be amended. I hope that nothing will be done that will be in the nature of reaction. I hold strongly that the magistrates have, in very many cases, neglected the educational interests of children, and the instances quoted by the hon. Member last night is a type of case which really outrages one's sense of justice. But the only safeguard we have against that is the safeguard given by the President. I think the right hon. Gentleman will realise, after the discussion we have had to-day, that it will not do to adhere to that safeguard without some form of Amendment. It is a purely businesslike proposal that he should have a chance of reconsidering the position, and I hope that those of us who hold progressive views about education, and would like to see the powers of the Board of Education pressed to their limit, will agree that it would be much better to start dealing with Sub-section (3) of this Clause denovo rather than to attempt to patch it up by certain words here and there.
    Mr. D. MASON: I think the hon. Member opposite rather misunderstood the position taken up by the President of the Board of Education in regard to this Amendment. He does not, as I take it, intend to delete it entirely and to completely alter its sense, but he merely intends to recast it by adding certain words. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will say if that is so?
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: May we have an answer to that?
    Mr. FISHER: I think I have made myself quite clear.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Sir ALBERT SPICER: I beg to move to leave out Sub-section (4).
    I understand, in connection with this matter yesterday, in Sub-section (1) of Clause 8, we passed a provision to the effect that no exemption to attendance at school shall be granted to any child between the ages of five and fourteen years. To-day, in this Sub-section, we are asked to say that the local education authority may, with the approval of the Board of Education, make by-laws, under Section 74 of the Elementary Education Act of 1970 providing that parents shall not be required to cause their children to attend school or to receive efficient elementary instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic before the age of six years. What is the state of the law to-day? In Section 74 of the Act of 1870, as amended by later Act's, power is given to the local education authority to make by-laws requiring parents of children of an age which is not less than five years or more than fourteen years, as. may be fixed by the by-laws, to cause such children to attend school, and Section 4 of the Education Act of 1876 lays it down that it shall be the duty of the parents of every child to cause such child to receive efficient elementary instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic. But, according to Section 48 of the Act of 1876, a child under this Act means a child between the ages of five and fourteen. I am informed that no later Acts have changed that definition, yet now, in 1918, we are asked to make a change in that direction by raising that age, which has been the actual right of the child from the year 1876 onwards— and it was. also employed and carried out in many cases from the time the Act of 1870 was passed. Why has this been done? It has been done entirely because it was more economical to erect buildings for children with an age limit of six years than to erect them for children with a limit of five years. We cannot forget that though the law lays down five as the age, successive Education Departments have allowed these changes to be made, and although I cannot believe that the distinguished educationist now at the
    1024
    head of the Board of Education will sympathise with this change, he may not always hold his present position.
    It cannot be said there is any justification for differentiation as between children in different districts. Children of five or six are not wanted in the cotton industry or in other employments, and therefore the right of the child in one district ought to be the right of a child in another. I take great interest in this matter because in the early stages of the Act of 1870 I served on a good many education committees, and those of us who look back to that period will agree that we had to give a large portion of our time to persuading parents to send their children to school in order to avoid the unpleasantness of summoning them. But I never recollect any difficulty with regard to the children of five years of age. I have had a large family of my own and we have always sent our children to school at the age of five. I believe that is good for all—good for the children, good for the home, and good for the parents. But I base my case on this, that to go to school at five has long been the right of the child; it is to-day the right of the child by the law of the land, and I therefore hope that not only the President but the Committee will accept my Amendment.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: I think I ought to take the first opportunity of saying that I hold exactly the opposite view to that stated by the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. This Clause is far from perfect, and I have Amendments on the Paper which will make it easier for parents of children under six years of age to get them excused from school. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of schooling from five to six years of age as the right of the child By all means let it remain the right of the child, but do not compel parents to send the child of that age to school. There is something to be said for compulsory education when a child might be earning money; it is compulsory to send the child to school up to the age of fourteen, because it is a well-known fact that economic pressure on the parents may tend to make them send their children into the factory rather than to the school. It is for that reason that we bring to bear the pressure of the policeman in order to prevent parents exploiting the labour of their children. But at the age of five or six that question does not arise.

    1025
    There is no question of the child of that age working, and therefore the parent has to consider solely the interests of the child in deciding whether or not it shall go to school. The right hon. Gentleman told us he sent his children at five years of age. I think very few Members of this House send their children to school at that age. Generally speaking, the child is of the age of ten years before they send it. Then why turn on the working classes and make them send their children to school at so absurdly early an age? I am not saying, of course, that you should not provide nursery schools—indeed, there is some such provision in subsequent Clauses—but why should we send them into the board schools when we know perfectly well what a mixture of children there is, and the difficulty experienced in keeping their hair clean and their clothes tidy. We know, too, the influence of bad language on children at an early age, and, therefore, I say it is most unfair you should compel parents of the working and middle classes to send their children to school at the age of five. I think the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman is illiberal, his Amendment is in the direction of bureaucratic, straight - laced uniformity; it seeks to treat children and parents not as individuals, but simply as machines. It is for these reasons that I am against the Amendment, and I hope that the President of the Board, even if he cannot accept my Amendments lower down, will at least resist this bureaucratic attempt to dominate the children of other people.
    Sir WATSON CHEYNE: I thoroughly approve of this proposal in the Bill. I do not think it can be said to be good for the health of the child—indeed, there could be nothing worse than this application of education in the form of learning reading, writing, and arithmetic to the child at this early age. During the early period of a child's life its education is carried on by its senses. Its brain is growing, and it is being educated by what it sees, hears, and feels. The brain is not developed at five years of age to a sufficient extent to be struck with intellectual things, and it is doing harm to the child to try and give it such information. It is far better at that early age merely to educate its senses—indeed, it is quite a question whether six is not rather too early to educate a child in the rule of
    1026
    three and in mechanical writing and other things. At any rate, I suggest it is not good for the child.
    5.0 p.m.
    Sir J. D. REES: I want to reinforce what has been said by the last two speakers. I feel it is most desirable and most essential that these miserable mites should not be stuffed like Strasburg geese at this immature age. Surely the children of this age should be the joy of their parents rather than the victims of the State! I wish it were six instead of five in the first Subsection of Clause 8, but at least let us have this pointer in the right direction in Sub-section (4). I beg the right hon. Gentleman rather than to give way about it to give way in the other direction, if he can, and remember that these children really do belong to their parents, who are supposed to support them. I understand there is a strong feeling that they ought not to do so, and that the State—that is, somebody else's parents—should. They are the children of their parents, who should at least be allowed control at their tenderest age. It is supposed to be very well that they should be foisted on some kindergarten at an early age at the public expense, the public being those who include the parents. Everyone is speaking as though there were a kind of gold mine in the possession of the State where you could cut and come again, instead of the State being poorer than any Member of this House, and only owning what it can get out of Members of this House and out of the pockets of others. There can be no object in eliminating this Sub-section, and I beg the right hon. Gentleman to keep it.
    Sir R. ADKINS: When I hear my hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Wedgwood) and the hon. Gentleman below me (Sir J. D. Rees) arguing both of them from an ingrained distaste of national education, I begin to wonder
    Sir J. D. REES: Not me!
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Not me!
    Sir R. ADKINS: I am very glad to find that each has severally taken the first step towards grace in repudiating the charge, and we can only accept the disclaimers and hope that their consciences are pricking them at last. Those of us who still believe in national education may perhaps be allowed to support my right hon. Friend (Sir A. Spicer). Not a word of explanation has been given, so

    1027
    far as I am aware, on any previous stage of the Bill as to why this Sub-section is needed at all. The country has had many years' experience!of right of parents to send their children to school at as early an age as five, and my hon. Friend and his advisers know quite well that that right has been taken advantage of in very many cases, and that in not a few of our large cities particularly the alternative has not been between the child going to school and receiving from its leisured parents such hints in the arts of life as the hon. Gentleman (Sir J. D. Rees) would give, but between the child going to school and running wild in the streets, learning many things it had better not have learned, and losing an opportunity of learning things which, even at that tender age, could be tactfully, taught. Therefore the whole burden of proof is on the Government for this alteration of the law. Everybody knows that the child between five and six may be injudiciously taught. No one is arguing in' favour of a child being injudiciously taught, but anyone with any familiarity with elementary education in large cities knows that in thousands of cases education between five and six has been wise and valuable, and has helped further education. I therefore hope very much that the Sub-section will be deleted from the Bill. I agree with the Amendment, and look forward with interest to what arguments the right hon. Gentleman can adduce for this ill-starred alteration. I know that the local education authorities have to fight against a great dead-weight of inertia and the instincts of the ratepayers, perfectly proper in the right place, and I am confident that if this alteration is made it will have the effect of discouraging local education authorities from doing the full work which they are qualified to do. The suggestion that this should be left to nursery schools is one which, I think, is not really helpful. I support the Amendment, and hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not alter the law in this respect. There has been ample opportunity for a full exercise of discretion in particular cases by the policy of the Board. Many of us think the policy of the Board since 1902 has not been quite so educationally zealous as it was before on this particular point; but in any case at present no case has been made out, in Parliament or out of it, for this change.
    Mr. KING: I should like to call the attention of the President of the Board of Education to the nature of the support he has had this afternoon for his proposal. He has had support from my hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Wedgwood), who moved" the rejection of the Bill; he has had support on his side from the hon. Member for Nottingham (Sir J. D. Rees), who is against all education if he can possibly avoid it.
    Sir J. D. REES: On the point of Order
    The CHAIRMAN: It really does not add to an argument on merits if hon. Members charge one another with motives.
    Mr. KING: I am very sorry. I withdraw everything.
    The CHAIRMAN: I cannot allow time to be wasted in that way.
    Mr. KING: I feel very strongly about this, because it is a matter of vital importance, in my opinion, but if I have said anything unduly strong, I apologise. At the same time, allow me to point out that the hon. Gentleman who sits for a Scottish University (Sir W. Cheyne), who also supports the President, shows his absolute ignorance of educational law to such an extent that he talks about board schools. We have not had any board schools in this country for sixteen years.
    Sir W. CHEYNE: We have them in Scotland.
    Mr. KING: In Scotland they have; this Bill does not apply to Scotland. Probably the hon. Gentleman thinks it applies to Scotland. This, surely, is worth pointing out, that the educationists are not with the President of the Board of Education on this matter! It is those who are fighting education; and lot me also call the attention of the President to the fact that this is, of course, not a new movement he is introducing here. It is the last move in a long game, a game directed against the infant departments of our public elementary schools. I have made many speeches on this subject in the course of my life in Parliament, and I ventured to look up one to-day that I made on the 16th April, 1916. I am quite surprised, in reading my own speeches, how good they were and how utterly incapable the Board of Education were to answer them on that occasion. The Parliamentary Secretary attempted to answer me, but as I

    1029
    read, after two years' lapse, I see that even now I was quite unanswerable in my contention that the whole policy of the Board of Education is to do away with all these classes in elementary schools, and this is part of that policy. Of course they must put something in their place, and what do they do? They go to people who are not educationists, but are sanitarians, medical specialists, and specialists in infant welfare, and, under the leadership of people who have done great service, like Sir George Newman and Miss Macmillan, they suggest nursery schools. There is. a Clause in this Bill which would introduce nursery schools, and would very likely give them a chance of supplying a much-felt want; but let us look at that Clause 19, which is to supply eventually, if this policy is carried out, the whole of education for children up to the age of six. These -nursery schools are schools which are to supply the needs of children over two and under five. As the nursery schools are to be established, they are not to be for children between five and six at all. The time of life when reading and the elements of arithmetic are generally acquired in our best elementary schools is between the years of five and six. They are to be palmed off on to schools which are for children of two, and are to be continued in a sort of way, with equipment provided, for babies, up to six. That is going to take the place of the very best infant departments of schools, infant teaching with specialised teachers, which you can now see at work under the best councils of our country.
    I venture to say that no better educational work is done in any department than in the upper classes of infant schools, and I believe the President of the Board of Education himself will not be able to get up here in answering—if he attempts to answer this discussion, as I have no doubt he will—and say that the elementary infant schools in the upper classes, say, from four to six, are not doing now splendid work where they are appointed and equipped, and have special teachers qualified for their class of work, as in the best infant schools under the London County Council. They are doing splendid work, and that is the standard that I want to see established. According to this Bill, however, and the social and medical authorities and infantile specialists, who want to see no education before the. age of six, we have a total ideal. We'
    1030
    have the ideal of no elementary education at all until six years, and up to that time not education as of right, but only education in a nursery school, where, as this Act says, attendance at such a school is necessary or desirable for the healthy development of the child. You are setting up instead of the old standard of a place for every child and every child in its place, which has been the policy of this country since 1870, a totally different ideal, founded on the idea of Eton, and of superior classes and rich persons who can have well-equipped nursery schools, but an ideal which is absolutely impossible of realisation in a large industrial community. I have no doubt whatever that it is in the interests of our industrial classes, and the whole industrial community, to retain the upper classes of infant schools. You cannot afford, either in the interests of the children, their parents, or their family life, to dispense with them. I look upon this Clause, instead of being progressive, to be retrograde in the very worst respect. Why, even Mr. Sidney Webb—and we all know what great ideals and great influence he has, and what a great educational enthusiast he is—speaking two years ago about the policy of the London County Council, which at that time was reducing the infant classes and was doing everything it could to turn children under four out of the infant departments and out of school—said:
    " You are turning 50,000 children out of the schools into the gutters."
    That was how one of the leaders of the County Council spoke of the policy of that body, a policy which had been urged upon them and persisted in by the Board of Education. You cannot have an industrial population in close quarters, where there are women as well as men going to work and where the housing conditions mean many hundreds of persons to the acre; you cannot, I say, have a population under conditions like that without, in the interests of the health of the children, having more infant schools, without having a place for every child, with every child in its place—this to apply at least to those up to five years of age, and I should say even earlier.
    We are not here legislating for the people who can afford to talk about sending their children to school at ten years of age. With due respect to my hon. and gallant Friend opposite, he knows very well that that is not a real nor a practical

    1031
    ideal for the moment. It may come when we have the single tax. It may come when we have Socialism. But the idea of keeping from school the children until six or even a higher age is not possible under existing conditions. I do plead, in the cause of the children, for the continued existence of our infant schools. I do plead most earnestly for very serious consideration of this question. I welcome very much the support of an educationist with whom I am not always in agreement, and who yesterday I was in discord with. His very strong support of this Amendment cannot be brushed aside. Representing, as he does, the best educational judgment of the County Councils' Association, he is in favour of the Amendment moved to delete this Sub-section. I am, therefore, sure that the President must give him some response, though I hope he will consent to drop this Sub-section as he dropped the last one. Because he has one or two hon. Members behind him who are not really in favour of this Bill, supporting him for the moment it must not be thought that he is going to carry the Bill in this respect and with these restrictions upon infant schools and infant classes without very considerable protest.
    Captain Sir C. BATHURST: I sincerely hope that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education will not accept this Amendment. So far from admitting, as the hon. Member has just submitted, that it is in the interests of educational proficiency that this Clause should be deleted, I am quite sure that the tendency of all those who study education other than from the mere point of view of filling the child's brain with matter which very often it does not absorb, from the point of view of physical fitness, and to ensure future mental receptivity; I am sure all those who may be described as true educationalists, and of far longer vision in matters affecting educational progress, will agree that this Clause promotes educational efficiency. So far from being reactionary it is in every way progressive. I am rather surprised at the hon. and learned Gentleman for Middleton (Sir R. Adkins) supporting this Amendment, because the Clause, as it stands, gives full discretion to the local education authorities, and I have always regarded him as one always prepared to safeguard the authority and discretion of
    1032
    the local authority. If there are cases— and I admit there are—where in crowded industrial centres the women go to work—and this applies particularly to Lancashire and adjoining counties—and where the children have no alternative but to spend their time, to their physical and mental detriment, in the streets, an option is provided in the Bill. You can meet that case by the due exercise of the discretion of the local education authorities. But action does-not even rest there, because by the subsequent Sub-section it is within the option of ten parents to put in motion a public inquiry as to the result of which it can be ascertained whether it is or whether it is not in the best interests of the children to be educated in reading, writing, and arithmetic under the age of six years.
    For many years I have been the Chairman of a council elementary school in. Gloucestershire, in a semi-industrial district. I am bound to say that my experience goes to show that there is not one child in a hundred between the ages of five and six who really gets any definite educational advantage in learning either reading, writing, or arithmetic. Furthermore, I submit that the existence of these under six children in the infant departments is a source of unrest and is calculated to interfere with the educational progress of some of the older children. These-younger children require plenty of muscular movement in order to ensure their normal physical and mental development, and the most you can do with them in my experience is intelligently to amuse them. The whole tendency, so far as I can judge, or know, on the part of those who really study these matters, not merely from the high and dry educational standpoint, but also from the physical health of the children point of view, is to promote this idea that you require intelligently to amuse these poor brats and not to-attempt to thrust so-called education into their poor little minds. There is nothing more painful than to pass a school-building in a crowded town and to hear these little children droning out in unison some rhyme or grammatical statement which they do not in the least understand. I cannot believe that such a process is in the true intellectual or industrial interests of any civilised country. I am quite sure, though I know it is dangerous to mention Germany at the present time as a pattern in anything, that in this one respect Germany has shown some idea of

    1033
    educational progress which we might usefully copy. She has not attempted to drive into her youngest children what we are pleased to call educational instruction. She has developed the kindergarten system to the very great advantage of her population. I am sure we ought to develop that system, for we are learning from year to year the enormous advantages which can be derived from it. I hope that this Amendment will not be accepted because I do not believe from a purely educational standpoint it is moving in the direction of progress.
    Sir J. YOXALL: I have listened with some astonishment to the suggestion made by hon. Members opposite that in the infant schools the kind of education they have described is carried on. It is not. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wilton I know is interested in education, and I recognise the great services he has rendered to it. I cannot, however, but think he is not conversant at present with the work done in the infant schools. He may have had some unfortunate experience in the infant classes in a mixed school, but that would not be a fair application of the existing educational system. The hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Wedgwood) knows nothing whatever of what goes on in these schools. The Debate has proceeded on the assumption that the children go to these schools up to the age of five. They do not. The age is three, but there are many hundreds of thousands of children between the ages of three and five who are in infant schools and classes and they are taught upon kindergarten principles, and no one wants anything better than that. Trevelyan principles have long ago been left behind. An English modification of them obtains throughout this country, and some Swedish modifications of them in regard to drill and occupation. What, however, goes on in these schools for children between three and five is not reading, writing, and arithmetic; it is, so far as the buildings permit and the staff allows, distinctly amusing and educative, not neglecting a large amount of physical exercise.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: What about those between five and six?
    Sir J. YOXALL: What you propose to do now is to improve upon the system of teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic for the children under five. However, the proposal—and this is what I desire to call
    1034
    attention to—is to make it possible that a child up to the age of six shall not attend school at all. You are going to make it possible for the local education authority to close all the infant departments until six is reached. All you suggest in place of that is nursery schools—that is, for children between three and five, but between five and six there may be no school at all. This latter year is a gap in the Bill. I propose later to move an Amendment to cover it. What I desire to suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary is that in dealing with this particular Amendment he should deal with the whole Sub-section, and state what is the intention of the Board of Education in regard to that gap of a year. However, what I really rose to do was to say that in my experience and knowledge the strictures of the hon. Members are not well founded.
    Mr. BOOTH: I understand the right hon. Gentleman will presently give the views of the Department, and I wish to say that I attach myself largely to the views of the hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme. There was a time when there was a strong Radical sentiment in this country in favour of retrenchment and liberty and against State compulsion, and if there is any kinship at all to these old Radical doctrines we should not leave it to the Unionist Members to voice it. Can it be defended that the State machine should put its paw upon children before they reach the age of six 1 It does commend itself to me that in those early days, when health is being considered and when the first budding of individual character is taking place, these children might be at home where the parents so wish it, and they would do much better under a kindergarten system. Why should the State machine not be satisfied with putting its paw upon boys and girls of the ages already provided for? I do not think we should hurry up with this abominable State intervention, which, I am afraid, may destroy the individual character of the children.
    Mr. FISHER: I propose to ask the Committee to consider the terms of the Sub-section, which I regard as constituting a very important educational reform. It is a reform which has been advocated in very influential quarters for a long time past. We had a Committee appointed by the Board of Education sitting upon this question of the school attendance of children below the age of five, and their

