I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether the Denbighshire local education authority, of which the present Secretary of the Welsh Department was a member, for some time declined to pay a salary sufficient to secure a properly qualified headmaster for Llanelian School, and the managers were forced to engage and pay the present headmaster as from the 1st January, 1906, at a salary£12 higher than that offered by the local education authority; whether the local education authority have recently agreed to pay the higher salary but have refused to pay the arrears for 1906; and whether they have been upheld in this refusal by the Board of Education, and, if so, for what reason.

The form of the Question does not make it clear whether the reference to the present Secretary of the Welsh Department is by way of identification of the local authority in question or was intended to convey an imputation upon the impartiality of a Civil Servant. I assume that the noble Lord does not intend to make insinuations conveying an unfounded charge. The evidence in this case led to the conclusion that the managers had not, in respect of the year 1906, done all in their power to obtain a teacher at the salary offered by the local authority.