    1035
    Report was submitted in 1908. The consultative committee rejected a proposal to raise the minimum age of school attendance to six solely upon the ground of the average shortness of the school career, but where the age was raised by one year the Committee agreed not that the age should be six instead of five, but that the local authorities should have power to make by-laws exempting children between five and six from school attendance under stated conditions. This Sub-section in the Bill gives effect to that recommendation. The conditions upon which that recommendation has been based have been been realised by the acceptance by the Committee of Sub-section (1) of Clause 8.
    The hon. Member for Somerset (Mr. King) said that we were setting up by this Sub-section an ideal which was absolutely unrealisable in a great industrial community. In any great European country, so far as I am aware, and certainly in the United States, school attendance does not begin until six years of age. I am afraid that it is very rare for children to attend elementary schools before they reach the age of six years Therefore, the general educational practice of the world is in favour of formal instruction beginning at the age of six, and not five. Whatever may be the argument for or against that particular course, it is quite clear that the alternative we offer is not that which lies between a well-ordered home and school, but between school and playing in the streets. It is quite clear that any general raising of the age to six would be accompanied by great inconvenience unless there was some provision made for the care of the younger children who otherwise might be thrown upon the streets. I submit that the ideal age to which we ought to work up by slow degrees is a school age beginning at six with ample provision for the care and attendance of children below that age. In making this proposal and advocating this Sub-section, I hope I shall not be accused of wishing to stay the admirable work which is being done in infant departments by elementary schools. There is no intention of interfering with infant departments so organised. I think the Committee will realise that there are already sufficient precautions provided against facilitating the raising of the age contrary to the wishes of the parents in any particular area, and I think those safeguards
    1036
    are very efficient and ample. I hope, therefore, that the Committee will accept this Sub-section as it stands.
    Sir A. SPICER: I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: I beg to move, in Sub-section (4), to leave out the word "may" ["may with the approval of the Board of Education"], and to insert instead thereof the words "shall on the request in writing of not less than ten parents of children attending public elementary schools in the area."I wish to make it easier for parents to secure the realisation of the five-year rule, and to enable them to bring pressure directly to bear upon the local authorities with a view to getting this by-law passed and compulsory education realised up to six years. I think the hon. Member for Nottingham should remember that although we may be educational experts,, or think we are, we were not educated at board schools, and we are not in the same position as regards our practical knowledge as far as board-school education is concerned. I have had the privilege of going over many such schools in England, France, and Germany, and wherever I spoke to the people in charge of those schools they all bewailed the fact that the younger children kept back the older children, and consequently the education of the older children was being retarded. Of course, that is the opinion of education experts, but we ought to see when we are passing a Bill inflicting greater additional burdens upon the working classes and the lower classes that we give-them all the safeguards we can, and all the minor advantages we can where the real interests of education will not be injured.
    If we have voluntary nursery schools up-to the age of six, and then compulsion up to fourteen, I think you have got the most you can expect to get out of the parents. Where the mothers have to go out to work. they have to send their children to the nursery schools, but the better-class people can keep their children at home instead of having inspectors coming round badgering their lives out of them. Under my Amendment, where ten parents choose to petition the local authority they can force that authority to consider the passing of a by-law. In this matter I want to give the initiative to the parents

    1037
    of the children concerned instead of leaving it solely to the local education authority. I do not see any harm in that, because the parents of the children are the people primarily concerned with the education of their children. The means they have now of bringing pressure (upon the local education authorities are very small, but by this Amendment you give them an opportunity of bringing direct pressure to bear, and then you will get the true wishes of the parents translated into by-laws, and this will be better than if you simply left it to the education authority alone.
    Sir J. D. REES: I should like to indicate my approval of this Amendment. I am afraid the President of the Board of Education is not going to accept it. Nevertheless it really is very much in keeping with the opinions he has already expressed upon the last Amendment, which I am glad to think he did not accept. Why should not the education authority be influenced by the parents? Who could be so fit as the parents to urge what they should do in regard to their children? I sympathise with my hon. and gallant Friend's attitude in regard to the parent. On every occasion I will speak up for the dignity of parenthood and for parents exercising that influence which I believe they should exercise on behalf of their children, an influence with which no other body elected by the ratepayers or the State can compare. The parents ought to be allowed to exercise influence in regard to the fate of their children, and it is cruelty to force education upon them. I do not believe hon. Members in their hearts think that children can be educated at five. What is at the bottom to their minds is that this proposal will provide the children with a better home than their own homes.
    The DEPUTY - CHAIRMAN (Sir Donald Maclean): We cannot have that Debate all over again.
    Sir J. D. REES: I apologise, and I quite agree that what I said was subject to that criticism, but as I was attacked by the hon. Member for Somerset I was tempted to reply. I am sure that there is a strong body of opinion behind an Amendment like this, and I ask the right hon. Gentlemen to give it careful consideration.
    Mr. FISHER: I am afraid I am unable to accept this Amendment, because it involves a very serious interference with the rights of the parents. According to this
    1038
    Amendment if ten parents desire a certain change they will be enabled to get their way.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: With the approval of the Board.
    Mr. FISHER: Yes; I know it is with the approval of the Board. They can institute proceedings, and they have to make a case for the approval of the Board of Education. Under the ordinary operation of the Sub - section the local education authority, of course, will be influenced by the parents, and if they feel that there is a general view that the age should he raised they will doubtless raise it. It is much better to leave it to the local education authority. After all, they are ordinary citizens and representative ratepayers, and it is much better to leave it to them to take action than to give ten persons the statutory right of going to the Board of Education in this matter.
    Mr. PETO: I should have some difficulty in supporting the Amendment, because the number of parents named, ten, perhaps in a district including 10,000 parents, is too small to indicate any general view on the part of the parents that they desire to have a little latitude as to keeping these small children under the age of six at home and under their own care, instead of sending them to school. Subject to that criticism, I am entirely in agreement with the Amendment, and I hope my hon. and gallant Friend will divide. The only answer we have had is that the number ten is too small. Probably it is, and I hope my hon. and gallant Friend will agree to substitute 100 parents.
    Mr. BOOTH: Ten per cent. !
    Mr. PETO: Ten per cent. would be a still higher number. I do not mind what the number is so long as it is sufficient to indicate a substantial body of opinion in favour of a little freedom in the matter of the educational care of small children of nursery age. I do not say that all poor children have the advantage of a nursery —of course they have not—but there is a vast number of poor people where the alternative to compulsory attendance at school is not playing in the gutter, but being looked after by their own mothers in the way that our forefathers were looked after, being taught homely duties, and, above all, obedience to their parents, which they must entirely lose if they are taken away from their parents as soon as they can speak and are subjected to

    1039
    the control of certain officials provided by the local education authority. I am certain that is no substitute for the home life of these small children. I therefore maintain, if a hundred or ten per cent. of the parents in a district say that they wish an Order made making attendance below the age of six voluntary instead of compulsory, that their wishes ought to be attended to, and that the Order ought to be made. I hope the hon. and gallant Member will substitute some larger number than ten, and that he will then divide upon the Amendment.
    Sir F. BAN BURY: I agree with my hon. Friend, who has just sat down, and may I condole with him on his unfortunate accident? Ten parents are really too few in a large area, and they could not be held to represent anything like a sufficient volume of opinion, but if the hon. and gallant Gentleman would alter the number say, to 10 per cent., or something of that sort, I fail to see why the right hon. Gentleman should not accept the Amendment, because it in no way compels the Board of Education to increase the limit of age. All it does is to say that if there is a sufficient number of parents in a given district, they may represent to the local education authority their views with regard to the education of their children. Then the local education authority can go to the Board of Education and say, "Such and such a view has been expressed to us, do you approve of it being carried out?" What is the harm of that? It was stated yesterday that people who were better off than the ordinary person who sends his child to a board school would not do certain things with their own children, and that therefore those who send their children to board schools ought to be put into the same position. Is it not the privilege of parents who send their children to Winchester to see the headmaster occasionally and to represent their views to him? I do not say that he is bound to accept them, or that he would do so, but at any rate they can see the tutor of their children, or even the headmaster, and discuss matters with him. If a sufficiently large body of parents desire to have even an interview with the right hon. Gentleman himself—I am sure that they would profit by it—why should not they have it? I think it would tend to make education popular in the country.
    1040
    Therefore, as this Amendment seems to be a reasonable one, provided that the number is made larger, I hope that my right hon. Friend will accept it.
    Mr. BOOTH: The "ten parents" selected are taken from the next Section. The Board themselves say that they will hold a public inquiry at the request of ten parents about this very by-law, so that the argument which the right hon. Gentleman has used does not go very far. He said that he did not want to be approached by ten people, and that there ought to be more before he was obliged to review the matter; but ten people can interfere at a later point, and they can compel, not merely attention, but a public inquiry, with all the expense attending it. Ten parents, therefore, are to get a very much better thing than merely initiating proceedings. I take it the real objection is that in this cast the ten people would effect a very great change. That, however, would only be provided that the Board of Education agreed. If the ten parents came from a small school where there were only forty or fifty children, I have no doubt that the Board of Education would think the number sufficient for them to look into the matter, but if they came from a huge city the Board would probably say that it was only a little clique, and just acknowledge their communication. All these people would be able to do would be to communicate with the Board of Education, and I cannot see that the right hon. Gentleman would be sacrificing very much by allowing the initiative to be given to the parents. His answer that the local education authority is popularly elected is not correct, because there are co-opted people and teachers sitting upon it, and there are generally a few old maids, not that they are not competent in education. It does not at all follow that the local education authority is sympathetic to the general population. After they have been meeting a number of times on these committees people get specialists and want to run the Department. They think that the more children they get and the bigger the machinery becomes, the more important they are. It is so in every walk of life, and it would be a difficult thing to get any proposal through the local education authority in face of the opposition of the teachers and the authorities of the school if it were thought that the proposal would lessen the attendance and lead to a lowering of salaries or a loss of prestige.

    1041
    When it is conceded, as it is, that children do not get any advantage between five and six and may suffer great disadvantage, there ought to be some optional place, and instead of saying it is a choice between the school and the gutter, why not choose another phrase and say it is a choice between the school and the parks or the fields, as it would be in the majority of cases. At any rate, I hope the municipalities will keep the gutters and streets clean. In the great bulk of cases the children will either be at home, or, if it is fine, on the doorsteps, or on their parents' allotments or something of that kind. Very often in industrial centres the father is only at home in the day time. What could be better than that he should look after these children between five and six and even younger, and take them with him to his allotment and associate with them. All that we plead for is that where a case
    can be made out the parents should have the very small privilege of communicating with the Department and asking them to look into the circumstances.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: I think it would facilitate the operations of the Committee if I were to move to amend my Amendment by inserting after the word "ten" the words "per cent. of the," so that it would read "not less than 10 per cent. of the parents of the children."
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The Committee will recollect that the Question I put was, that the word "may" should stand part of the Clause. We must therefore dispose of that first.
    Question put, "That the word ' may' stand part of the Clause."
    The Committee divided: Ayes, 188; Noes, 3.
    6.0 P.M
    Sir J. YOXALL: I beg to move, in Subsection (4), to leave out the words "Provided that, in considering any such by-law, the Board shall have regard to. the adequacy of the provision of nursery schools for the area to which the by-law relates, and shall, if requested by any ten parents of children attending public elementary schools for that area, hold a public inquiry for the purpose of determining whether the by-law should be approved," and to insert instead thereof the words "if such children regularly attend at a nursery school provided and maintained by the local education authority and recognised by the Board of Education"
    I move this Amendment in order to draw the attention of the President to what appears to be a hiatus in the provisions of the Bill. The Bill proposes to set up nursery schools for children over two and under five years of age. The Sub-section before us empowers the local education authority not to compel attendance at school before the age of six, so that the child must leave the nursery school at the age of five. It is assumed that in the case of an infant school a nursery school is provided. I am not in favour of compelling children under five or six years of age to go to school. If I had my way, I would have no child commence systematic teaching until seven years of age. Any earlier instruction is educationally wrong. But what is the situation? You have all over the country parents who are very anxious that their children should go to school quite early, many of them, I am glad to think, because they now recognise the benefits of the presence of their children at school, but more, and perhaps most of them, because they want their children out of the way. You can sympathise with them. The house is small, and washing, cooking, and baby-minding have to go on
    1044
    under the charge of the good woman. She is glad to get three or four children of four, five, and six years of age away from her while school is open. The parents, therefore, want this education for children of two years of age and upwards. The President tells us, and I think he is right, that education such as this is merely an attempt to supply a kind of substitute for the infant school in the way of the nursery school for children of over two and under five.
    Mr. FISHER: May I point out that Clause 19, Sub-section (1), says:
    "Under five years of age (or such later age-as may be approved by the Board of Education)"
    Sir J. YOXALL: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to make the age six. in connection with this particular Subsection? I do not oppose this Sub-section, if I can be assured that there will be a place in lieu of the infant school now provided, or some institution equally good from the point of view of the parent. I can understand that the local education authority might, in order to economise and to prevent the building of new school departments, adopt this by-law. I therefore put down my Amendment to secure that in cases where the by-law is put into operation and the infant school is not available for these parents, there shall be a nursery school available in its stead. I do not press the Amendment or bring it forward in any strong fashion, but simply to draw attention to what will arise under the Sub-section.
    Mr. FISHER: I was a little doubtful as to the exact meaning of the Amendment until I heard the hon. Member's observations. I see now that he wants to secure that in cases where a local education authority under this Sub-section makes a-by-law raising the age from five to six,

    1045
    there should be a provision of nursery schools covering that age, between five and six, so that children should have an opportunity, if necessary, of going to school between those ages. That, I think, is a matter which will certainly be present to the Board of Education when the question of sanctioning by-laws comes up before them. I think really there is no necessity for the hon. Member to press the Amendment.
    Mr. KING: This is the sort of Amendment that is really rather trying to those who are wanting to help the President to make this a better Bill. He says he is at one with the object of it, but "we will not put it into the Act of Parliament. Trust me. Trust the Board of Education" The Board of Education varies and even the best Presidents do not last very long, and the Board of Education would only be strengthened by having such a provision as this in the Bill. We ought to have some better excuse for not inserting it. The principle is admitted and no one says a word against it. Why not put it in the Bill?
    Amendment negatived.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: I beg to move to leave out Sub-section (5).
    After the last Division I have not much hope of getting any satisfaction here. The educational experts are all in favour of these new powers, but still it is right that someone should voice some sort of protest against this development. This power given to all the local educational authorities of the country enables them to give vocational education to children under fourteen, and to start the works school. On the Second Reading this idea of vocational training has been confined to the ages above fourteen. In this Subsection power is given to start vocational schools under fourteen, and even at five years of age there may be specialist training for particular muscles of the hand and eye, and the industrial machine can be started on its career of technical development. I protest against turning children into machines at the age of fourteen, and still more below that age, and combining factory and school, stopping education and starting technical training at an earlier age than has been considered possible hitherto. There is nothing much more 10 be said on the question. It has been debated over and over again. The Labour party apparently accepts the idea that the children of the working classes are to be
    1046
    turned into material for the manufacturers. Some of us will still protest against this, even though we are voted down in the Lobby.
    Mr. FISHER: The object of this Clause is not to introduce vocational education into elementary schools, but to increase the efficiency of the practical training of a general kind already given in those schools—to increase the efficiency, for instance, of the handicraft classes and the physical training given in those schools. As education develops we are developing also a class of specialist teachers, and it is economical, and also a condition of efficiency and progress, that the influence of those specialist teachers should be felt. When I say specialist teachers, I am not advocating any undesirable form of specialisation. I am merely advocating efficient education, and it is a recognised maxim of the Board of Education that a general education can be given to children not only through books, but also through the senses, and it is in order to improve that type of education that this Clause is introduced.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: I think that requires some further remarks. The point about this is the words "whether conducted on the premises or not" Hitherto the instruction has been given in the school by the teachers who are accustomed to teach the children Now you are handing them out and putting them into-the factories or into the fields. There is nothing to prevent local education authorities, under this new scheme, having the children trained to milk cows or toll edge and ditch. There is nothing to prevent them being turned into cotton factories or engineering factories. Any scheme outside the school premises is, to my mind, particularly dangerous, and that is why I protest against this Clause.
    Amendment negatived.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: I beg to move, in Sub-section (5) after the word "child" ["power to direct that any child"], to insert the words "over the age of "thirteen"
    My object is to confine this power of the local authorities to children over thirteen, so that under thirteen they will not begin to specialise in trades.
    Mr. KING: My hon. and gallant Friend must not have works schools on the brain. There are other kinds of schools, like cookery centres and drawing classes, and

    1047
    under the highly organised educational system of some of the large towns and county boroughs you get these highly equipped schools, especially for the upper standards, and the children are sent from the schools to the centres; and this Clause is not, I hope, to be used at all works schools, but for these centralised schools, where the highest and best education goes on and attendance at which is regarded as a privilege and a prize and with the greatest enthusiasm by the scholars. Therefore I think this series of Amendments, no doubt well-intentioned, is really rather due to misconception and misunderstanding.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: There is no safe-guard as to how they are going to be used in the future. That is the real difficulty.
    Amendment negatived.
    Colonel Sir M. SYKES: I beg to move to leave out the word "special" ["for the purpose of practical or special instruction"].
    I do not wish to press this if the right hon. Gentleman can do anything to meet the views of those who fear that the word "special" might be used to cover certain forms of instruction on biology and biological facts which many people feel ought not to come into ordinary education, but ought to be imparted by others, if the parents wish that information to be imparted to their children.
    Sir P. MAGNUS: I do not see that there is any valid reason for putting in the word "special" The word "practical" really covers everything which the President of the Board of Education has in view and which is thought desirable by those who are strongly in favour of different kinds of practical instruction, whether manual or scientific. The fear was suggested by the Mover of the Amendment that the words might in some way or other be made to include a certain sort of religious instruction. I am quite certain that was not in the mind of the President of the Board of Education or of any of those who framed these Clauses. But if the President would consent to omit the word "special" —looking at it from the educational point of view I really do not see that there is any advantage in the retention of the word —I believe it would satisfy the desires and wishes of a very large number of people in this country.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I regard the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir M. Sykes) as one of the most advanced Members of this House, and I want to remove an unfortunate impression that I succeeded in conveying to him at an early stage of the proceedings. But whilst I desire with great sincerity to pay him that tribute, I think the Amendment is really a reactionary one. If you take out the word "special" you limit the character of the instruction which you may give to children in special cases, other than in the elementary schools, to practical instruction. The word "practical" in the educational world has a very special and limited meaning. Roughly speaking, it is the practice of some handicraft as opposed to the theory. The word "special" is necessary, because without it you would exclude all kinds of educational training and lectures which could not be held to come under the term "practical" For instance, a lecture on art in an art gallery would be special instruction, but it would not be practical instruction. Again, an intellectual course at a free library would be special instruction and not practical instruction. It is no good the hon. Member shaking his head. I am sure the President of the Board of Education or the Parliamentary Secretary will not dispute anything I am saying. The Amendment, which was moved with great moderation, cannot be accepted from the educational standpoint, because it raises educational issues of very great importance. There is a progressive movement—the hon. Member for London University will be well aware of it—that seeks to unite to the elementary and other schools the work of the free libraries, the local museums, the school journey, nature study, and so on, and it is necessary to bring these agencies within the ambit of this Clause. Therefore, I am sure, while the right hon. Gentleman protects, and very properly protects, himself from the Amendment, he is not going to deprive the schools of these new spiritual opportunities for education, using the word in its widest sense.
    Sir C. BATHURST: I do not often find myself in accord with the views of the hon. Member (Mr. Whitehouse), but on this occasion I am entirely in accord with the views he has expressed. I hope the President of the Board of Education will give some assurance that the provision is not likely to be interpreted in the direction which my hon. and gallant Friend fears, and that we may retain that

    1049
    which is valuable, so that we may coordinate the practical work with what is sometimes called the literary work of the schools. I have been connected with a movement, both in Wiltshire and Dorsetshire, for many years for promoting school gardens, and rendering those school gardens a real engine of education through those counties. It is not possible always to find garden ground on the premises of the school, and it is sometimes necessary to allot plots of land in connection with local allotments where the children can do the practical work of the garden. It is found necessary and desirable where you have separate premises, or, indeed, where you do not have separate premises, to carry on some work which shows in theory the underlying science of that which is actually being carried on in a manual way. In connection with the school gardens, there ought to be something in the nature of instruction in botanical science, mensuration, which is a most important form of instruction, and the actual mathematics of mensuration, practical and applied mathematics, and also elementary physics. That sort of education is not going to be complete, and is not going to be really valuable as an educational force unless you have what I may call the literary side of it carried on in co-ordination with the practical work.
    Sir J. D. REES: I should like the President of the Board of Education to inform the Committee what is meant by "special" In dealing with the Amendment he only used the word "practical" He made no reference to the words "or special" We have had two explanations. I should like to have one from the President of the Board of Education, and I should like to know what is the cost of these schemes. The hon. Member for Lanark conceived them in his usual grandiose and expensive style. Does my right hon. Friend accept it? Is that what the Committee have to accept as being comprised within the words "or special"?
    Mr. FISHER: We want the word "special" in this Clause for reasons which have been stated by the hon. Member for Lanark and the hon. and gallant Member for Wiltshire. A considerable amount of instruction is already given in elementary schools which can hardly be described as practical instruction, and yet I think it can properly be described as general instruction. It is desirable that this instruction should be given by a specialist in
    1050
    some centre at which the children can be conveniently gathered. While I think we ought to have the word "special" in the Clause, I can give my hon. and gallant Friend (Sir Mark Sykes) the assurance he desires, that the type of instruction to which he objects is not the type of instruction which has been, or will be encouraged by the Board of Education, as they consider it is entirely unsuitable for class-instruction.
    Sir M. SYKES: After the explanation given, I think that the objections which. prompted this Amendment have been met. I do not desire in any way to prevent such plans as have been adumbrated by the hon. Member for Lanark, or the hon. and gallant Member for Wiltshire. That which. I objected to is of a different character, and I suppose we may take it that it will be a fixed policy of the Board of Education that there will be no question of that kind of instruction being introduced. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. KING: I beg to move, in Subsection (5), to leave out the words:
    " Provided that if by reason of any such direction a child is prevented on any day from receiving religious instruction in the school at the ordinary time mentioned in the time-table reasonable facilities shall be afforded for enabling such child to receive religious instruction in the school at some other time.
    This is a very unfortunate passage which has crept into the Bill. It is not creditable to its author, and it will not be creditable to this Committee if it passes it. It deals with a new phase of the religious question, and brings in against the professions of the Board of Education and the President of the Board the religious question. We have just passed the first part of this Sub-section, which allows children to be taken away from the schools to a museum, an art gallery, a cookery centre, an art centre, or a science laboratory or workshop, and the class can be taught there. Now we are proposing that if the children go to one of these centres at nine o'clock, and so miss religious instruction in the school for the first half-hour, facilities must be given afterwards for making up the religious instruction which they have missed. I do not want to raise this religious question. I am quite willing for it to be ruled out of the Bill, so that we may get on with the education question,

    1051
    but I do object to its being regarded as something so necessary on every mortal day that if you do not say your prayers in school one day you must say them double time another day, or if you go to a class before the prayers are over you must take up your time afterwards and say your prayers. It is a ridiculous proposal. I have no doubt it is a proposal made with due regard to those people who place importance upon daily religious observance for the children, but to pursue that idea to such an extent that if you take the children away from the schools and they miss prayers they must make up the time, is certainly ridiculous. You are not only by this proposal making a ridiculous suggestion, but you are also imposing an extra duty upon the children, disorganising the schools, and taking up-more time in fitting in this religious exercse. If it is desired by the parents, let it be done, but let it be done apart from the obligatory nature of this Clause. I hope the Committee will be sensible enough to see that, though this proposal may have been introduced quite properly and with good intention, it is rather absurd. It will be very difficult to carry out, and is quite unnecessary.
    Sir E. PARROTT: I think the hon. Member must know little about the inside of a school and the working of a school, or he would not have presented such a view. This proposal is merely for the purpose of rearrangement of the time-table. Supposing children are taken to a picture gallery or a museum, and they miss the Scripture lesson, and they are not to make up the Scripture lesson at a later period, what will it mean in schools where they attach great value to religious instruction? It will mean that the children will not be able to go to the art gallery or the museum, or to other places for outdoor lessons. The proposal is to enable the child to take the Scripture lesson at some later period. There is no difficulty or trouble about it. It merely makes it easier for the time-table to be rearranged.
    Mr. FISHER: The hon. Member (Sir E. Parrott) has put very succinctly the object we have in view, and I have nothing to add to what he said, except that the Sub-section as it stands does, to some extent, interfere with the arrangement sanctioned in 1902. We do not want to raise a religious controversy, and we
    1052
    feel that if some special Clause were not inserted the managers of voluntary schools might have a legitimate grievance, and might say that there was a departure from the settlement of 1902, which we are pledged to maintain.
    Mr. KING: The hon. Member (Sir E. Parrott) says I know nothing of the inside of a school. I do not want to boast, but I do know what I am talking about. I had a distinct case in my mind, which had come under my own experience recently as a manager. You have girls taken away from an elementary school to a cookery centre. They go from nine o'clock in the morning for the whole attendance of the school until twelve at the cookery centre. If there happens to be on that day some religious instruction, such as catechism, and it is considered important that they should have the catechism instruction, the alternative there is not bringing the class, because one or two of a certain class or standard go away and you break up the class. Of course, if you were taking the whole class for a certain time you could easily make up the time, but in the case of these schools of practical or special value you are constantly taking numbers of children from different classes to a certain centre and you are therefore breaking the harmony and routine of that place, and cannot give any facility for religious instruction unless you give it specially or give it on the double to the other children from whom they have been separated. My objection is largely based on the question of practical working. This will not work in practice. It will cause friction and annoyance, and many teachers in voluntary schools who may be even devoted and enthusiastic about religious instruction will not bless the President for imposing this difficulty upon them. I know what I am talking about, and I shall certainly vote against this proposal.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I desire to support the Amendment. Unless it is accepted real difficulty will arise. This Bill, as drafted, makes it mandatory upon schools which avail themselves of the privilege of taking children to enjoy new spiritual influences elsewhere, if they do so during the hour of religious instruction, to reorganise their time-table and give that instruction at another time of the day. By making it mandatory you discourage schools from availing themselves of these new experiments in education. If managers of schools

    1053
    know that they will have to reorganise their time-table it is a distinct discouragement to them to proceed upon the path of advancement. I really do not think that catechism or any other form of religious instruction would be in any danger owing to this Amendment and the taking away of these children to these new influences would in itself be a great spiritual education.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: I do hope that those who are very keenly in favour of religious education will consider what they are doing if they pass this Subsection as it stands. I wish to reinforce what has been said by my hon. Friend as to the practical difficulty that will present itself to the teacher. Those who have been teachers will know the constant difficulty that presents itself when the regular routine of class work is broken, no matter in what class. That is bad enough, but when you have got to consider in an afternoon whether child A or child B is going to be taken out of the class next morning and sent to some special class outside the school during the time for religious instruction, you will have it very clearly in your mind that if you do that you must take those two children and give them special religious instruction separately at a time when you are supposed to be teaching other things, such as geography and mathematics, which are also in the time-table. It cannot be done and it will not be done, and in a great many cases, especially in the smaller schools, where the staff is limited and the work is very worrying and very crowded, the teacher will decide that the children will not be taken for that special religious instruction, and they will be left to the ordinary religious instruction and deprived of the other liberalising influences that this Sub-section provides. Many managers want this special instruction, and I know that they want it very keenly in a great many schools where managers can quite easily make their arrangements, and "may" would be a sufficient direction to the authorities to make this provision. It is the intention of the Committee in passing this Clause that the children should have full facilities for those lectures, and so on, and also that the managers of the school should see that this instruction did not entrench on the time for religious instruction. But it is not the intention of this Committee to put one against the other and to compel teachers to say, "If. I send the child to what I consider a
    1054
    necessary and liberalising course of instruction, is it going to upset the whole of my work and compel me to have a class in geography, reading, and writing, and at the same time take three or four children for special religious instruction?" That is a very bad provision. I hope that the Committee will seriously consider what should be done from the point of view of the teacher and the time-table arrangement.
    Mr. ALDEN: There is no doubt that if you take children away and give them some special instruction, either in the school or elsewhere, and then ask the teacher to find some other time of the day in which to give special religious instruction it will seriously interfere with the routine of the school, and, whether you believe it or not, the teacher dislikes very much to have the routine interfered with. He knows perfectly well that what will happen is this, the religious teaching that is then given is perfunctory and superficial. In fact, I should not be at all surprised if what happens is that this religious teaching is given at the same time as other lessons, and that the teacher will say to the scholars who are gathered together, "Take your Bible and read a passage of scripture, "or," Take your catechism and read a certain portion," while at the same time other things are being taught. I do not think that that is paying due respect to religious instruction, but that is what will happen. What the President has inserted is surely rather stronger than what is required in the circumstances, because, wherever managers insist on religious instruction, religious instruction will be given and they will find the time for it, whatever inconvenience the teacher may be put to. It seems to me that "may" would be quite enough, and I would recommend my hon. Friend to withdraw his Amendment if only the President will accept "may" instead of "shall"
    Colonel Sir R. WILLIAMS: In considering this matter let us remember what will happen. The time-table is fixed for the school and no teacher can alter it. It provides that the first half-hour of the day shall be given to religious instruction, and if my hon. Friends below the Gangway do not think that this is of importance I can tell them that religious instruction is beginning to be regarded more and more as a very vital part of education, and many teachers to-day are

    1055
    making more and more out of it, and say that to give up religious instruction altogether would be a most fatal thing not only for the children, but for the nation. Now when it is said that you are to allow these special visits, to cookery classes, and so on, to be made during the time allotted to religious instruction, the answer to the hon. Member is that cookery classes cannot be given until the register is marked, which cannot be before a quarter to ten o'clock. The corollary is this, that cookery lessons cannot begin until after religious instruction is over, and all the rest is mere camouflage and wasting time. The hon. Member for Edinburgh stated the position exactly, and the arguments that have been advanced since have very little reference to the facts. While teachers do not want their time-table broken through they do not want cookery classes given at nine or a quarter past nine, and by taking care that religious instruction is given at the proper time, the teacher might have the whole of the rest of the day perfectly free, and no difficulty would arise
    Sir R. ADKINS: I think that it would be very unsatisfactory to have a Division taken on this Amendment, because I believe that this Bill, which we all equally desire to become law, might be imperilled if the religious controversy were raised on it. I hope that it is not for that reason that my hon. Friend moved to omit this Sub-section, nor do I suggest that it is. But what I am afraid of is that if there is a Division on this point it would, both in this House and out of it, sow the seeds of religious discord. We have all agreed that this Bill ought to leave the religious compromise exactly where it was before. I am not satisfied that the Clause as drafted is really the last word that can be said on this case, and a point on which I would like to ask my right hon. Friend is—if this Sub-section is now retained in the Bill—of course it will be, Division or no Division—would he consider between now and the Report stage whether there is any other way of putting what we all want, so as not to give any excuse to any teacher for depriving the children of the special instruction because of embarrassment in the arrangement of time for religious instruction? While I am quite sure that it is unreasonable to ask my right hon. Friend to strike out the Sub-section, which is of great importance as showing the
    1056
    bona fides of the Committee with regard to the compromise, I do ask him to consider whether the practical difficulties could not be readjusted by a rather better form of words.
    Mr. FISHER: Of course it is very difficult for me to refuse an invitation to consider whether a difficulty cannot be got over, but I have explored very carefully the difficulties connected with this Clause, and I find that as a matter of practice it is very difficult to provide these new types of instruction without not infrequently impinging upon the hour generally allotted to religious instruction. That being so, it is, I think, necessary, if we are to preserve the spirit of compromise of 1902, to have a provision of this kind.
    7.0 p.m.
    Mr. KING: I am very much obliged to the President of the Board of Education for stating what I only tried to state, as a practical point of view, that there were difficulties created in connection with this question. The hon. Member for West Dorset and the hon. Member for Edinburgh declared that there were no difficulties at all, and that it was only my profound ignorance that caused me to imagine them. But now we actually find the President of the Board of Education saying that there are difficulties, and to him my gratitude, therefore, is immense. I should be prepared to withdraw my Amendment if the right hon. Gentleman would accept the word "may" instead of "shall" I think that would meet with the acceptance of all of us, and would remove my objection that this. Clause would act adversely to those who are not in favour of universal religious education. I believe that there are special cases where the parents or others feel that certain religious instruction for their children should be given, and I think in in those cases the use of the word "may" instead of "shall" would get over any difficulty.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. KING: I beg to move, in Sub-section (5), after the word "afforded" ["be afforded for enabling such child"], to insert the words "in such cases and in such manner as the Board of Education may approve"
    I think this Amendment, if accepted, would modify the actual difficulty and possible injustice which might occur in the working of this Clause. I do not want to put the obligation in such a way as would

    1057
    be severe, onerous, or impracticable. If we adopted such means as I suggest, we should get over nearly every practical difficulty the existence of which the President of the Board of Education himself quite admits. The effect of the Amendment would be that special facilities could be arranged, as, for instance, in a large urban district where the children are taken away from different classes and different schools to attend centres where they are carrying on cooking, or drawing, or some other special instruction, and this proposal would authorise the making of special arrangements in respect of the religious difficulty arising in various cases.
    Mr. FISHER: I think the objection to the Amendment is that it treats the matter as being of more importance than it really is. We consider that the local authorities will be quite capable of arranging matters in connection with these classes, and it would be very cumbrous if the Board of Education were brought in on every occasion to pronounce on mere questions of detail.
    Mr. KING: I will not press the Amendment, and ask leave to withdraw it. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Sir M. BARLOW: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (5), to add the words,
    "Provided also that nothing in this Section shall prevent a parent from choosing a school or class which his child shall attend where there is more than one school or class available"
    I move this Amendment with a view to elicit information from the President of the Board of Education. The Clause as it stands, by Sub-section (5), provides a new power in elementary education. It gives the local education authorities the right to compel the attendance of a child at a school which had not been selected by the parent. It may be that it is a salutary power, but at any rate it is a new power, and I want the Committee to realise what exactly is the issue. The provision of these classes for practical instruction are a development of recent times, and they are very desirable and useful for the development of special instruction, and so on. It is not possible to conduct them at a very large number of centres, but if you are going to compel the parents to allow the transfer of their children during a certain number of hours from one school to another, then I think you ought to give the parents at any rate as much liberty as you can, so
    1058
    that if there is practical work being conducted in the area in more than one school the parents shall at any rate be allowed to choose which of two schools they prefer. But in addition to that, there is a further point: I cannot quite make out what is the object of this Subsection. The Committee will remember that when we dealt with Clause 2, providing for the setting up of central schools, which were to be whole-time schools, and attendance at which was for a month, or six months, or a year, or whatever the time may be, the point was raised that once the child was transferred to the central school from a public elementary school the child ceased to be a member of the old school and became a member of the new school.
    The central school apparently is allowed power to take the child away from its school area to be sent to the central school for the rest of its school existence. If that be so, it is a great innovation of the powers given to local education authorities by the Education Act, and it does interfere with the right of selection by the parent of the school to which he shall send his child. I suspect I shall be told that is not the meaning of the Sub-section, and that its object is to provide for taking the child away from the regular school, chosen by the parent, and sent for a short time to classes—an hour, or two, or three hours a day, for a certain period of time, and then it returns to its own school for the rest of the time that remains. If that is so, there is less objection on the ground of the curtailment of the parent right to select his child's school. I do think, however, that the Clause ought to be a little clearer than it is. The key word of this Sub-section is "practical," and in Clause 2, which provides the central school, the key word is "practical," and anyone called upon to consider the two provisions would be in a difficulty, because one deals with children taken from one school to another for practical instruction as the be-all and end-all. Under Clause 2, therefore, if there is any question as to the exact scope and meaning of this Sub-section, it might very well be that it was the intention of the law to deal with the school to which the child is transferred as a central school. If that is so, we are at once brought up against the difficulty that you force upon the parent an entirely new system of education, and force him to

    1059
    keep his child at a particular school for the rest of his school-life—whether he likes it or not. The President of the Board of Education might make this Sub-section a little clearer, showing that it is only the intention to force the parents to send their children to the central school in cases of limited scope.
    Mr. FISHER: I have no difficulty in giving my hon. Friend the assurance he desires. The key note of this Sub-section, if I may say so, is the word "class" in Sub-section (5)—
    "shall attend during such hours as may be directed by the authority any class, whether conducted on the school premises or not"
    This Sub-section does not- deal with central schools. There is no desire under this Sub-section to transfer a child permanently from one school to another without the consent of its parents. That, of course, would be a very objectionable procedure and it is not contemplated under this Sub-section.
    Mr. BOOTH: What is the objection to the words going in?
    Mr. FISHER: The objection to the words going in is that I think the arrangement would be impracticable. It would be very difficult to work. You would, for instance, have a cookery centre, and the normal operation would be that children of a certain age should go to a cooking class at a certain hour. Are you to allow every parent to object and to say, "We would rather send our child to another school" I think it will be very difficult to work it out.
    Sir M. BARLOW: I will only say in reply to that that the word "available" in my Amendment would deal with it. It says "shall attend where there is more than one school or class available," that is to say, available as giving this particular kind of instruction. However, with the assurance that has been given to me by the right hon. Gentleman, I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    The next Amendment stood in the name of Mr. PETO.
    The CHAIRMAN: I am sure the Committee will be pleased to allow the hon. Member (who was lame) to remain seated while speaking.
    Mr. PETO (seated): I beg to move to leave out Sub-section (6).
    1060
    I cannot help being surprised somewhat that the right hon. Gentleman should have thought it necessary to put this Subsection into the Bill. It is open to very great objections. I would like the Committee first to consider what is provided under Section 11 of the Elementary Education Act of 1876, which is referred to in this Sub-section. That Section commences as follows:
    "If either—
    (1 The parent of any child above the age of five years who is under this Act prohibited from being taken into full time employment, habitually and without reasonable excuse neglects to provide efficient elementary instruction for his child; or"
    I call the Committee's attention to the effect of this on parents of any child above the age of five years. Five years, as the President of the Board of Education has pointed out, is the school-commencing age in this country. At the end of the Clause it says:
    "Any of the following reasons shall be a reasonable excuse:
    (1) That there is not within two miles, measured according to the nearest road, from the residence of such child any public elementary school open which the child can attend"
    I ask the Committee, considering a child of five years old and no school within two miles of that child's home, whether that should not be held, and has always been held since the Elementary Education Act of 1876 was passed, to be a reasonable excuse for the child's non-attendance at school. What does this Sub-section propose to substitute for it? One would have thought that if it was necessary to abolish this protection of parents, that they should not have to send a child of five to walk more than two miles each way to and from school—one would have thought that something definite would have been put in its place. We should have been told it is quite a reasonable thing for a child of 5½ years of age to be required to walk more than four miles a day. But not at all. This Sub-section says "there is not within such distance as may be prescribed by the bylaws" This is one of my principal complaints against the Bill as now framed. Constantly, in almost every Clause, you come up against the same thing. We have not anything definite, but we are told this or that is subject to something the education authorities may approve, subject to by-laws on this, that, or the other; and I defy any parent to say what will be the state of the law when this Bill actually becomes an Act of Parliament. In this

    1061
    case we have a very sensible rule for small children that it was a good excuse for non-attendance if there was not a school within two miles. I expect the President of the Board to give some good reason for departing from that rule. Unless we get some reason to convince me, I certainly j propose to press this Amendment to leave out Sub-section (6), which will leave the whole matter absolutely vague and undetermined.
    Mr. FISHER: This Sub-section was devised with the object of remedying a very small anomaly in the law. It does not make any substantial alteration. The enforcement of attendance at school is secured partly by by-laws, made under Section 74 of the Elementary Education Act of 1897, and partly under Section II of the Act of 1876. A local authority which proposes to prosecute a parent for not causing his child to attend school has to decide under what section it will proceed. In the great majority of cases the local authority proceeds under the by-laws, and under those by-laws it is a reasonable excuse for not attending school—and consequently a ground of acquittal in case of prosecution—if there is no public elementary school which the child can attend within such distance, not exceeding three miles, as the by-laws may prescribe. The by-laws may prescribe three miles, or two miles, or one mile; they may prescribe three miles, say, for older children and two miles for younger children. Allowance is made for local variation. It may be reasonable to require a child to walk three miles to school in a flat country and very unreasonable if the child lived on a mountain; it may be reasonable for a child of a certain age and unreasonable for a child of another age. The general object of this Bill is to secure this power of variation, which is desirable. If, on the other hand, the local authority proceeds under Section 11 of the Elementary Education Act of 1876, instead of varying according to the age of the child or the locality in which he lives, there is a hard and fast limit of two miles. The distinction between a prosecution under the bye-laws and a prosecution under Section 11 of the Act of 1876 is that under Section II there must be evidence that the non-attendance at school is habitual, and we get the absurd result that if a by-law mentions a limit, say, of 1½ miles, the parent who lives two miles from the school could not be
    1062
    prosecuted under the by-law, but could be prosecuted under Section II for habitual neglect to provide for the education of a child. If the hon. Member argues that children should not be required to go three miles to school, and that the universal maximum should be two miles, the answer to that is that his Amendment would not have that effect. Parents can still be prosecuted for not forcing their children to go three miles to school. One of the objections to the existing Education Acts is that they are so complicated as to be almost unintelligible to a layman, and a great effort is being made under the present Bill to simplify them as much as possible to make them ripe for codification, and it is hoped that the House will not object to this small alteration, which would be really for the general convenience.
    Mr. A. WILLIAMS: Will the right hon. Gentleman not put in the words, "not exceeding three miles," and that would bring the by-laws and Section II on the same footing, and it would be the same, whether a prosecution was taken under one or the other?
    Mr. FISHER: I do not think those words are necessary.
    Mr. BOOTH: I am not altogether satisfied that the right hon. Gentleman has given a complete answer to the hon. Member for Devizes. It is a very favourite method for the Front Bench now, guided by their officials, to find something which is a little analogous, and then say they are remedying some incongruity. We hear that frequently, and it invariably results in a little less liberty for somebody and a little more power for a Department. We have had no assurance—and I should like to ask whether one can be given— that as a result of this Amendment anybody will really suffer an injustice. It is quite clear that some children who are now too far away, and cannot attend are brought in by this Sub-section, and it is something more than remedying an anomaly.
    Mr. PETO: Before we leave this, may I ask one question? Would it not, as a matter of fact, be correct to say that where there is a prosecution for non-attendance in the case of a small child the magistrates are well aware of this Subsection of the Act of 1876, and it never would succeed if there was no school

    1063
    within two miles, and that therefore really there is a protection at present which it is proposed to sweep away?
    Mr. FISHER: I am afraid I am not sufficiently acquainted with the law to enable me to say whether in all cases magistrates can take that view. It would require a very considerable amount of knowledge of the law, but, in any case, this Sub-section does remove a very serious inconvenience.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will further consider the point I have suggested, because I would point cut that if the words I suggest are not put in you will have the extraordinary position that a prosecution under the by-laws direct would not be good, that if the local authority provided four miles as the limit the prosecution would not be good, because under the old Act they could only prescribe three miles; but that under Section 11 of the Act of 1876, combined with this Subsection in this Bill, it would be good, because it says under Section 11 "within such distance as may be prescribed by the by-laws," and if the by-laws prescribed four, five, or six miles the prosecution will not be good under this Sub-section.
    Mr. R. McNEILL: I object to this method of drafting these Bills by reference to all sorts of things. It is a simple thing to avoid all these difficulties with regard to by-laws by simply stating in a short Clause here exactly what the exemptions shall be for the future, and wiping out all enactments which deal with that point. That is the proper thing. The short Debate we have had on this Clause shows the sort of inconvenience that arises. I could not follow the meaning of the right hon. Gentleman when ho spoke of prosecution under by-laws of the Statute of 1876. I would like to ascertain, if he would explain, how it arises that there can be by-laws which prescribe one set of exemptions and the Statute which prescribes something different. I should have thought any by-laws would necessarily derive their authority from the Statute. Would he not consider my suggestion to put in quite clearly what the exemptions are to be, and repeal everything else?
    Mr. FISHER: Perhaps the hon. Member would submit an Amendment on the Report stage. No doubt we should like to have such a clear Clause as he has in mind, but there is this difficulty, that there ought to be some power of local
    1064
    variation. I submit there is some advantage in leaving it to the local education authority to determine the reasonable distance for a, child to travel to school in a particular place.
    Captain WRIGHT: Has the local education authority any power to convey children?
    Mr. FISHER: Yes.
    Amendment negatived.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill"
    Captain A. SMITH: I should like to say one or two words about this Clause. I have explained to the House on more than one occasion my sincere interest in the advance of education, and in this case it is perhaps just as well to explain what my position is. The Bill as a whole very vitally affects the great industry of Lancashire and adjacent counties; and not only that, but the whole of the low-wage adult workers. When this Bill came before the House on its First Reading, we went through it, and we found great merit in it. We decided to test again the feeling of: the operatives connected with the great organisation of which I have the honour to be vice-president, and not only test their feeling by ballot but to recommend that they accept this Clause as in the Bill. I had hopes, as others had, that the opinion formerly held and expressed by that great body of workers would perhaps have been altered, and certainly altered in a far greater degree than we ultimately found to be the case. We cannot be surprised that the great volume of opinion of operatives was against altering the age. I believe personally that the Clause will do infinite good, but when you reckon this Clause and take the other disadvantages which they are likely to suffer by succeeding Clauses, you can readily understand the position and feeling of a man and his wife, or a widower or a widow, with a family, as to what their financial position would be under the Bill. I feel that whatever may be said in this House this Clause must be carried. I feel that I could not possibly get anyone to tell with me had I to challenge a Division on this Clause. All I can do, in the name of all those people who are affected by it—and they have certainly a right to have their opinions expressed in this House—is to convey to the House and to the President of the Board of Education their feelings on this matter.

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    We had hoped that the age, at any rate, if fixed at fourteen, would remain at that. We tried to get by Amendment the privilege for our local authorities in different areas to extend the age to fifteen, which was lost, although, as I said on that Amendment, I did not think that there need be any fear of any local authority in any industrial centre of Lancashire putting that into operation; but saying that does not remove the fear of the people, and if we could have fourteen perhaps that would be better. The hon. Member for Lanark moved an Amendment which I thought then, and still think, would have been an advantage to some of the working-class families. I do not think the Committee really understood, and I notice in the papers to-day that they did not understand, what that Amendment really was. As I understand it, that Amendment in effect was that if parents had a child at an elementary school at fifteen years of age, and the parents thought that in the interest of the child, and taking their circumstances into consideration, the child should go on attending the elementary school until sixteen, they would be only too happy to give the child that privilege, not seeing their way to send it to either a secondary school or a continuation school. I voted for the Amendment on those grounds, and I believe there again it would have been a great saving to many families if they could have had that privilege without having to be put to more expense.
    I ought to say, to do justice to a great number of people, and an increasing number of people, in Lancashire, that to my knowledge, and to the knowledge of everybody who has anything to do with education in Lancashire, that a tremendous number of these people have made very great sacrifices in order that their children should receive the education which the country offers. I hope this Bill will give a further stimulus in that direction. Having said that, although I cannot see my way to challenge a Division, thinking it quite useless, as I am sure it is, having satisfied myself that I have expressed the views I am sent here to represent, I hope the President of the Board of Education in the future conduct of this Bill will give some ear to the hardships that will be inflicted if the Bill is carried in its entirety
    Mr. BOOTH: This is the second warning we have had from Lancashire Members on the Labour benches that this Bill is far in
    1066
    advance of the public demand, and I think they are right in that. I take it there is not the slightest intention or putting this Clause into operation for some years, and that, at any rate, there will be ample notice given to everybody concerned. There is no doubt that the vote to which the hon. Member for Clitheroe (Captain Smith) referred does not represent to the full the antagonism there is in that district against this Clause. People who were vitally concerned had no vote. There were a large number of voters who were not personally interested. I am not advancing this as a reason why we should not take a step forward if the House thinks fit, but rather to make an appeal that some preparatory work should be done. I understand there will be some years before this blow falls upon tens of thousands of working-class homes, because it will be a blow, I do not say from an educational point of view, because it will be a blessing, but it will be a blow financially, and a very heavy blow, and no one who knows anything about the industrial conditions of Lancashire and the West Riding would challenge that for a moment. A great deal may be done in the way of preparation, and if some announcement could be made that there will be three years before the change would become operative, I think it might do a great deal. People would have this in mind, and would be able to some extent to rearrange household expenses.
    We cannot forget that on this Clause a Division was taken as to whether we should give some maintenance allowance to those who have to attend between the age of fourteen and fifteen. The Committee rejected that, so I presume the Committee will take an antagonistic view of the other question when it comes to be moved on Clause 10. There is no doubt whatever that if the working classes realise what this will mean to them there will be a violent agitation against it. Hon. Members can easily find out for themselves. Let them go casually amongst working men, and particularly amongst working women, not on a political errand or a mission of canvassing, or for some particular mandate, but let them talk about the weather or the war news, and then gradually bring the subject up. Not more than 1 or 2 per cent. of the working people in the North of England fully realise what this Clause means. They know that something is going to happen, and that the age is being raised, but with

    1067
    regard to the abolition of half-time under fourteen, which this Clause practically enacts, and compulsory attendance up to fourteen, and see how many working women actually realise what it means. I think most Members will be greatly surprised. I am not urging that as a reason why this House should not do its duty, but it must be plain to the Government that if they put this particular Clause into operation before the next General Election they will lose dozens of scats.
    I know right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite desire to get the Government out of office. Perhaps that will account for their attitude on this Clause. Still I am not going to attribute any unworthy motives to them. I will only point out that when they were in power they did not bring in a similar proposal, and they did not do so because they knew that if they did they would lose the next election. I am a supporter of the present Government, and if an election lakes place I hope it will be returned again, but I do want to warn them against putting into force at once a provision of this kind which is greatly in advance of public opinion. After the National Insurance Bill was passed, the country had to be agitated in its favour. Here is a Bill which is much more important—much more weighty, and the Government have a chance, if they choose, to secure public support for it before it is actually in force. One of my main reasons in speaking now is to ask whether something cannot be done to educate the people, to prepare them for this change, and to reconcile them to an advanced measure of this description. It is necessary to explain to them, to prove to them, the ultimate permanent advantage to their children of having a better education, and if that be done the people may be willing to suffer the temporary inconvenience which will be the result of the enforcement of the proposals contained in Clause 8. There is a good chance to do it now. Wages are very high, and there will be no unemployment for a good many years after the War. Statesmen of all parties surely must recognise the importance of securing general popular assent to a great change of this character. This is an advanced step. I am glad to say that the members of the Labour party have done a great deal towards educating the people on this matter. They have put the other two big parties to shame in that way, but still the work
    1068
    has not been done sufficiently well for the Bill to at once command general assent. Women are going to have votes; these very women, by the operation of Clause 8, will have their actual incomes seriously diminished, and this will have been done without their being consulted in any way. I therefore would like to have some indication, which we have not yet had, that the actual passing of this Bill will not be the end of the matter. I take it I am not unreasonable in assuming this Clause will not come into force for two or three years; therefore the interval might very well be spent in preparatory educative work.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: I rise for the purpose of associating myself with the observations made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Clitheroe (Captain Smith). Like him, I sit for a constituency which is very largely affected by the proposals of this Clause. I also agree with the last speaker (Mr. Booth) that this proposal for the abolition of half-time employment is in advance of the opinion of the people who are likely to be most affected by it, and I very much regret the fact. My own views on the question are not the views of the constituency which I represent in this House. I think, however, I may modestly claim to be amongst those Members of the Labour party to whom the hon. Member referred as having incurred unpopularity by advocating in season and out of season the raising of the age for compulsory attendance at school. I have to the best of my ability during the many years I have been associated with the constituency I represent tried to educate the electors upon this matter. I have endeavoured to point out to them that, taking an all-round view, the half-time system is not to the advantage of the industry with which they are associated, and I think that the work we have done has borne fruit. My hon. Friend referred to the last ballot among operatives in the textile industry as having showed a remarkable advance in a few years upon this half-time question. The previous ballot was on the question not of raising the age of full-time attendance at school to fourteen, but to thirteen, and on that occasion the majority was something like four to one against it. But this is a much bigger question, and yet I believe the majority was only about two to one against it. That shows that though we have not yet succeeded in converting the people of Lancashire to our views regarding the

    1069
    half-time system, we have nevertheless in a comparatively short time made very remarkable progress indeed. I think if this proposal for the abolition of the half-time system had not been associated with other proposals which are practically an extension of the half-time system to eighteen years of age, the opposition to the abolition of the half-time system at fourteen would not have been so large numerically as it was.
    But, like my hon. Friend, I realise that this is not the time to press our opposition to the proposal. I should not go to the extent of voting against it under any circumstances, but I have always associated the abolition of the half-time system with the necessity for adopting other reforms at the same time. There are a great many things intimately associated with it, and if you touch one without making a corresponding change in regard to the others you are apt to arouse considerable opposition. Therefore I would urge the importance of delaying the operation for some time of this particular Clause, so that, in the meantime, the people may readjust themselves to the change. Several things are needed before the change is made effective among them an extension of the system of scholarships, and also an extension of the system of maintenance. I agree with what the hon. Member for the Clitheroe Division said as to the financial hardship this Clause will entail. Suppose you take the average wage of a half-timer at 4s. a week. That means that the parent will lose, as a result of raising the age from twelve to fourteen, a sum of £20, and that is a considerable amount in cases where there are many young children in the family. Nobody can have read the reports of Sir George Newman as to the physical condition of children in industrial districts without recognising how deplorable it is that such a large percentage of the children should be thus affected. I would suggest that at the same time as we are providing additional educational facilities we ought to provide means for the physical maintenance of the children, and I hope that that will be borne in mind and that steps will be taken to ensure it before this Clause comes into operation. I do not know whether the opposition to this Bill will be so expressive or extensive as the hon. Member who spoke last appears to anticipate. I do not know that I ought to make the confession or not, but the
    1070
    fact remains that I have not received from my Constituency, greatly interested as it is, any indication either in favour of or against this Clause. I am well aware that this question of half-timers has in a good many cases been a determining factor in the result of elections. However, the House of Commons has made up its mind that this Clause should be passed from an educational point of view, and I heartily welcome it, and in the time which elapses between the passing of the Bill and its coming into actual operation I shall do all I can to try and get carried certain economic reforms which will be some compensation to the parents for the sacrifices they will be called upon to make by having to keep their children at school for two years longer.
    Brigadier-General HICKMAN: I rather gathered that the hon. Member opposite (Captain Smith) might be inclined to move the rejection of this Clause if he could find anybody to tell with him, and I only rose to inform him that if he does move the rejection and press it to a Division I shall be only too glad to act as his co-teller.
    Sir H. NIELD: I have listened with much interest to the last speeches that have been delivered, and I am bound to say I disagree entirely with the idea that the House of Commons should on a matter of this great importance be governed by fear of what may occur on the next occasion they appeal to the constituencies. Our duty is to say whether or not the conditions of the times are such as to call for an alteration in our educational system. If it is in the interest of the nation that we should have a general levelling-up of the standard of education, and that it can only be obtained by the abolition of the half-time system, and the advance of the educational age by two years, we ought to have the courage to do it. I am surprised to hear that the people of Lancashire, whom we have hitherto regarded as advanced thinkers like the Scottish, are not in favour of this proposal. It is true the cotton industry of Lancashire is largely concerned with the employment of juvenile labour, but I should have thought that Lancashire by this time—and the West Riding of Yorkshire also—had come to the conclusion that in any advanced movement for the general amelioration of the condition of the population, it is not possible to

    1071
    consider merely business interests. These interests ought not to be allowed to weigh in the scale against the interests of the whole community, and if it is in the interest of the whole community that a universal standard should be established in order that workers may pass freely from one county to another or from one portion of a county to another portion, on an equal footing in regard to education, that surely should be the consideration governing our action.
    8.0 p.m.
    My experience is that parents will undergo very considerable privations in order to enable their children to have the benefit of better education. I had the honour, years ago, to serve upon the School Board for Tottenham, which, at that time, had no less than 25,000 children in daily attendance. We had a very considerable experience, and I am bound to say that in those days the parents did make sacrifices—I believe the area has very largely increased since—to enable their children to get all they possible could. I have consistently advocated a system, not necessarily the one referred to by the hon. Member on the other side of the House, of auxiliary help in the shape of maintenance, but I have constantly advocated, and shall continue to advocate, the widest possible opportunity being given to everybody to benefit right from the elementary schools to the universities in order that the best brains may be got, at the public expense if need be, for the benefit of the State. If that is to be done on the one side, we must look to those who have the care and feeding of the young to make some sacrifice on the other. I do sincerely hope that though there may be something to be said, and probably there is a good deal to be said, for explaining the Bill and giving practical illustrations of how it would work in different districts where it would be applied with less hardship than in others, possibly the Government might see their way to be able to apply it somewhat on the principles of the Trades Boards Act, so that they might be able to test its efficiency in working and where the shoe pinched less than in other districts. I hope the Government will realise that if we are to benefit and to have a permanent advance in the system of educating our people—because we must have it in order to compete with our present enemy, who
    1072
    has done so much in the past, as we know to our cost, to make his people perfect in regard to commerce, and education has largely helped in that respect—we must take this step whether it is popular or unpopular. I think there was never a more mischievous doctrine than that the House of Commons must determine its action by whether that action will be popular in the country. Let us be true to ourselves, and, in the memorable phrase. "Damn the consequences !"
    Mr. PETO: I think the Committee ought to have very clearly in mind the extraordinary statement made by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Snowden) just now. He told us how much he and his fellow Members had been doing to educate opinion in Lancashire on the subject of this Clause 8 of the Bill, and that in spite of the education they had received the majority in the recent ballot on this important question of the raising of the school age and the abolition of half-time was only now two to one against. He told us that he had not had a single letter from a constituent either for or against, and that is really the point to which I want to call the Committee's attention. I agree with the hon. Member for Ponte fract (Mr. Booth). I have been asked in the South of England during the Recess amongst the agricultural labourers with whom I have conversed about the Education Bill. They asked, "Why are you going back to London?"—"I am going back for the Education Bill"—"What is that?" The country does not know anything about it, and now comes the hon. Member for Ealing (Sir H. Nield), who says it is the duty of this House to pass such Bills as this without having regard to the effect on the Government or on Members of this House or whether they are popular or not.
    What is the doctrine us laid down by the hon. Member for Blackburn and the hon. Member for Ealing? It is this: In the middle of a war we are to pass what is not only an educational but an industrial revolution. We are to tell the country nothing whatever about it. We are to be perfectly satisfied with passing this so secretly that a Member representing a district like Blackburn does not receive a single letter either for or against. The people of this country believe that Parliament is here to carry on the War. People would not believe it when I told them that we were coming back here to go on with the Education Bill, and that it proposed to

    1073
    raise the school age, to abolish half-time, and to provide for 320 hours a year up to eighteen, and things of that kind. They have never heard of it. Is that anything remotely resembling our ideas of democratic Parliamentary Government? I think it is nothing short of scandalous that we should be told by Members representing Lancashire constituencies that they are not going to divide against this Clause though they know their constituents are bitterley opposed to it—two to one on the latest ballot-—because the House has apparently made up its mind to pass the Clause. I only say that because I feel bound to point out that these revolutionary Clauses are going to be passed, not only without there ever having been an election but without the knowledge of the country, and I think some protest ought to be made against carrying on legislation in this manner.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: I was very glad to listen to the speech made by the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Peto). The doctrine put forward by the hon. Member for Ealing (Sir H. Nield) is one that I have often maintained in this House. I think that when we decide here a question of right or wrong we ought to disregard the wishes of our constituents. But I think we ought to be very clear as to what is right or wrong, and I do not think that this question—
    Sir H. NIELD: May I rise to a point of explanation? I am sure my hon. and gallant Friend does not wish me to be misunderstood. What I meant to say was this, not that we should disregard the wishes of our constituents, but that we should do what we regard as our duty without regard to what may happen hereafter.
    Mr. PETO: Whether they know anything about it or not!
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: That is what I meant. The hon. Member for Ealing and I would decide questions absolutely disregarding what is the consequence to ourselves at the poll. and only as to whether a thing is right or wrong. I think we ought to be quite certain in our own minds that we are judging with all the facts and arguments before us. As the hon. Member for Devizes has pointed out, this question has not been discussed in public. The constituencies—perhaps my own is an exception—do not know, as a rule, that the school age is being raised to fourteen
    1074
    universally, and to eighteen for 320 hours a year. They simply cannot believe it possible that such a thing should be passed during the War; we who are here know perfectly well that it cannot be enforced during the War, and I do not suppose the Government intend to enforce it for anything within five, ten, or even twenty years from now. It is a question of getting the teachers and accommodation. I do not think, however, we are justified in imposing these very heavy burdens upon the people of the country without having them thoroughly well discussed in this House, and that is what has not been done. On the Second Heading and on the Amendments hitherto a series of educational experts on every side have been discussing the detailed effect of minor Clauses in this Bill on education. What we really ought to look at is the economic position of the parents. The hon. Member for Blackburn has put his finger on the spot, as he very often does. This education problem has become not merely a religious or even an educational expert problem, but an economic problem of the parents of England, and it is one which should be approached from an entirely different point of view to that of an educational problem. You have at the present time the majority of the parents of this country in such a position that they are physically incapable of sending their children to school, because they cannot afford to do without their wages. We have discussed this Bill as though it were simply a matter of the education of the children, and not of the economics of the home. We have, unfortunately, passed this Clause without providing any maintenance for the children to be kept at school.
    I want to put in as few words as possible a point of view that has not been put so far. It has been agreed that the parents of this country are willing to make very great sacrifices for their children. We all know that of the working classes. It has been shown in Lancashire that there are at least one-third of the parents of Lancashire willing to make the sacrifice of their children's wages in order to send them to school until they are fourteen. That is a triumph of human nature when you consider what the circumstances of those people are. It seems to me that in this problem there are two schools of thought. The first is the one that does not think it possible to get more parents self-sacrificing; that does not believe it possible that economic conditions can be so improved by

    1075
    trade unionism, syndicalism, or any other form of political organisation; that does not think it possible so to alter the economic situation or so to improve the stamina and character and devotedness of the parents that they will voluntarily make the sacrifice. There is the other school, which, taking its extremist view, disregards the parent altogether and takes the view of the hon. Member for Ealing that what is good for the State must be carried out by the individual willy-nilly. Many think that as Germany has done this, we must make our people do it also. Just as we adopted Conscription because Germany did so, we are to conscript these people now in relation to the schools. That is the extreme Nationalist view—that the whole population of the country are made for the nation, and are to do what is in the interests of the whole nation, disregarding the individual who has to obey these laws. I think it is time now that the Board of Education made some attempt to harmonise these two differing views. I do not see why it should not be possible in certain cases to allow a voluntary raising of the age, to provide the accommodation for the children in the schools up to fourteen, and to see whether the parents would not send their children to those schools. If they did, those parents would be better people for the rest of their lives, and the children would be better people for the rest of their lives. They would feel that their parents had made sacrifices for them, and the parents' self-respect and moral character would be better than those of any parents who had been conscripted into this sacrifice instead of making it voluntarily. We all know the enormous value to self-respect and moral character of having done a thing voluntarily. By making your rules and regulations, by saying that the children shall go to school, and that if the parents do not send their children to school the parents shall go to prison; by treating, I say, the problem in that way you lose the enormous moral advantage you would get from a people like ours, who are willing to make an enormous sacrifice, to be unselfish and self-sacrificing for the good of the children. There are certain parts of the country where. I am confident, public opinion would force the parents to keep their children at school.
    1076
    Everyone knows that if Mrs. Jones next door sends her children to a secondary school Mrs. Smith will also send hers, for she does not want her family to fall behind the other family. Public opinion is only to be resisted up to a certain point. One-third of the parents in Lancashire, at present, keep their children at school to benefit their education. If that proportion, instead of being one-third, was one-half, the other half of the population would fall into line, because they would not dare to have it said that they had fallen behind their neighbours in their love for their children, in the spirit of self-sacrifice for them. In the matter of recruiting at the end of the first year of the War people did not volunteer to fight because they wanted to fight; they went because the pressure of public opinion was such that they could not stay at home. That principle applied to education would give us an educational system which would be enormously in advance of that proposed. In the first place you would get more self-sacrifice and more devotion to children. In the second place you would get an enormous improvement in the character of the education given. At present the teachers know that their classes are there, and whether they arc good or bad teachers, whether they are heart and soul in their work or not, whether the schools are good or bad, the children have to go there, and, just like sausages out of a machine, arc treated by the ordinary educational syllabus, and are turned out so-called men and women at the age of thirteen. If attendance at these schools were voluntary, if parents did not feel compelled to send their children, there would be competition, between one and other of these schools to keep up their numbers, and to improve their method of teaching. This latter would be infinitely in advance of present day teaching, because there would be a natural competition between teachers to keep their schools up to the standard. You would thus get a healthy competition which would mean good teaching, which would mean the real mental and moral education of the children who came under that tuition. I do not say it is possible to have or to do this now, but the idea to be kept in view is the provision of facilities coupled with moral stamina amongst the parents of the country which would induce them, apart from the pressure of public opinion and apart from the pres-

    1077
    sure of real sound ethics to send their children to school, because it would be a benefit to the children.
    Sir J. D. REES: My object in speaking on this Clause is to say that there are some features in it which obviously must lead to considerable expenditure, and on no occasion when I have asked the Minister of Education to indicate what was the cost of any particular feature, and in particular this sub-Clause, has he given me any approximate figure, or indeed any information at all on the subject. I am well aware that it is not possible to give accurate estimates. I am also aware —one must know—that it is extremely difficult to apportion in any way the sum mentioned as the probable cost of this Bill amongst the different items. That must be admitted. Nevertheless, I do myself feel that at any time it would be right, when a "Rill is being passed, that the cost of it to the taxpayer should be one of the most important matters that the House of Commons could consider, and particularly now. If that is the case—and this is one of the great operative Sections of the Bill—if I am right in holding that which nobody would deny, how much more is it necessary at this time to take account of the cost and let the House know exactly where it is going in a financial sense as well as from an educational point of view? When we remember that at the present time the country is staggering under burdens which it is almost impossible to bear, and that further burdens, for other purposes than education, must inevitably be imposed upon it before we are through this War, we should be occupying our attention with that to the exclusion of every other subject at present, including education.
    While I possess a zeal for education not inferior to that of any other Member of this House, I must protest that hon. Members who have addressed the House upon this subject have simply made accusations against others who, they said, had less interest in education than themselves. These hon. Members in their remarks have clearly betrayed one thing —that they want to provide an alternative home for the children. It is not education they are after, but a home—an alternative home from what they call the gutter, though it may be from the green fields, which I consider one of the best possible places of education for the children! However that may be, they ask for an
    1078
    alternative home. I submit it is no function of education to provide a home for children, and that the money which is expended under that head should be debited to some other account than that of an Education Act. It is because uopn this score I have received no satisfaction, indeed, no reply from the Minister in charge of the Bill that I am speaking. I have received copious explanations which were totally unsolicited from the hon. Member for North Somerset, who has taken upon himself the function of explaining this Bill to all hon. Members who have been seeking explanations from the Front Bench. I have received explanations from that hon. Member, but I still look for information which I hope I shall receive from my right hon. Friend on the Front Bench. That he cannot give accurate details and information I know, but it is at least possible that he should be able to say something upon the subject. I believe his chief, the Minister for Education, has stated that the rough cost of the Bill to the country will be £10,000,000. This I already see largely encroached upon by the Clause about which I am asking for an explanation. I expect to get some answer, even if it should be necessary for the right hon. Gentleman to say that he cannot give me the information for which I ask. I want it at any rate, and if it is impossible to estimate the cost of the Bill, let it be so stated. Let it be made clear to the House that under the present circumstances of stress and storm, when it should not be considering any subject save the provision of men and money for the War, it is engaged upon the consideration of a Bill without regard to the cost. It may be all right. Let it be stated so. Let the House know exactly where it is going and what it is doing, and then I have nothing more to say.
    I really think my hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Wedgwood) has got to the root of the matter in that he wants to provide on all occasions for what he considers true and real education, while preserving the authority of the parent, which I agree with him it is most important to preserve. He does not think the provisions of the Bill are known to the country. He includes in this Clause 8, one of the most operative and most important. He is very likely right. If so, that is still more reason why we should know, and why it should be explained with the utmost care

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    from the financial point of view and in its economic aspect. I confess I do not know whether the provisions of this Clause are well known to the electors of the country. I do know that proposals are being made which must interfere a good deal with the provision of labour at a time when labour is exceedingly scarce and likely to be more scarce. The Bill, however good it may be—and I am far from disputing that—is not a timely measure with which to occupy the House at the present time. I have been told that the extra cost in connection with one of these Clauses will be £4 16s. per head. I had that given to me privately by my right hon. Friend, not in the Committee. If you take into account some hundreds of thousands of children, that will mean a considerable amount of money out of the total of £10,000,000. My right hon. Friend below (Mr. Lewis) has been good enough to give me his complete attention, for which I am very grateful. I know that no one is more capable than the right hon. Gentleman of dealing with educational matters, of which he possesses the greatest acquaintance, and, like all Welsh Members, he has a most burning interest in this subject. I hope, however, that he will not accuse me of any less interest in education, because I desire to have some information as to what this measure is likely to cost. It is not possible to have anything regardless of cost. One hon. Member spoke rather impatiently in regard to my reference to the cost, and he said that the State would meet the cost. May I point out that the State is his own pocket, and he does not seem to realise that every working man has to pay these charges through indirect taxation? I hope my right hon. Friend will devote a few minutes to the financial aspect of this question, with special reference to the Clause before the Committee.
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Lewis): May I point out, in reply to the last speaker, that my right hon. Friend, at the earliest possible stage of this Bill, gave an estimate which was the best we were able to give of the probable cost of this measure? Since then, in the course of the Debates on the Committee stage, questions have been addressed by my hon. Friend with regard to the cost of particular provisions in this Bill. I regret that for the moment I am unable to recall them, but I remember one question in
    1080
    which he asked what the cost would be of a particular provision, when, as a matter of fact, it was wholly impossible for my right hon. Friend, or anyone else, to predict how many local education authorities would adopt that particular provision. My own belief was that only a very small number would be likely to adopt it, but whatever the number, small or large, it would be absolutely impossible to give any estimate whatever of the cost.
    There is one general observation I should like to make, and it is that all the nations which have made, I will not call it expenditure, but an investment in education, have found it to be the best investment that any nation could possibly make. It is impossible to furnish statistics as to the probable results, or to say how many millions will be produced by the expenditure of so many millions upon education during the next few years, but I can say with conviction that the country can look forward with the fullest confidence to receiving, in one way or another, I believe materially and directly, a return which will amply compensate it for its expenditure. There is also a return which we can neither value nor measure in money—in fact, it is beyond calculation and beyond price—and I believe that this country of ours will receive a rich reward as a consequence of the expenditure which it will incur upon the provisions of this Bill.
    Sir H. NIELD: I wish to take this opportunity to disclaim some of the ingenious suggestions which have been made in reference to some of the observations which I made earlier in the Debate. It shows the tendency there is directly an hon. Member expresses his views to distort them, and to give them a meaning which was never intended. My hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Wedgwood) said that I desired the conscription of parents to send their children to school. On the contrary, I wish to see the curriculum so widened that every child will desire to go to school to get that information imparted to him. It has been suggested that I am advocating the passing of a measure which is not understood in the country, and my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Peto), who is always so very forcible in the manner in which he addresses himself to this particular aspect of Parliamentary life, is perfectly entitled to say that, in one sense the Bill

    1081
    is not understood. I supply the answer, and I say it is because the proceedings of this House have ceased to interest the country. Our Debates are no longer reported in the newspapers, and quite rightly, because our business is to get on with the War.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That is a general statement which may or may not be true, but it has no particular relevance to Clause 8.
    Sir H. NIELD: I think the country has ample knowledge of this Bill. Previously we have had a similar Education Bill withdrawn on account of pressure of time, and if the country does not understand this question, or the agricultural labourers of Wiltshire do not understand it, then it is their own fault. Therefore I think my remark in regard to what may happen to us hereafter if we support this Bill is quite justified.

    CLAUSE 10.—(Compulsory Attendance at Continuation Schools
    (1) Subject as hereinafter provided, all young persons shall attend such continuation schools at such times, on such days, as the local education authority of the area in which they reside may require, for three hundred and twenty hours in each year, or, in the ease of a period of less than a year, for such number of hours as the local education authority, having regard to all the circumstances, consider reasonable:
    Provided that at any time after the expiration of five years from the appointed day the Board of Education may, after such inquiry as they think fit, and after consulting the local education authority, by Order increase in respect of any area or part of an area or any young persons or classes of young persons the number of hours of attendance at continuation schools required under this Act, and this Section shall, as respects the area to which, or the young persons to whom, the Order applies, have effect as if the number of hours specified in the Order were substituted for three hundred and twenty; but no such Order shall be made until a draft thereof has lain for not less than thirty days on the Table of each House of Parliament.
    (2) Any young person—

    (i) who is above the age of fourteen years on the appointed day, or

    (ii) who is above the age of sixteen years, and either—

    (a)has passed the matriculation examination of a university of the United Kingdom or an examination recognised by the Board of Education for the purposes of this Section as equivalent thereto;

    (b)is shown to the satisfaction of the local education authority to have been up to the age of sixteen under full- time instruction in a school recognised by the Board of Education as efficient or under suitable and efficient full-time instruction in some other manner,

    shall be exempt from the obligation to attend continuation schools under this Act unless he

    1093
    has informed the authority in writing of his desire to attend such schools and the authority have prescribed what school he shall attend.
    (3) The obligation to attend continuation schools under this Act shall not apply to any young person—

    (i) who is shown to the satisfaction of the local education authority to be under full-time instruction in a school recognised by the Board of Education as efficient or to be under suitable and efficient full-time instruction in some other manner, or

    (ii) who is shown to the satisfaction of the local education authority to be under suitable and efficient part-time instruction in some other manner for a number of hours in the year (being hours during which if not exempted he might be required to attend continuation schools) equal to the number of hours during which a young person is required under this Act to attend a continuation school.

    (4) If a young person, who is or has been in any school or educational institution, or the parent of any such young person, represents to the Board that the young person is entitled to exemption under the provisions of this Section, or that the obligation imposed By this Section does not apply to him, by reason that he is or has been under suitable and efficient instruction, but that the local education authority have unreasonably refused to accept the instruction as satisfactory, the Board of Education shall consider the representation, and, if satisfied that the representation is well founded, shall make an order declaring that the young person is exempt from the obligation to attend a continuation school under this Act for such period and subject to such conditions as may be named in the Order:
    Provided that the Board of Education may refuse to consider any such representation unless the local education authority or the Board of Education are enabled to inspect the school or educational institution in which the instruction is or has been given.
    (5) The local education authority may require in the case of any young person who is under an obligation to attend a continuation school that his employment shall be suspended on any day when his attendance is required, not only during the period for which he is required to attend the school, but also for such other specified part of the day, not exceeding two hours, as the authority consider necessary in order to secure that he may be in a fit mental and bodily condition to receive full benefit from attendance at the school: Provided that, if any question arises between the local education authority and the employer of a young person whether a requirement made under this Subsection is reasonable for the purposes aforesaid, that question shall be determined by the Board of Education, and if the Board of Education determine that the requirement is unreasonable they may substitute such other requirement as they think reasonable.
    (6) The local education authority shall not require any young person to attend a continuation school on a Sunday, or on any day or part of a day exclusively set apart for religious observance by the religious body to which he belongs, or during any holiday or half-holiday to
    1094
    which by any enactment regulating his employment or by agreement he is entitled, nor so far as practicable during any holiday or half-holiday which in his employment he is accustomed to enjoy, nor between the hours of seven in the evening and eight in the morning: Provided that the local education authority may, with the approval of the Board, vary those hours in the case of young persons employed at night or otherwise employed at abnormal times.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The first Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Blackburn does not read. It seems to me not in the right place.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: You say it does not read. It seems to me that it reads all right, if I may respectfully say so.
    The DEPUTY - CHAIRMAN: The Amendment is after the word "provided" to insert the words "including the provision of maintenance grants" It is quite impossible to put these words in here.
    Mr. PETO: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the word "all" ["all young persons"] and to insert instead thereof the word "such"
    We have now got to the Clause which introduces, perhaps, the most revolutionary of the proposals in this Bill, namely, that children should attend continuation schools from the age of fourteen to eighteen. The first question is whether when we make this great change it should be a change of universal application applied to all children, whether they are book children or children which are represented in every class of child life who are anxious to be getting to something real and doing something with their hands rather than continuing their education with their heads. The Clause proposes that all young persons shall attend such continuation schools. There will be enormous difficulties in providing suitable continuation schools, and still more in suddenly providing the immense new staffs of teachers, and teachers of a new and different class. The teacher who can teach a young person from fourteen to eighteen years of age in these 320-hour-courses per annum, so as to increase their efficiency and their well-being in every way, as well as their book learning, will certainly have to be men of wide experience and with a wide outlook upon life, with a full appreciation of what are the real things which count in life for the people whom they arc to teach. It will not be very easy to find this large class of teachers at once. That is only an

    1095
    incidental difficulty, and one of the difficulties which I propose to deal with by this Amendment. Instead of the word "all" I propose to insert the word "such," and immediately after I propose to insert the words "not exceeding one-fifth of the total number of scholars leaving the elementary schools in any year" I am not pinning myself to the exact traction.
    In making this great change, particularly in view of the fact that it has been brought out in the Debate on the last two Clauses that the people of this country as a whole have not really had these proposals laid before them and do not understand them, it will be very wise to make this continuation education apply only to selected children in the first instance, and while giving an opportunity to every child to get the advantage of this continuation education, arrange it so that only those who have shown the most aptitude in their past studies up to the age of fourteen, and indicated the most probability of benefiting by further education, should be selected for this experiment of continuation classes. Further on I have an Amendment to add the words
    "Provided that in selecting the young persons who are required to attend continuation schools regard shall be paid by the local education authority—

    (a) to the wishes of the parents;

    (b) the aptitude, mental capacity, and attainments of the scholars;

    (c) the class of employment or career that the young persons adopt or intend to adopt"

    These are the considerations which I think should govern the selection of the children in the first instance at any rate. It is a very common thing in the case of boys who show more aptitude and intense desire to get on with the practical work of life, to withdraw them from school at the age of sixteen or seventeen, which is a still more common age, and put them down to the definite work of life. It is done with the boy who is doing no good by being kept longer in school, and this happens constantly, even in the greatest of our public schools.
    Why should we suddenly raise the age of compulsory education, which has generally been up to thirteen, of every single child, whether he is likely to benefit by this continued education or not, right up to the age of eighteen? It is a jump of five years and not one year in compulsory education. In view of the fact that it is obviously quite impossible to find this great staff of
    1096
    suitable teachers all at once, and from the other point of view of familiarising the young persons themselves and the parents, not with the idea that they have to attend certain classes up to the age of eighteen, but with the idea that education is a privilege, and that we cannot provide education for everyone up to eighteen, it would not be fair to compel every child, whether stupid or clever, or poor or well off, to attend these continuation classes up to the age of eighteen. Would it not be better to say that we will provide for one-fifth or one-fourth of the children, or whatever fraction the Committee may think fit; and in selecting that fraction we will have some regard to the wishes of the parents, the aptitude and mental capacity of the individual child and the class of employment or career which the child means to take up? It is obvious that Clause 10 cannot be accepted as it is. Therefore, I am glad that it falls to me to move the first Amendment of the Clause, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman seriously to consider at the very outset whether this is not essentially a problem that ought to be met by a process of selection, at any rate in the first instance. If he begins with one-fifth of the children, and finds that he has got the teachers and that everybody is anxious to make a success of the scheme, what is the difficulty in a few years, when he has the Act in operation, if he, finds that that is not sufficient in raising the proportion?
    It is clear that the Clause has never been really thought out from the point of view of the various trades of the country. It has never been explained how the requirements of agriculture can be reconciled with the proposal of the Bill to put in 320 hours' work, during forty weeks of the year, in these continuation schools. Already it has been found that it will not provide boys for the Merchant Service. Then practically no young persons would enter the building trade if their employment were so irregular during the time when, under the old system, they would be apprenticed to their trade. For those reasons I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider seriously whether he will not get the new principle accepted much more easily in the country and get to work quite as quickly, from his own educational point of view, if he begins with the selective principle, taking a reasonable fraction of the children, than if he attempts, at any rate on paper, to lay down the

    1097
    principle that all young persons shall attend continuation schools for exactly the same period all over the country, whatever their position and whatever the class of district in which they live. I am quite sure that this is not the way to get this new principle to work smoothly. The method which I proposed in this Amendment, read with the other two Amendments which follow, the principle of selection, is far preferable to this principle of cast-iron universal compulsion for every young person all over the country.
    Mr. LEWIS: The proposal embodied in Clause 10 of the Bill is one of the two main proposals of the Bill itself. My hon. Friend who has moved this Amendment attacks it on a point which, if it be successfully attacked, would be vital. We regard this particular Clause as vital to the Bill, and we regard the provision which the Amendment seeks to alter as vital to the Clause. My hon. Friend proposes that we should proceed by a system of selection. I am not at all sure whether or how a system of that kind would be likely to work in practice, but we believe that the benefits of continuation education should be extended to all boys and girls between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. It is true that many of them are dull boys and girls, but, after all, the system is intended primarily for ordinary boys and girls, because they are to be the fathers and the mothers, citizens, and voters of the future. The main object of this particular provision is to prevent the enormous waste of time, energy, and money which is entailed by our present elementary education system. I have said before in the course of these Debates, and I repeat it now, that a considerable part of the £30,000,000 a year that we spend on elementary education might just as well be thrown into the Thames, for the simple reason that the education is not continued. The young people lose the education they have acquired at elementary schools, and I urge, on economic grounds, if on no other, that the education should be continued for a reasonable time between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.
    We have another object in view as well. The enlistment and recruitment of our New Army has revealed great and most serious defects in the physical constitution of a large proportion of the population of these Islands. We wish to improve
    1098
    the physique of the coming generation, and an essential part of the education and training which will be imparted to young people between the ages of fourteen and eighteen will be physical training. But I would remind the Committee that none of the objects I have referred to can possibly be achieved unless the system is made a universal system. I readily admit that the system ought to be framed in such a way as to provide for cases of exceptional ability, and, indeed, the continuation classes themselves will enable teachers from time to time to select the brighter and more brilliant boys and girls, those who will be fitted for a higher system of education, in order that special provision may be made for them, if possible, by transferring them to some suitable form of full-time instruction. I do not think it can be said that there are any classes of boys and girls who cannot profit by the new teaching. It has been suggested that there are boys who are not good at head work or at books. If that be so, the physical training will be an admirable thing for them, and they can be educated not only through their heads but through their hands; they will receive valuable training of hand and eye. What we desire is that the education should be fitted to the capacity of the young person. We believe that there is no class of boys or girls so dull that they cannot profit by continued teaching. Even in the case of defective children it is a matter, by now, of practical experience that 45 per cent. of that poor, unfortunate class, blind, deaf, and epileptic, have been sufficiently well taught to earn their own living. I hope that, without troubling the Committee with considerations which have already been entered into very fully upon the Second Reading and the First Reading of the Bill, the Committee will come to the conclusion that what we need in this respect is a system of national and universal character, a system which shall enable all citizens of the future to have the advantage of a good continued education.
    Amendment negatived.
    Major BARNSTON: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the word "shall" ["persons shall attend such continuation school "] and to insert instead thereof the words, "may on the written wish of their parents, or parent if but one be alive"
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I have some doubt in my mind whether I ought to admit this Amendment. Its effect apparently is to negative the Clause, because the Committee has already set up continuation schools; but I will hear what the hon. Member has to say.
    Major BARNSTON: The object of my Amendment is to make these continuation classes for young people between fourteen and eighteen of a voluntary character, giving the parents the right to decide whether their children or child shall or shall not attend those continuation classes. I think there are a great many reasons why this Amendment is worthy of the consideration of the House and of its support. I was away during the Second Reading to-day owing to a great family sorrow, but I read very carefully most of the discussion, and I observe that hon. Members during the Debate spoke about poor parents in the country being anxious that their children should have as good an education as possible. I believe that to be perfectly true. At the outset I will point out that my Amendment does not take away from a single parent the right for their children to attend a continuation class. All that my Amendment affirms is, "these are your children, and it is your right and your privilege to decide whether you wish your children or child to attend these classes or not" I think this is a case where the parent, or somebody, wants a really wise discretion. The mental capacity and capabilities are as different in children as the facial expression of their parents, and you cannot pass all the children through the same sort of educational machine and hope to have the same result in every particular case. That is not the way in which you carry out the education of children in other situations of life. If a child evinces promise and is fond of his books he is sent to the university, but if he is fond of out-door life, and hates books, he is trained for an out-door life, for farming, or he goes out to the Colonies. I believe that the more you separate the responsibility and the rights of parents from their children the worse it is for the children, and the worse it will be for the country afterwards. We always hear a great deal on platforms and no doubt we shall hear again about "trusting the people," "the. people's will prevails," and "the people's will must decide," but my Amendment merely says that as regards continuation classes the people or rather the parents should have a
    1100
    voice in the training of their children. I suggest that it is vital as a general principle in a matter of education to carry the parents with you.
    What is the position of Parliament to-day? Everybody knows that this House of Commons is practically dead. We have chosen to elect ourselves to sit here, and we have not been before the constituents for seven and a half years, and seven and a half years ago there was not a whisper about education or anything connected with this Bill. I believe myself that the parents of the country properly understand the position, and I do not think that in the country districts this Bill is understood in the least. I should very much doubt if it is realised in the country districts at all, and I suggest parents will very much resent the way in which they are treated. Assuming there is no discretion, and that the parents will have no voice in this matter, what, in my humble judgment, will happen? My hon. Friend pointed out just now that all young people are very anxious to work with their hands, to do what their elders are doing, and above all things, to do something useful. For the most part, they look forward to the time when they are going to leave school. After all, you must remember that these young people who are going to attend these classes will not be children in the ordinary sense of the word; they will be eighteen before they leave. The girls, before they leave these continuation classes, may be engaged to be married, and, decrepit and old as I am now, when I was eighteen years of age, I thought myself a good deal older than at the present time.
    What will happen? They will be summoned before a local bench of magistrates, they probably will have the sympathy of their parents, their employers, the neighbourhood, and probably the local bench of magistrates themselves. Not a single director throughout the country could ever have been consulted on the subject at all, and until it is passed the parents will not know it exists. By these means education will not really be advanced. There is one other point I might mention. I think I am right in saying that it will be a great many years before there are sufficient teachers in the country to carry out these continuation classes, and while that is so, surely from every point of view and from the point of view that this House has exhausted its

    1101
    mandate, it would be wise to start by making these continuation classes voluntary, and see how they work, and in the future alteration may be made.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: This is, of course, the most important Debate on the whole of this Bill. It is a question whether revolution is to be made or not, because of all the revolutionary proposals in this Bill the proposal that you should make education compulsory up to the age of eighteen is far and away the most revolutionary. First of all, let me point out to this House that we are not only eight years old, but even for an eight-year-old Parliament we are more out of touch with the country than any previous Parliament since the Revolution. During the War some of us have been down to our constituencies once or twice, but we have not had the constant drain of previous Parliaments, the constant necessity of attending to our constituencies in order to see that the other party did not get a step ahead of us, and, party politics ceasing, Members of this House become more divorced from their constituencies than ever before. It is well known that many Members are not standing again—
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: It is quite obvious that the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member are not directed to the Amendment.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: The Amendment is to prevent education being made compulsory beyond the age of fourteen, and making it compulsory up to the age of eighteen. That is a matter of such importance to the people of this country that we ought to consider whether, with all our excellent aims and objects, with all our enthusiasm for German systems of education, we really have the right to throw these enormous burdens upon the parents of this country, and to start this revolutionary form of education. I think that this House of Commons is most unfitted to pass this measure or to raise this question.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: This will not do at all. The Amendment is in quite a small compass, and the hon. and gallant Member knows from the discussion which I have had with him in private that I had doubts whether this Amendment ought to be admitted at all. I have admitted it, but I must ask him to confine himself as the Mover of the Amendment did quite strictly to the Amendment
    1102
    before the Committee, which is as to whether you are going to give one parent or both parents the right to take their child out of the operation of this Clause.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: I think that is the most important Amendment of the whole Bill. It is true you were in doubt as to whether you were to allow the discussion on this "shall" or "may"—
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: It is not "shall" or "may."
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: it is "shall" or "may," as to whether the continuation classes are to be compulsory or voluntary. It seems to me a vital point. It is not a minor Amendment, which can be passed over. We may have a discussion now or on the end of the Clause, but whenever we have it, it must be the most important discussion of the whole Bill. As I have said, I think we in this House are particularly unsuited at the present time to decide upon any such point as this. My objections to making this secondary education compulsory are, first, that we are unfitted to propose this revolutionary state of things, and, secondly, that we have not had an opportunity yet of discussing the first consideration which we ought to tackle, and that is to say whether the parents arc to be paid maintenance allowance for their children taken away from these schools and sent to the secondary schools. From the attitude of the Government on other Amendments it would appear that they do not contemplate paying any maintenance for these children.
    Sir M. BARLOW: He promised to pay half.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Up to the age of thirteen.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. and gallant Member again, but I would point out that an Amendment dealing with that very point appears on the next page.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Yes, I know; but I am pointing out to the Committee the difficulty of deciding as to whether this should be voluntary or compulsory until we know first of all whether the parents are to receive maintenance allowance for their children. I must assume, therefore, that the Bill will pass through without such a provision for maintenance, and the House has got to realise that, in carrying the Bill as it stands, and in rejecting this

    1103
    Amendment, they are going to ask the working-class people in this country to send their children to school until they are eighteen without any monetary compensation whatever. Whenever it is a question of any vested interest being superseded, whenever any person's business is taken away by the State, or his income affected by the action of the State, we find them very ready in some things to grant compensation, but here you say to a man and his wife, or it may be to a widow, that their son, who is now thirteen years of age, from whom they expect to get a certain amount of wages every week in a year's time—that, although he represents the potential income, by a mere stroke of the pen we are going to alter all that, so that not at the age of fourteen, but at eighteen, will he begin to earn full wages. That may be right or it may be wrong. All I am saying is that it is a question of such importance that we ought to hesitate before we accept the views of the educational enthusiasts and adopt this compulsory education up to eighteen. I am particularly anxious to have it voluntarily, because from a great many points of view I like this system of continuation classes. I want them to succeed. Work in our factories, especially work for the children, is becoming more purely mechanical every day. The system which has sprung up in America, called the Taylor system of efficiency, is gradually creeping in here, eliminating all brain work and turning all our working people into absolute mechanical tools, with the smallest possible motion of the fingers and hands. All this is taking the interest out of every piece of work done in our factories to-day, and to turn children into that life at fourteen seems to me like turning them into hell. For that reason I would welcome any system which took them out of that.
    Therefore I want these continuation classes to be a success. If they are to be a success, they must have the people of this country behind them. You cannot impose a system upon a people which is naturally conservative in its ideas, and which naturally desires to keep its economic standards up to pre-war level. If you want to see this system a success—and I believe I want it just as much as the President himself—I am quite certain if you come along and say, "Here is an ideal system which we, the all-highest, think is the best for the country, and, whether you
    1104
    like it or do not like it, you have jolly well got to have it"—that is a system which. will not work in this twentieth century in this country. People in this country do not take laws easily. I can imagine some hot-headed member of the Labour party going to his constituency and saying to the children, "You strike; they cannot send you to prison" You would break down that law right and left by the solidarity of the working classes in refusing to obey. Some do not realise the power of direct action that is coming into play in. this country. You have got to realise that the power of combination is a very vital factor in preventing the efficacy of your laws. We know we have passed law after law for ten years and they are dead letters.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. and gallant Member must really address himself to the Amendment or I must finally stop him. This is the third time I have asked him to endeavour to keep to the Amendment.
    Sir J. D. REES: The fact that but for the hon. Member for Haggerston (Mr. Chancellor), those three benches, except for the hon. Member, are unoccupied, makes this the occasion for stating a general proposition without fear of contradiction. I have always noticed that when a Member of this House states anything without fear of contradiction he always states the most debatable proposition. Nevertheless, I would suggest that the most disagreeable feature of any entertainment is the bill—I do not mean the Bill to be discussed, but the bill to be paid. From that point of view my hon. Friend's Amendment, which has been accepted, I understand, in substitution of, on in parimateria, with that of my hon. and gallant Friend behind me and myself, is one on which this point, namely, the bill to be paid, arises. In the first place, this Amendment immediately raises the question of the definition of a young person. The Bill runs:
    "The expression 'young person' means a person under eighteen years of age, who is no longer a child"
    When a person under eighteen years of age is or is not a child has never been explained by the draftsman.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I do not see anything about the definition of a young person, but I see something about parents. I have not heard a single word yet from the hon. Member which is relevant to the Amendment.
    Sir J. D. REES: I have no intention of trespassing upon the patience of the Committee in this matter, but I do submit upon this Amendment—or, if you rule it would be more convenient to discuss this question upon the Amendment which is in the name of my hon. and gallant Friend and myself, in which case I shall immediately sit down and wait until that Amendment is moved—I do submit that it would be the right way to deal with the question. But my hon. and gallant Friend led off his speech as if it raised his own Amendment and not that of the hon. and gallant Member for Cheshire.
    The DEPUTY - CHAIRMAN: This Amendment disposes of the succeeding Amendment.
    Sir J. D. REES: On a point of Order. I submit that if that is your ruling, the Amendment of my hon. Friend does not dispose of that Amendment.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I think it does. The decision of the Committee on this Amendment disposes of the succeeding Amendment. If the hon. Member wishes to speak to that Amendment, he must address his remarks on this, and relevantly, too.
    Mr. LEWIS: My hon. Friend has put down four Amendments, which have to be read together, and the effect of those Amendments would be as you, Sir Donald, indicated, practically a negation of the Clause. The intention of my hon. Friend, apparently, is to substitute for the universal obligation upon young persons to attend continuation schools an obligation which could only be entered into on the option of each young person, with the consent of his parents. I am afraid that it is not clear from my hon. Friend's Amendment whether there is to be any power to the young person to reverse his option at a later date, and to get out of the obligation or not. But whether that be so or not, I submit to the Committee that if this Amendment were accepted it would strike a vital blow at the Clause under consideration. This is an extension of elementary education. Elementary education is, and must be, compulsory in this country. It is compulsory in every modern civilised State, and as these continuation schools are an extension of a compulsory elementary system it is essential that the continuation schools should also be of a compulsory character. [An HON. MEMBER: "Not at all!"] I will give a reason why they should be of a
    1106
    compulsory character. My hon. Friend's Amendment would have the effect of enabling parents or young persons, as the case might be, to withdraw themselves from the scope of these continuation schools. Now, the fact of young people attending these continuation schools does impose—we have never attempted to deny it—a certain amount of inconvenience upon industry.
    That being the case, the employer would naturally accept the services, not of a young person who was under any obligation to attend continuation school, but rather of one who was not under that obligation. There would, therefore, be on the part of the parent a tremendous inducement to draw a young person from the continuation school, and there would also be a tremendous inducement on the part of the employer to give a young person so withdrawn preference over one who was under an obligation to attend such a school. I was delighted to hear my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for New castle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) say what he did. In the course of these Debates nothing has given me greater pleasure than to hoar him say he earnestly and profoundly desires these continuation schools to be a success. I accept that in the fullest sense of its meaning, but if my hon. and gallant Friend desires to paralyse this system of continuation schools, he can do so by the method he is adopting in supporting this particular Amendment, because, if the Amendment were carried, the effect would be that the work of the continuation schools would be paralysed, and their organisation in many parts of the country would be made practically impossible. It is out of the question for us to face the prospect of setting up a national system of this character unless accompanied by a national obligation of attendance.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: The Parliamentary Secretary really must not misunderstand me. I am very anxious that these schools should be a success, but I do not think that they can be made a permanent form of education if compulsion is insisted upon. If the system is voluntary parents will be willing to make sacrifices, but if you make it compulsory they will simply be up against it.
    Colonel Lord Henry CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: Is not the hon. and gallant Member repeating the speech he made five minutes ago when he was called to order?
    The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Whitley): I am afraid I was deprived of the pleasure of hearing that speech.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: We were discussing general questions five minutes ago. This is the really important point—Are you going to make people do that which we want them to do voluntarily? If you make your system of education voluntary you will get the people keen to support it and you will get satisfactory results, but if you suddenly start with a compulsory system without teachers and without ex perience—and we shall want a lot of experience in order to eliminate dangerous forms of working—if you spring on the country a plan of continuation schools without teachers and without a proper system, you will have a failure. It is known perfectly well it is not going to be started during the War—
    The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is now repeating the speech which I did hear.
    Mr. T. WILSON: The Parliamentary Secretary made a statement which I would like him to put a little more clearly. He suggested that in other countries it was compulsory for young persons eighteen years of age to attend schools during the working hours of the day.
    Mr. LEWIS: I said that in this country and in other modern countries in Europe elementary education was compulsory.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: You said continuation education.
    Mr. WILSON: We are speaking now of compulsory education over the age of fourteen. If the remark of the right hon. Gentleman meant anything, it meant that compulsory education obtained in other countries in Europe, and perhaps in America, up to the age of eighteen, and if it did not mean that it did not mean anything at all, and then the right hon. Gentleman was simply attempting to sidetrack the Committee.
    10.0 p.m.
    Mr. LEWIS: My argument was that elementary education was compulsory, and it was necessary for this extension of elementary education to be compulsory also. In the earlier part of my remarks I said that elementary education was compulsory in this country as in other modern countries of the world; and I will now go further and say that in some countries continuation schools are compulsory, that in
    1108
    certain cantons in Switzerland they have been compulsory for many years past, that in parts of Germany they are compulsory at the present time, and also in parts of America.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: No!
    Mr. LEWIS: Yes; I believe I am right in saying that they are compulsory in certain States of America, and when the enemy was thundering at the gates of France a Bill was brought forward there providing for compulsory continuation teaching to a much later age than is suggested in this Bill.
    Mr. WILSON: I again say that the right hon. Gentleman is begging the question, because in America, as he will find, if he will read a reply given by the Foreign Secretary to me a day or two ago, it stated there, quite clearly, that what he says obtains in America does not obtain in America or in Germany or in France. Therefore the right hon. Gentleman in making that statement was misleading the House. We want correct statements made here as to what obtains in other countries and we have not had a correct statement in this instance. I put it to the right hon. Gentleman again, Will he say that in America, or in France, or in Germany, it is compulsory for young persons between the ages of fourteen and eighteen to attend continuation schools during working hours? I am quite certain, if he will make inquiries, he will find it is not so.
    Mr. LEWIS: I will reply to that at once. I never said that continuation education was compulsory in France during working hours; I do say it is compulsory in many States in Germany, and I believe I am right in saying it is also compulsory in some American States during working hours.
    Mr. WILSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in America—at any rate, in some States there—children can go to work at the age of thirteen and attendance at continuation schools during working hours is not compulsory? If he will refer to the reply given by the Foreign Secretary to my question on Tuesday last, he will see that that is so. I am surprised in connection with this Bill that while we are told that everybody is prepared to trust the parents yet on this particular Amendment hon. Members will not trust them at all. I cannot say that I agree

    1109
    with the Amendment. I do not like the wording of it. I do not see why one parent should have the option of saying that his child shall not go to a continuation school while another parent is denied that right. Let the rule be general and apply to everybody, if it is to apply at all. Therefore, I cannot support the Amendment that has been moved by the hon. and gallant Gentleman. I do, however, say that in connection with this matter the parents of the children of this country ought to have more time given to consider how the Bill is going to affect them. Although the right hon. Gentleman is addressing a large number of meetings in the country he has never really got the opinion of the working classes on this subject, and I would point out that if he is not prepared to make a concession on this particular point, if not by this Amendment in some other words, the parents of the children will take the matter into their own hands. I can speak in regard to Lancashire and Yorkshire, and then not only would the Act be made ridiculous, but those responsible for it would be made ridiculous in the eyes of the people of this country. It is possible that right hon. Gentlemen do not care about that, but I agree with the remarks made by the hon. and gallant Gentleman that this Parliament has outlived its usefulness, and that we really have no right to pass a Bill of this description without consulting the people who are going to be affected by it. Whilst I cannot support the Amendment, I do say the Government ought to reconsider the position with regard to this particular Clause, and should recognise that the people have some right to a voice in the legislation that ought to be passed in connection with education.
    The CHAIRMAN: I must point out that if the lines of the last speech are to be followed the discussion should come on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," and not on an Amendment to the Clause.
    Sir F. BAN BURY: I will be careful not to infringe your ruling, Mr. Whitley. I must say I have considerable sympathy with the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down (Mr. T. Wilson). I did not hear the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, who apparently—I am sure, of
    1110
    course, quite inadvertently—has misled the Committee with regard to the procedure in other countries.
    Mr. LEWIS: Indeed, I have not.
    Sir F. BANBURY: The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has stated that in America the education in continuation schools during working hours is not compulsory, and I understood the Parliamentary Secretary to admit that that was so.
    Mr. LEWIS: What I said was that I believe that in certain States of America compulsory continuation teaching does exist in working hours.
    HON. MEMBERS: Some !
    Mr. LEWIS: Some States.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I understand from the hon. Gentleman (Mr. T. Wilson) that he made a statement to the effect that in America compulsory teaching in continuation schools during working hours was not compulsory. If that is so there is a difference of opinion between him and the Parliamentary Secretary.
    Mr. LEWIS: I am afraid I must interrupt the right hon. Baronet again. He cannot speak of "America" in this connection. America is a system of States and each State has its own law.
    Sir F. BANBURY: It is very important if precedents are going to be quoted that we should have them correct. I do not know whether in America these things take place or not, but we have had a distinct assurance from the hon. Gentle man below the Gangway that in America —I assume that in "America" he includes the whole States—certain things do not occur. We have the statement from the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lewis) that he believes —
    Mr. T. WILSON: I put a question to the Parliamentary Secretary asking him if he could state where this did obtain, and he could not give a reply.
    Sir M. LEVY: On a point of Order. Is this the right place to discuss whether the continuation education should be given during working hours or not, because it might be found possible to raise the 320 hours to be given outside the regular working hours.
    The CHAIRMAN: The question of working hours is raised in a subsequent Amendment. The question here is "may" or "shall"
    Sir F. BANBURY: I was not discussing whether or not it was right that young persons should be kept in continuation schools during working hours. The only reason I brought in working hours is that the hon. Gentleman has stated that that was not the case in America, while the Under-Secretary has said that he believes that in certain States in America it has occurred. My point is that if the Government of the day come forward, bring in a Bill, and make statements they ought not to make those statements in the House on hearsay or because they believe they are correct, but because they know they are correct. Otherwise, they are misleading the House and doing something which they ought not to do. I would further say that I am not influenced by the argument of the Parliamentary Secretary that these things occur in Germany. The only comment that occurs to me on that is that we had better vote against them if they do occur in Germany. It is all very well to say, "Oh, no." I see that the Parliamentary Secretary made a motion of disagreement, but at any rate the result of this has not been successful.
    HON. MEMBERS: Not in the War?
    Sir F. BANBURY: I thought this was going to civilise the nation and improve the moral tone of the people. It has not done that in Germany, and therefore I venture to say that the illustration that these things are necessary because they are done in Germany is a very bad one. I am inclined to think that if the hon. Gentleman goes to a Division I shall support him.
    Sir W. DICKINSON: I have been asked to speak on the subject on behalf of the London County Council, and I do not want to take up more time than is necessary. Having Listened to this Debate, however, and having heard the series of speeches in opposition to the proposal to make this provision compulsory, I feel bound to say that the largest education authority in this country, and I believe the one which has had the greatest experience in this subject of educating children above the age of fourteen, is unanimous in the opinion —
    HON. MEMBERS: London is not the whole country!
    Sir W. DICKINSON: No; London is not the whole of England, as hon. Members say, but at the same time London constitutes a very considerable part, and experience there is worth having. For thirty years the London County Council, or its predecessor the London School Board, have dealt with this particular question, and they have become convinced that it is necessary, in the interests of the children at their schools, that this continued education should be made compulsory. I am informed that that body, which includes employers and representatives of labour—[HON. MEMBERS: "And parents!"]—and I have no doubt members not only whose parents have been educated in the schools, but who them selves have been educated in the schools—at any rate you. have nobody with a better insight into the conditions of the people in London than this representative body—are anxious in view of their experience to obtain that this Clause should be carried through, and I am told that that experience has brought them to realise that so far as London is concerned not only the working classes but also the employers themselves would be in favour of these proposals. The employers throughout London have been most helpful in the work that has been done by the London County Council. The county council deals with some 200,000 young men and women who at the present time attend their continuation schools. They do this in conjunction with trade unions, with associations of employers, and with individual employers. For example, the London and North-Western Railway Company has for many years, in conjunction with the county council, kept the school going for 500 of their young employés; some part of the instruction being given in their own time and some part in the time of the company. It is more or less required that these children shall attend school. Of course, the company have no power of compulsion. But, so far as they are convinced that it is necessary for their own benefit as well as for the benefit of the children that they should go to this school, it is made more or less obligatory upon them. The same thing applies to Government Departments. I understand that the Post Office has 2,500—
    The CHAIRMAN:I must point out again, as I did a few minutes ago, that this is not a discussion on the Clause as a whole. The Debate as proceeding is equivalent to a

    1113
    suggestion to negative the Clause. All I have heard of the Debate convinces me that what I said was correct. An Amendment such as is suggested, properly comes on the question that the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Sir W. DICKINSON: I am very sorry, Mr. Whitley, and I should not think of going beyond your ruling in the least, but f have followed this Debate, and it is simply because of speeches that have been made that I rose to state that a very large body of representative men hold that this should be compulsory. I understand that to be the proposal, and this is the only time we shall have the opportunity of stating whether or not it should be compulsory. I do not wish in the least to carry on undue criticism in this Debate, and if you think I ought to cut down my remarks I am quite willing to do so. I was simply, in conclusion, going to suggest that there are these associations and these Government Departments who have found these classes so beneficial that they have made them more or less compulsory. I understand that the Ministry of Food now sends 700 girls to the schools, and that it employs these girls on condition that they should attend these schools.
    Mr. T. WILSON: The Department pays their wages at the same time.
    Sir W. DICKINSON: I have no doubt they do. That is quite a different matter. At any rate, I have said all I wish to say. So far as London is concerned, I believe there is a generally unanimous feeling that this proposal should be made compulsory.
    The CHAIRMAN: In this discussion each speaker carries it a little wider, and makes me more convinced that I shall be obliged in the course of my duties to withdraw the Amendment from the Committee if the discussion proceeds further. It is clearly equivalent to a negation of the whole Clause.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: What was moved from the Chair was to leave out the word "shall," and this is the only opportunity we can have of discussing whether these continuation schools shall be compulsory or not; whether on the Clause itself we shall decide whether we shall have continuation schools of any
    1114
    sort or kind. In other Bills that have come up we have suggested that the word "may" shall be inserted instead of "shall" For instance, on the National Insurance Bill the same question came up, and even more so than at present, it was suggested it would wreck the whole Bill. In this case it will not wreck this Clause. Continuation schools would still go on if they were not compulsory. I maintain that this is the only opportunity of discussing whether this burden should be put on the people.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: On the same point of Order. Is not the difficulty the fact that the Amendment is a negation of the Clause? If we discuss the Clause we are bound to raise the question of the policy of the Clause. Is not the real remedy to withdraw the Amendment?
    The CHAIRMAN: The point submitted by the hon. and gallant Gentleman is not quite correct. In an earlier Clause of the Bill we have decided that provision shall be made for continuation schools. The effect of leaving out this Clause would be to make attendance at the schools voluntary, and not compulsory.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: On that point of Order, we have only provided that schemes put forward by the councils shall include a scheme for continuation classes. That I maintain is not enacting that continuation schools shall be put into force, but merely providing that schemes put before the Board of Education shall contain a proposal about continuation schools.
    The CHAIRMAN: This Clause in itself does not provide continuation classes; it simply provides for compulsion, with certain exceptions.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: I do not rise to prolong the discussion, but to justify the statement of the hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench. I have consulted a copy of the OFFICIAL REPORT, and it shows that his statement is correct.
    The CHAIRMAN: That would simply reopen the question.
    Question put, "That the word 'shall' stand part of the Clause"
    The Committee divided: Ayes, 106; Noes, 29.

    Division No. 44.]

    AYES.

    [5.59 p.m.

    Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher

    Dickinson, Rt. Hon. Sir Willoughby H.

    Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

    Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)

    Dixon, C. H.

    Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Notts, Rushcliffe)

    Archdale, Lieut. E. M.

    Dougherty, Rt. Hon. Sir J. B.

    Jones, William Kennedy (Hornsey)

    Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

    Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

    Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney)

    Baird, John Lawrence

    Du Pre, Major W. Baring

    Kellaway, Frederick George

    Baker, Rt. Hon. Harold T. (Accrington)

    Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

    Kenyon, Barnet

    Baldwin, Stanley

    Falle, Sir Bertram Godfray

    Klley, James Daniel

    Barnes, Rt. Hon. George N.

    Fell, Sir Arthur

    King Joseph

    Barnett, Capt. R. W.

    Fisher, Rt. Hon. H. A. L. (Hallam)

    Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

    Barnston, Major Harry

    Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes (Fulham)

    Larmor, Sir J.

    Barran, Sir Rowland Hurst (Leeds, N.)

    Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue

    Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle)

    Barton, Sir William

    Fletcher, John Samuel

    Lee, Sir Arthur Hamilton

    Bathurst, Col. Hon. A. B. (Gloucs., E.)

    Foster, Philip Staveley

    Levy, Sir Maurice

    Bathurst, Capt. Sir C. (Wilts, Wilton)

    France, Gerald Ashburner

    Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert

    Beale, Sir William phipson

    Galbraith, Samuel

    Lonsdale, James R.

    Beauchamp, Sir Edward

    Gibbs, Col. George Abraham

    MacCaw, William J, MacGeagh

    Beckett, Hon. Gervase

    Gilbert, J. D.

    Macdonald, Rt. Hon. J. M. (Falk. B'ghs)

    Bellairs, Commander C. W.

    Gilmour, Lieut. Col. John

    Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Lelcester)

    Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish-

    Glanville, Harold James

    Mackinder, Halford J.

    Bigland, Alfred

    Goddard, Rt. Hon. Sir Daniel Ford

    McMicklng, Major Gilbert

    Bird, Alfred

    Goldstone, Frank

    McNeill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's)

    Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

    Goulding, Sir Edward Alfred

    Maden, Sir John Henry

    Bowerman, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Greig, Colonel James William

    Magnus, Sir Philip

    Boyton, Sir James

    Gretton, John

    Malcolm, Ian

    Brace, Rt. Hon. William

    Guest, Capt. Hon. Fred. E. (Dorset, E.)

    Mallalieu, Frederick William

    Brassey, H. Leonard Campbell

    Gulland, Rt. Hon. John William

    Marriott, J. A. R.

    Bridgeman, William Clive

    Hambro, Angus Valdemar

    Mason, David M. (Coventry)

    Brunner, John F. L,

    Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence

    Mason, James F. (Windsor)

    Bryce, J. Annan

    Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Luton, Beds.)

    Millar, James Duncan

    Bull, Sir William James

    Harris, Rt. Hon. F. L. (Worcester, E.)

    Morgan, George Hay

    Burn, Colonel C. R

    Harris, Percy A. (Leicester, s.)

    Morton, Sir Alpheus Cleophas

    Butcher, John George

    Harvey, T E. (Leeds, West)

    Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert

    Carr-Gomm, H. W.

    Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

    Newman, Sir Robert (Exeter)

    Cator, John

    Helme, Sir Norval Wateon

    Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

    Cave, Rt. Hon. Sir George

    Henry, Sir Charles

    Nuttall, Harry

    Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Aston Manor)

    Hermon-Hodge, Sir R. T.

    Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.

    Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A.

    Hewart, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon R

    Parker, James (Halifax)

    Cheyne, Sir W. W.

    Hewins, William Albert Samuel

    Parrott, Sir James Edward

    Coats, Sir Stuart A. (Wimbledon)

    Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

    Pearce, Sir Robert (Staffs, Leek)

    Cochrane, Cecil Algernon

    Hickman, Brig.-Gen. Thomas E.

    Pease, Rt. Hon. H. Pike (Darlington)

    Colvin, Colonel Richard Beale

    Hills, John Waller

    Peel, Major Hon. G. (Spalding)

    Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

    Holt, Richard Durning

    Pennefather, De Fonblanque

    Cowan, Sir William Henry

    Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

    Philipps, Maj.-Gen. Sir Ivor (S'ampton)

    Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

    Hope, Lieut.-Col. J. A. (Midlothian)

    Philipps, Captain Sir Owen (Chestor)

    Currie, George W.

    Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

    Pratt, J. W.

    Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)

    Hughes, Spencer Leigh

    Prothero, Rt. Hon. Roland Edmund

    Davies, David (Montgomery Co)

    Hunter, Major Sir Charles Rodk.

    Pryce-Jones, Colonel E.

    Davies, Timothy (Lines., Louth)

    Jackson, Lt.-Col. Hon. F. S. (York)

    Pulley, C. T.

    Dawes, James Arthur

    Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, East)

    Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

    Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

    Jessel, Col. Sir Herbert M.

    Richardson, Albion (Peckharm)

    Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

    Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North)

    Williams, Aneurin (Durham, N.W.)

    Roberts, Rt. Hon. George H. (Norwich)

    Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

    Williams, Col. Sir Robert (Dorset, W.)

    Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbigh)

    Swift, Rigby

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

    Roberta, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

    Sykes, Col. Sir Mark (Hull, Central)

    Wilson-Fox, Henry

    Robertson, Rt. Hon. John M.

    Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.)

    Winfrey, Sir Richard

    Robinson, Sidney

    Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)

    Wood, Sir John (Stalybridge)

    Rowlands, James

    Thomas, Sir A. G. (Mon, S.)

    Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)

    Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter (Dawsbury)

    Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

    Yeo, Sir Alfred William

    Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth)

    Walsh, Stephen (Lanes., Ince)

    Younger, Sir George

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

    Walton, Sir Joseph

    Yoxall, Sir James Heary

    Sharman-Crawford. Colonel R. G.

    Wardie, George J.

    Smallwood, Edward

    Weigall, Lieut.-Col. W. E. G. A.

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

    Spear, Sir John Ward

    Whiteley, Sir H. J

    Lord Edmund Talbot and Mr.

    Stoker, R. B.

    Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

    Dudley Ward,

    NOES.

    Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir F. G.

    Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Colonel

    Booth. Frederick Handel

    Wedgwood and Mr. Peto.

    Question put, and agreed to.

    Division No. 45.]

    AYES.

    [10.20 p m

    Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher

    Gilbert, J. D.

    Mount, William Arthur

    Allan, Arthur A.(Dumbartonshire)

    Gilmour, Lieut.-Col. John

    Newman, Sir Robert (Exeter)

    Anderson. W. C.

    Goddard, Rt. Hon. Sir Daniel Ford

    Nuttall, Harry

    Barnett, Capt. R. W

    Goldstone, Frank

    Pease, Rt. Hon. H. Pike (Darlington)

    Barran, Sir Rowland Hurst (Leeds, N)

    Gulland, Rt. Hon. John William

    Pollock, Sir Ernest Murray

    Barton, Sir William

    Hambro, Angus Valdeman

    Pratt, J. W.

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

    Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

    Pryce-Jones, Col. E.

    Bathurst, Capt. Sir C. (Wilts, Wilton)

    Helme, Sir Norval Watson

    Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

    Beale, Sir William Phipson

    Henderson, Rt. Hon. Arthur (Durham)

    Rees, G. C. (Carnarvon, Arfon)

    Beck, Arthur Cecil

    Hewart, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

    Roberts, Chares H. (Lincoln)

    Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish-

    Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

    Roberts, Rt. Hon. George H. (Norwich)

    Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

    Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

    Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

    Bowerman, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

    Robertson, Rt. Hon. John M.

    Boyton, Sir James

    Jacobsen, Thomas Owen

    Robinson, Sidney

    Brace, Rt. Hon. William

    Jones, J, Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

    Rowlands, James

    Bridgeman, William Clive

    Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Notts, Rushcliffe)

    Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter (Dewsbury)

    Brunner, J. F. L.

    Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney)

    Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth)

    Bryce, J. Annan

    Joynson-Hicks, William

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

    Carr-Gomm, H. W.

    Kellaway, Frederick George

    Samuels, Arthur W.

    Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Aston Manor)

    Kenyon, Barnet

    Sanders, Col. Robert Arthur

    Chancellor, Henry George

    Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

    Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange)

    Cheyne, Sir W. W.

    Larmor, Sir J.

    Stoker, R. B.

    Coats, Sir Stuart A. (Wimbledon)

    Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle)

    Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

    Compton-Rickett. Rt. Hon. Sir J.

    Lee, Sir Arthur Hamilton

    Thomas, Sir A. G. (Monmouth, S.)

    Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

    Levy, Sir Maurice

    Thomas G. R. (Wolverhampton)

    Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

    Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert

    Toulmin, Sir George

    Davies, Timothy (Lines., Louth)

    McCalment, Brig.-Gen. Robert C. A.

    Walsh, Stephen (Lanes., Ince)

    Davies, Sir W. H. Howell (Bristol, S.)

    MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh

    Whitehouse, John Howard

    Dawes, James Arthur

    Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

    Whiteley, Sir H. J.

    Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

    McNeill, Ronald (Kent, St.Augustine's)

    Williams, Aneurin (Durham)

    Dickinson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. H.

    Maden, Sir John Henry

    Williams, Col. Sir Robert (Dorset, W.)

    Dougherty, Rt. Hon, Sir J. B.

    Magnus, Sir Philip

    Winfrey, Sir Richard

    Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

    Maltalieu, Frederick William

    Yoxall, Sir James Henry

    Du Pre, Major W. Baring

    Marks, Sir George Croydon

    Fisher, Rt. Hon. H. A. L. (Hallam)

    Mason, David M. (Coventry)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Lord

    Fletcher, John Samuel

    Morgan, George A.

    Edmund Talbot and Mr. Parker.

    Gibbs, Col. George Abraham

    NOES.

    Archdale, Lieut. Edward M.

    Gretton, John

    Peto, Basil Edward

    Baker, Maj. Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.)

    Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence

    Pulley, C. T.

    Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir F. G.

    Harmood-Banner, Sir J. S.

    Spear, Sir John Ward

    Barlow, Sir Montague (Salford, South)

    Hermon-Hodge, Sir R. T.

    Swift, Rigby

    Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

    Hickman, Brig. Gen. Thomas E.

    Terrell, G. (Wilts, N.W.)

    Booth, Frederick Handel

    Hope, Lt.-Col, Sir J. A. (Midlothian)

    Wilson-Fox, Henry

    Brassey, H. L. C.

    Jackson, Lieut-Col. Hon. F. S. (York)

    Wright, Henry Fitzherbert

    Colvin, Col. Richard Beale

    Jones, W. Kennedy (Hornsey)

    Croft, Brig.-Gen. Henry Page

    Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Major

    Denniss, E. R. B.

    Malcolm, Ian

    Barnston and Colonel Wedgwood.

    Foster, Philip Staveley

    Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

    The CHAIRMAN: I understand that the hon. Baronet the Member for the Everton Division (Sir J. Harmood-Banner) does not propose to move the Amendment standing in his name—In Sub-section (1), after the word "shall"—[" all young persons shall attend such continuation schools"]—to insert the words "until attaining the age of sixteen years"
    Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: After the discussion, I think it would be "better to take this matter up on the Amendment of the hon. Member for North Lancashire (Sir H. Hibbert).
    The CHAIRMAN: I have to inform the Committee that I have a similar Amendment handed in by the hon. and gallant Member for the Clitheroe Division (Captain Smith), the hon. Member for the Black-
    1116
    burn Division (Mr. Snowden), and the hon. Member for the West Houghton Division. (Mr. Tyson Wilson).
    Captain SMITH: I feel rather in the same position as the hon. Baronet the Member for the Everton Division, and I also feel that the hour is now late to move such an important Amendment. Could we persuade the right hon. Gentleman to adjourn now and let the Amendment be moved first the next day that the Bill is considered in Committee. [HON. MEMBERS: "No !"] I should like hon. and right hon. Gentlemen to realise that very important arguments will be used on this Amendment. It is very important that the Committee should have a full opportunity of knowing that this Amendment is coming on. If this course does not meet the wishes of the Committee, we are quite

    1117
    willing to make the best of the time we can. It is in no antagonistic spirit to the wishes of the Committee that I make this suggestion. If the right hon. Gentleman will agree, I will give way.
    The CHAIRMAN: To put that in order, the hon. and gallant Member had better move to report Progress.
    Captain SMITH: I beg to move, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again"
    The CHAIRMAN: I understand that, in the event of that being accepted, the hon. and gallant Member will waive the Amendment he has handed in, so that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Chorley (Sir H. Hibbert), which stands first on the Paper, will be the next to be taken.
    Captain SMITH: Yes.
    Mr. FISHER: I shall be very willing to fall in with the suggestion, but should not the hon. Member for Chorley first move his Amendment and then we can report Progress?
    Captain SMITH: I agree to that.
    The CHAIRMAN: It would be possible to do that by immediately withdrawing this Motion and the hon. Member for Chorley then moving his Amendment. That would prevent anything coming between the hon. Member for Chorley and the first place. He can formally move it and speak on it on the subsequent occasion, but it is first necessary to withdraw the present Motion.
    Captain SMITH: I ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
    Mr. L. JONES: Before the Motion is withdrawn, I wish to enter a protest against the extraordinary course taken by the Government in this matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] For one thing we are exceedingly short of time for dealing with this Bill. We have yet half an hour to the end of the Sitting. We want to get the Bill through, and we might use the half-hour in discussing this important Amendment. We are all here, and the matter is fresh in all our minds, and I do not see why we should waste half an hour.
    Captain SMITH: May I point out to the right hon. Gentleman that that would put the hon. Member for Chorley in this
    1118
    predicament, that the Committee would adjourn in a short time whether he had finished his speech or not. That would be unfortunate. If I wanted to waste time, I might move my Amendment and so waste half an hour.
    Mr. FISHER: I understood that there was a general wish on the part of the Committee that the discussion of this very important Amendment should be taken as a whole and should not be severed. In view of that fact, I have taken a course which otherwise I should not have taken, because personally I am as anxious to get on with the Bill as any hon. Member of the Committee. I thought, however, that I was consulting the convenience of hon. Members in taking this course; therefore, if the hon. Member for Chorley will move his Amendment formally, I will move to report Progress.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Before the Government finally come to a decision in that form, I hope they will make some arrangement as to the termination of the discussion on the Amendment which is going to be proposed by the hon. Member for Chorley. If it suits the general convenience of the Committee that we should not use the last half-hour this evening,, surely it will also suit the general convenience of hon. Members and the beat, interests of the Bill that we should know that the Committee will come to a decision on the Amendment at a fixed time on the next occasion the Bill is considered. If we are not going to have a fixed time for taking a decision on this Amendment, we ought to make full use of our time on this Amendment now. I hope the Government will not lose half an hour without having a distinct understanding that when we resume our discussion of the Bill we shall know how much of the time of the Committee is to be taken up by this Amendment. This is not the only occasion on which there has been a good deal of time expended on matters which were not of primary importance. I hope, therefore, there will be no further discussion on the Motion to report Progress, but in reporting Progress the Government should have a clear understanding that we are not to have the whole of our next sitting absorbed with one Amendment only.
    Mr. T. WILSON: I am surprised at the speech we have just heard by a right hon. Gentleman claiming to be one of the

    1119
    Progressive party suggesting that the Government should apply the guillotine to the most important Amendment on the Bill. I wonder where we stand sometimes when hon. and right hon. Gentlemen, who are supposed to understand the wishes of the people of this country, endeavour to closure the discussion upon an Amendment of this character.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN:No, no!
    Mr. WILSON: If the right hon. Gentle man's speech did not mean the guillotine, what did it mean? I hope the electors of Dewsbury will fully recognize—
    The CHAIRMAN: That does not really arise on the Motion to report Progress. I would point out to both hon. Members that neither the Government nor the hon. Member has that power. It is in the hands of the Committee, and in certain -conditions in the hands of the Chairman. It does not lie with the Government. They can give no such pledge. That matter, therefore, need not be pursued further. I thought the suggestion made by the hon. and gallant Gentleman to forego a double Amendment on this question was meeting the convenience of the Committee and a saving of time.
    Mr. WILSON: The suggestion has been made that we should use the twenty minutes to discuss the Amendment of the hon. Member (Sir H. Hibbert). I hope my hon. and gallant Friend will carry his Motion to a Division if the opposition insist upon discussing the Amendment. I quite agree that the wisest course is to withdraw the Motion providing the offer made by the Government is accepted unanimously. I can quite see that if my hon. and gallant Friend withdraws his Motion, and then the hon. Gentleman (Sir H. Hibbert) formally moves his Amendment, and the Government get up to report Progress, the opposition will oppose the Motion to report Progress. That being so, I want to have a clear understanding with regard to the position of the Gentlemen on the Front Opposition Bench.
    Mr. L. JONES: The Government must not think those who feel with me in the matter think we are getting anything by the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Captain Smith) not moving his Motion. I would far rather that he moved it in order that his constituents and others and the country may understand exactly how
    1120
    this matter stands. It is far better that this opposition, which comes from Lancashire, to this proposal should be very fully debated, and that we should all thoroughly understand one another. I do not think we are gaining anything by the fact that two Amendments have not been moved.
    Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: I only want to point out that when I withdrew my Amendment I had intended to speak on behalf of the coal trade, which is very largely interested; but, seeing that the textile industries were represented here, and are more affected, I was quite willing that they should move their Amendment, as they cover the ground as well as the coal trade. It is not only the textile trade that is interested in this question, but the coal trade and other trades are also largely interested.
    Mr. FISHER: The course which I indicated was, I think on the whole, the most satisfactory. My hon. and gallant Friend (Captain Smith) proposed his Motion. He is willing to withdraw that Amendment on the understanding that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Chorley can be taken as the first Amendment when we resume the discussion. I should have thought that would be for the general convenience of the House. There is no intention on the part of the Government to burke discussion of the Lancashire case. We arc very anxious to have that debated as fully and freely as possible. It is because I felt that some injustice might have been done to the Member for Lancashire if we started the discussion on the Amendment of the hon. Member for Chorley and resumed it next week or the week after, that I thought it best to report Progress. I am in the hands of the Committee, but still I think that course is the best.
    Sir F. BAN BURY: This is a very important question, and we have only a quarter of an hour left. What is the state of the House as disclosed by the last Division? There are 126 Members present out of 670, and I appeal to my right hon. Friend, who is a very fair-minded man, as to whether it is not better that we should begin an important Debate of this kind in a full House, when we can start after prayers with everybody present, and the Press can report what is going on? It is much better than beginning it at a quarter to eleven with only 126 Members out of 670 present.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: It is no use pressing any further objection to the acceptance of the Motion to report Progress, but I hope my right hon. Friend will realise that the half-hour which is taken out of precious Parliamentary time now is taken out of it by those who are opposed to this Bill, or at any rate to this Clause. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!" "Withdraw!"]
    The CHAIRMAN: I do not like these accusations. The purpose is to make a good Bill. Will the hon. and gallant Member (Captain Smith) now withdraw his Motion, and afterwards I will call upon the hon. Member for Chorley (Sir H. Hibbert) and immediately I will allow the Committee to consider a second Motion to report Progress?
    Captain SMITH: I ask leave to withdraw my Motion.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    Sir H. HIBBERT: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "require" ["may require"], to insert the word "either"
    Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again"—[Mr. Fisher]—put, and agreed to.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

    CLAUSE 9—(Provisions for Avoidance of Broken School Terms.)
    (1)If a child why is attending or is about to attend a public elementary school or a school certified by the Board of Education under the Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf Children) Act, 1893, or the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Acts, 1899 to 1914, attains any year of age during the school term, the child shall not, for the purpose of any enactment or by-law, whether made before or after the passing of this Act, relating to school attendance, be deemed to have attained that year of age until the end of the term.
    (2)The local education authority for the purposes of Part III. of the Education Act, 1902. may make Regulations with the approval of the Board of Education providing that a child may, in such cases as are prescribed by the Regulations, be refused admission to a public elementary school or such certified school as aforesaid except at the commencement of a school term.
    (3)For the purposes of this Section, a school term shall be deemed to be the term as fixed by the local education authority.
    Sir J. YOXALL: I beg to move, in Subsection (2), after the word "that" ["that a child may"], to insert the words "except when change of residence from one district to another has taken place"
    The object of this Amendment is to secure in the case of the removal of the parents of a family, say, from Hammersmith to Southwark or from Halifax to Huddersfield at any time between the beginning or the end of a school term, that their children may go to school in the district to which they have gone. I think it is an essential Amendment, and it
    1082
    appears to so commend itself to the view of the Parliamentary Secretary that I need not dwell upon it.
    Mr. LEWIS: The Bill proposes that a local education authority may, with the approval of the Board of Education, make Regulations providing that a child may, in such cases as are prescribed by the Regulations, be refused admission to a public elementary school except at the commencement of a school term. Now this Amendment proposes that children may be admitted in the middle of a term in cases where a change of residence from one district to another has taken place. The Board of Education recognise that there must be many exceptions to the rule that a child shall not be admitted to school except at the beginning of a term, and the case of a change of residence is only one of several possible cases. It is just for that reason that the Board of Education propose to make Regulations on the subject. I submit to the hon. Member that the matter can be much better dealt with by Regulations than by inserting an Amendment in the Act, as that course will give us very much more elasticity. That is my main reason for suggesting that this Amendment is unnecessary. It is doubtful whether there should be an exception in all cases. For example, if the change of residence takes place within the last few clays of a school term, it would be very inconvenient to the organisation of the school if the child was admitted during the last few days even if it came from another district. I think all that is necessary can be done by Regulation.
    Sir J. YOXALL: Do I understand that the Board will form model Regulations on this point?
    Mr. LEWIS: I cannot pledge myself at the moment with regard to that, but I dare say that course will be taken. I cannot, however, absolutely promise it.
    Sir J. YOXALL: I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill"
    Captain SMITH: This is the second stage in the hardship that is inflicted by this Bill. Clause 8 fixes the age of leaving the day school at fourteen and this Clause makes it on an average fourteen years and two months. The local

    1083
    authority may make by-laws fixing a school term, and I take it they may do so without the sanction of the Board of Education. Sub-section (3) says that "for the purpose of this Section the school term shall be deemed to be the term as fixed by the local education authority" I understand the President of the Board of Education some time ago to say that the school term would be four months. The local education authority may disagree with that, and, unless the Board of Education insist on four months, the local education authority may make it six months. I will take it at four months and assume on the average that they leave midway. That will make the age of leaving fourteen years and two months. That is an additional burden, and you do not do away with the evil although you keep the children at school. You may have a child, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for Nottingham (Sir J. Yoxall), removing from Hammersmith to another part of London or from Huddersfield to Halifax or from Liverpool to Manchester, and it cannot be admitted to the new school unless it is the end of the term. If it is admitted in the middle of the term, provision has to be made. These cases will be multiplied considerably. While I realise that fourteen years is a very good advance in our educational methods, I want it to foe fourteen and no more.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: I desire to associate myself with the observations of my hon. and gallant Friend. In view of the strong opposition in the industrial districts of the North of England to the raising of the age for compulsory attendance at school to fourteen, I think my hon. and gallant Friend and myself, and others who represent northern constituencies, have conceded a good deal to the Government in not pressing the opposition to the proposal to raise the age, and that we are entitled to ask and indeed to press the Government not to go beyond the proposal to limit the age for full-time attendance to fourteen. This talk about school terms in elementary education is something new, but, as my hon. and gallant Friend has pointed out, it means that in many cases children will not be permitted to leave school for outside work until they are getting fairly on for fifteen years. There will be a good many cases where children will not be able to leave school till four
    1084
    months beyond the age of fourteen. That will cause a really serious grievance, and the parents of those children will feel that they are unfairly treated in comparison with neighbours whose children are able to leave school and go to work four months earlier. There would be something to be said in favour of keeping children at school as long as you could beyond fourteen if their education was going to stop altogether, but it is not. They will be able to take up their education at continuation schools at the point at which they left the day schools. For these reasons I support what my hon. and gallant Friend has said.
    Mr. GOLDSTONE: I wish my hon. Friend opposite could visualise better than he has done the actual conditions of school life. If he could, he would realise how flimsy are the arguments that he has addressed to the Committee. To start with, the fact that children have to leave at the end of the school term—-
    Mr. SNOWDEN: There was no talk of school terms in my time.
    Mr. GOLDSTONE: It is some years since the hon. Member was at school. Things have advanced since then, and they look like advancing at a more rapid rate. There are such things as school terms, not only on paper, but in reality. Those who are more conversant with educational matters are well aware of the fact, and I prefer to trust those who are in intimate contact with educational administration if I want to get at the real facts of educational life. It is to the supreme advantage of the local education authority to be able to arrange its staff with the minimum of expenditure, and if it knows that there will be a certain number of children right up to the end of a particular term it can make far better arrangements for the proper adjustment of its school staff and for the best advantage of education. The hon. Member for Blackburn suggested that because there was to be continuation education there was no need to put this provision in the Bill. The very fact that there is to be a continuation school system makes this provision all the more necessary. Imagine what will occur if we now reject this Clause and a continuation school system comes along. The children will leave, one on this day, another on the next, and they will be dribbling into the continuation schools, upsetting the whole organisation and waking the

    1085
    staffing of such schools enormously difficult. May I suggest that from the employers, point of view the fact that he will know that a certain day, which day will recur three times in a year, is the day on which he can reckon that the children will become available for him, will be an advantage to him and will enable him to organise his business better. From the point of view of education, from the point of view of the proper organisation of the schools, from the point of view of the proper organisation of industry, and also from the point of view of the organisation of the continuation system of education, this system of leaving at the end of the school term has everything to commend it. It is now suggested, because it has been applied in Scotland for some time with very great advantage, that we should have it incorporated in the English system. It is a point of minor administration, but one of considerable importance which will add greatly to our educational efficiency in this country.
    The two hon. Members who have opposed this Clause are forgetting what is the policy of the Party to which they are attached. I see that does not seem to appeal to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, but it has on other occasions, and I should have thought it did in this case. He possibly forgets, perhaps because he was not present, a recent meeting of the Labour party, which was more largely attended than any meeting I remember since the War began, certainly since its early days, when I brought up a Report from the Education Committee of the party which suggested changes in this Bill, not to weaken it, but which would make it go further than it goes now. I suggest to my hon. Friend that Labour party conferences at least can give mandates, and that the mandate of the Labour party conference on education is far in advance of this Clause. I would suggest to him also that the time is now opportune for a great change, and that he should come into line with his party on educational matters and should not attempt to prevent the Government taking a step which, I believe, has the great mass of public opinion behind it.
    Mr. LEIF JONES: I feel personally obliged to the hon. Member for Sutherland (Mr. Goldstone) for replying to the extraordinary arguments suggested by the hon. and gallant Member for Clitheroe (Captain Smith) and the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Snowden). I listened to their
    1086
    speeches with surprise and pain, to which I must give expression. They stand here and boast that they stand here as representatives of the workers of this country above other Members of this House. I have never admitted the claim that they make, except so far as it relates to the personal experiences of their lives, to represent the workers more than other Members of the House.
    Captain SMITH: When did you hear me make that claim?
    Mr. JONES: Did you not make it?
    Captain SMITH: When did you hear me make it?
    Mr. JONES: I could not put a date to it.
    Captain SMITH: Then do not make a statement if you do not know.
    Mr. JONES: If the hon. and gallant Member contradicts me, and says he did not make the claim, I accept it, but unless he denies it, although I cannot fix a date, I shall hold I am in the light. The hon. Members have stood up as the champions of the workers in this country. What is the greatest wrong done by our system to the workers of this country? It is not an industrial wrong or an economic wrong, but an educational wrong that has been done. For that reason it is a monstrous thing for representatives of the workers in this House to stand up and champion the wholly bad system that has existed in Lancashire and other parts of the country. We are far behind other countries in this matter. The hon. Member for Blackburn talks about the wrong done to the parents when the parent of one child gets him home at fourteen years of age, because the term ends on a particular date, and another parent has to suffer the injustice of his child remaining at school until fourteen years and four months. What about the injustice to the. child? Why did not the hon. Member look at the other side of the case? Why did he not think that, but for the unfortunate accident of birth, the child would have remained until he was fourteen years and four months? Let me threaten the hon. Member for Blackburn. We are not going to stop at fourteen years or fourteen years and four months. It will not be long before in this country all children will receive compulsory education up to something like sixteen. This Bill is a step in advance, but not a very long one. It does not bring us up to the level of the en-

    1087
    lightened nations of Europe even now. We shall still be behind in education. This is the second or third time during these Debates that I have heard the hon. Member for Blackburn and the hon. and gallant Member for Clitheroe dwelling on the economic wrong suffered by the parents owing to the children being kept at school. They are really looking at the wrong side of the case. They are gazing at the parents and observing the injustices and wrongs suffered by them, when they ought to look at the children, and nothing but the children, in connection with this Bill. If our economic system is such that it is upset by removing the children from the control of parents at this age and keeping them at school, I say that our economic system is wrong. My hon. Friends will not deny that. They must not bolster it up by keeping the children from school. If the industrial system is based upon the child's heart, let us withdraw the foundation and upset the system. Let us keep the children away and get our economic and industrial system right, if we can, but do let the children be factors in the settlement of the problem. Fix your eyes on the next generation, not on the one that is suffering the wrong, and prevent another generation growing up which will suffer. Then you will find your economic wrong put right by a more educated generation than that to which we belong.
    Mr. BOOTH: The speech to which we have just listened is all very well, but it has no reference to the Clause. The right hon. Gentleman talked at large in a sort of encyclopaedic style, but did not deal with what the Clause says. People are accustomed to things maturing at a certain date. It has been the basis of our legislation in the past. The right hon. Gentleman has never got up and made speeches about the monstrous injustice of children leaving school at a particular age and going to the mills.
    Mr. JONES: I beg the hon. Member's pardon. I have persistently opposed the half-time system in Lancashire and elsewhere, because I think it is wrong.
    Mr. BOOTH: That has nothing to do with the subject. I was speaking of things maturing on a birthday. In all past years it is the birthday on which things have matured. It is an inheritance; it is the date of the maturing of policies.
    1088
    What has been more common than for children in many districts to be waiting, whether it be for half-time or full-time work, for their birthday? It it one of the proudest things in the lives of children, say, when they are thirteen years of age, to come and demand that they should take their share in the work of the country. The right hon. Gentleman, perhaps, has not had the experience of those he is rebuking. I know that as a manager I have refused to take on children on their thirteenth birthday. I have begged them to go along to school, and have begged the parents to keep them there. There has been no eager rushing for them and dragging them into the mills. As a matter of fact, we did not want them so young. What was the answer of the parents? They said, "It is time the girl is working, because she has started courting" It is quite common to find keenness. Equally, in Sunderland, the working people expect to be treated fairly. What will happen under the Clause? The suggestion, as I understood it, was the smooth working of the Bill. In some cases the birthday will occur in the holidays, and in others it will mature a week after the term starts. What will the parents think when you keep the child at school for four months? You may talk about the benefit to them. Why is that assumed? If my hon. Friend is sincere in what he says, he should have put an Amendment on the Paper to keep all the children there for four months. Why has he not done it if he is convinced that they are lucky children who happen to have their birthday in the first week of the term?
    He talked about depriving the children of some right. The only point is that a date is taken which the working classes understand, and they will not understand any other, and when a certain age matures they have certain rights. That runs all through our legislation. I should have preferred to hear what the Department has to say about it. I do not know what line the Government will take or whether it has come to a decision upon it. It is apparently a conflict between the necessities of the home and the convenience of the school. I am not at all impressed by the inconvenience of the child leaving. If the child can leave if the birthday occurs a week after the term has started, the common-sense way would be, unless this Clause is passed, that the child would not go to school at all that week. I am not much impressed with the child at the end

    1089
    having to stop the last few weeks. There may be something in it, but not much. It was a powerful argument that was used about them dribbling into the continuation schools at odd times. That would be an inconvenience to the continuation schools, but the parents now are going to have a heavy blow. The Government does not realise the way in which this will be felt and the mortal terror which will comedown upon the parents. The position of those of us who are in more or less comfortable circumstances is a different thing. I am perfectly sure the Lancashire Members, who have spoken again and again in this Debate, were right. This will come as a great surprise upon the homes in the North and will be a terrible blow financially. You refuse to meet it by a maintenance allowance, and those homes will be faced with economic disaster. You are going to add a few more months. It is one of those little things which will set everyone quarrelling. They will go to school and tell the wrong age. The mothers will instruct them to give a wrong age. Those who are familiar with it— [Interruption.]
    Mr. GOLDSTONE: It is because I am so familiar that I smiled.
    Mr. BOOTH: That is exactly what will take place, and I challenge anyone who knows the facts to contradict me. If any other way can be suggested of meeting this and letting them all start fair, that will commend itself.
    9.0 P.M.
    Sir H. CRAIK: We have this system in Scotland, and it has produced no such difficulty on the part of the parents. It is absolutely in the interests of the schools and of the children. Think for a moment what it means. A school session has its work arranged. It begins at a certain time for all children, and finishes at the time when the holidays take place, when they have gone through a certain course. What can be more unfortunate than for a child to have to break off all this work, and, in addition to that, to confuse entirely the organisation of the school and the arrangement of the classes? I hope the hon. Member will take my assurance that this, having operated for several years in Scotland and having been demanded by the local authorities, has been found to work well, and is not objected to by the parents.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: It must be agreed in the first place that all the parents
    1090
    will be against this change, and in the second that all the children will be against it. I do not think you can possibly base a sound educational system or a sound educational reform upon the hostility of the parents and the children. They are the people most concerned. I admit the convenience to the teachers and to the Board of Education, but the children and the parents are going to be against it.
    Mr. L. JONES: Will my hon. and gallant Friend tell me whether he left school in the middle of a term?
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: My parents were not compelled to keep me at school because of some Act of Parliament. A war has a very curious effect upon people, and makes them have much less respect for human life And for the laws of any country. You are selecting a time just in the middle of this War, when people are naturally inclined, not only to damn the Government, but to be opposed to most of the Acts of this House, including the one known as the Defence of the Realm Act, to impose upon people a law which it is admitted all the parents and all the children, who are primarily concerned, disapprove of. That is a. most unfortunate time for making this change. Does anybody deny that the parents will be against this? [Hon. Members: "Yes!"] I shall be very interested if any meeting of parents was in favour of this. At present they can keep their children at the school until the end of the term if they desire; but this is compelling them to do so whether they like it or not. It has nothing to do with facilities for education, but is absolute compulsion, and I cannot believe that any parent will welcome the change. We are making the change in order to facilitate the working of the schools. Would it not be possible to secure both objects by providing that if the birthday happens before the middle of the term the child need not stop till the end, but if it occurs after the middle of the term he must stop until the end? In. that way you secure smooth working and the smooth supply of children for the continuation school, and you would not run counter to the entire wishes of the parents of the children, and would not risk the very grave possibility of an enormous number of people deliberately breaking the law and telling lies because they do not wish to accept any law from a more or less moribund Parliament.
    Captain SMITH: The hon. Member for Sunderland made reference to the fact that certain resolutions had been passed in favour of this. That is quite true, but at the same time when those resolutions were passed, resolutions were passed advocating that while the process of education was going on there should be maintenance for the children attending the schools. That has been refused. The right hon. Member for Rushcliffe attacked me. I did not move the rejection of this Clause with the object of retarding the progress of the Bill. Personally, I want to see as much of this Bill put into operation as possible. The Noble Lord (Lord H. Cavendish-Bentinck) laughs. When Clause 10 is debated statements may be made as to the economic burden on a great mass of the population in the manufacturing side of the cotton trade that will perhaps make him think a little as to the hardship that will fall upon these people, who must have some concession in some way or other. This matter has been considered by the people with whom I am connected in Lancashire, and they have taken a certain course. They know as well as I know that it is a very distasteful thing, and it is a very distasteful thing for me to have to put their views before the House, and nobody feels it more than I do. Still, they have balloted, and there can be no doubt that those connected with the trade will be vitally affected if Clause 10 is put into operation as it stands. Some alteration must be made. All that I claim to do is to stand up in this House and take responsibility for expressing the views of the people concerned.
    Mr. LEWIS: After the reply of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Sunderland (Mr. Goldstone) to those who oppose this Clause it is hardly necessary that I should say a word, particularly as my right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities has shown how smoothly the system which we recommend for adoption in England has worked in Scotland in the past. The Member for Sunderland and I were members of a Committee which made very considerable inquiry into this question. We received evidence from all parts of the country. Much of it was labour evidence and, so far as I can recollect, without a single dissentient voice all the evidence we received on this particular matter, asked
    1092
    us to put an end to broken terms. That is the reason why this provision is being put in the Bill. References have been made to the hardship on persons in certain parts of the country. I would ask hon. Members to think of considerable parts of the country where the leaving age is fourteen at the present time and where this slight addition to it is being accepted without the least protest. Take, for example, London. There are poor people in London, as well as there are poor people in Lancashire and other parts of the country, and these people for years have been obliged to send their children to school up to the age of fourteen. I feel sure that from the representative authorities of London we have not received any protest regarding this further extension. I hope, therefore, that the Committee will assent to it.

  FINANCE [EXPENSES, ETC.].
  Resolution reported,
  "That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of any Expenses incurred by any local authority or police authority in the exercise of powers in relation to Luxury Duty; and to authorise a provision to enable the currency of War Saving Certificates to be extended, in pursuance of any Act of the present Session dealing with Finance"
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution"
  Mr. BOOTH: I would like to know, if it were practicable, whether the Government would not consider the putting of a limiting figure in the Resolution? The first part, I think, refers rather to the expenses of the local authorities, but the
  1122
  second deals with War Savings Certificates, and I would like to know if that involves any charge upon the Exchequer?
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law): I think it would be impossible to put in any limit, though I quite recognise that where it can be done it should certainly be done. In regard to the War Savings Certificates, it will depend upon their number.
  Question put, and agreed to.

  WESTGATE-0N-SEA CONGREGATIONAL CHAPEL CHARITY BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time"
  Mr. BOOTH: I do not oppose this Bill, but should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman would indicate briefly what it is.
  The PAYMASTER-GENERAL (Sir J. Compton-Rickett): This Bill is an agreed Bill. There is no opposition to it. It is simply to give effect to an agreement that has been come to.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Resolved that this House resolve itself forthwith into Committee on the Bill."— [Mr. James Hope.]
  Bill accordingly considered in Committee, and reported without Amendment; read the third time, and passed.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
  Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 13th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn"
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at Eleven minutes before Eleven o'clock till To-morrow, pursuant to the Resolution of the Souse this day

ROYAL AIR FORCE.
  LOCH DOON SCHEME.
  LOCH DOON SCHEME.
  INCOME TAX (FARMERS' PROFITS).
  INCOME TAX (FARMERS' PROFITS).
FOOD SUPPLIES.
  MEAT.
  MEAT.
  BOARD OF AGRICULTURE LEAFLETS.
  BOARD OF AGRICULTURE LEAFLETS.
  EELS.
  EELS.
  CATTLE (EARLY SLAUGHTER).
  CATTLE (EARLY SLAUGHTER).
  ALLOTMENTS (INCREASED RENTS).
  ALLOTMENTS (INCREASED RENTS).
  LICENSED TRADE, IRELAND(SUPPLIES).
  LICENSED TRADE, IRELAND(SUPPLIES).
  MESSRS. BLANOH FLOWER AND SONS, LIMITED.
  MESSRS. BLANOH FLOWER AND SONS, LIMITED.
  ADMIRALTY EMPLOYES (SHOP AND YARD COMMITTEES).
  ADMIRALTY EMPLOYES (SHOP AND YARD COMMITTEES).
MILITARY SERVICE.
  CASE UNDER INQUIRY.
  CASE UNDER INQUIRY.
  SCOTS GUARDS (PRIVATE IN HOSPITAL).
  SCOTS GUARDS (PRIVATE IN HOSPITAL).
  PASSPORTS.
  PASSPORTS.
  SOLDIERS' LEAVE.
  SOLDIERS' LEAVE.
  FIELD PUNISHMENT (PRIVATE R. HARTLEY).
  FIELD PUNISHMENT (PRIVATE R. HARTLEY).
  ARMY MOTOR LORRIES.
  ARMY MOTOR LORRIES.
  NUMBERS (BRITISH AND GERMAN).
  NUMBERS (BRITISH AND GERMAN).
PRISONERS OF WAR.
  CAMP COMMANDANTS (POWERS).
  CAMP COMMANDANTS (POWERS).
  BREAD RATIONS.
  BREAD RATIONS.
  TURKISH CAMPS (ENGLISH DOCTORS).
  TURKISH CAMPS (ENGLISH DOCTORS).
  INTERNED GERMANS (RATES OF PAY).
  INTERNED GERMANS (RATES OF PAY).
  GERMAN OFFICERS (TRAIN ACCOMMODATION).
  GERMAN OFFICERS (TRAIN ACCOMMODATION).
  TREATMENT IN GERMANY.
  TREATMENT IN GERMANY.
  EXCHANGE.
  EXCHANGE.
  PARCELS.
  PARCELS.
  BRITISH OFFICERS IN TURKEY(EXPENSES).
  BRITISH OFFICERS IN TURKEY(EXPENSES).
  BILLETING RATES.
  BILLETING RATES.
  SOLDIERS IN HOSPITAL (RELATIVES' TRAVELLING VOUCHERS).
  SOLDIERS IN HOSPITAL (RELATIVES' TRAVELLING VOUCHERS).
  WAR DEPARTMENT MESSENGERS, WOOLWICH.
  WAR DEPARTMENT MESSENGERS, WOOLWICH.
  ARMY STORES DEPOT, DUBLIN.
  ARMY STORES DEPOT, DUBLIN.
MUNITIONS.
  TRENCH WARFARE DRAWING OFFICES.
  TRENCH WARFARE DRAWING OFFICES.
  SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' HELP SOCIETY (SHAMROCK FUND).
  SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' HELP SOCIETY (SHAMROCK FUND).
  NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
  NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
  TEACHERS' PENSIONS.
  TEACHERS' PENSIONS.
  DEFENCE OF THE REALM ACT (REGULATIONS).
  DEFENCE OF THE REALM ACT (REGULATIONS).
  RENTS AND RATES.
  RENTS AND RATES.
  REGISTRATION (REGIMENTAL NUMBERS, ETC.).
  REGISTRATION (REGIMENTAL NUMBERS, ETC.).
  RAILWAY SEASON TICKETS.
  RAILWAY SEASON TICKETS.
  Teachers' Salaries (Ireland)
  Teachers' Salaries (Ireland)
  Sevenoaks District Council (Appointment of Surveyor).
  Sevenoaks District Council (Appointment of Surveyor).