^* (12.25.) : Perhaps the House will allow me to say a few words upon this Bill, seeing that I was not able to make any general remarks upon it, either upon the Second Reading or upon the Instruction which was moved on the Motion for going into Committee. I think I shall express the entire sense of the House when I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir W. Hart Dyke) upon the straightforwardness and courtesy he has shown throughout the conduct of this difficult task. I have not been for so long a time, perhaps, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) an advocate of free schools. Probably I derived too strong an impression from what I saw in connection with the endowed schools to welcome free schools with much cordiality. The experiment in connection with endowed schools was a dismal failure. I have objected to free education because it seemed to me that it would involve a large draft upon the Public Purse of which I did not approve. That objection has now been removed by the action of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who tells us that ld. from the Income Tax will do all that is necessary. Another objection I had was that the tendency of free schools would be to render parents careless and indifferent, but I must admit that the conditions under which the endowed schools lived were very different from those under which school life in free schools will be conducted in the future; and, therefore, the arguments which I drew from the endowed schools will be very little applicable to free schools. I think there is now a fair prospect that none of the obstacles which formerly existed will continue to prevail. The logic which says that because the State imposes a duty upon the parent it is therefore bound to pay him for performing it, is not very good; but popular logic is often more effective than strict logic, and in the eyes of the people it has often seemed that they have some claim on the Government for relief. Consequently, if, in any way, this Bill, as I believe it will, removes from the minds of the people generally any obstacle in the way of sending their children to school, it will be welcomed as an excellent measure. But one is bound to consider what were the motives which actuated the Government in bringing in the Bill, and whether it will fulfil its title. As far as I can understand, the motives of the Government in bringing in the Bill were—first, to take out of the hands of the Liberals a proposal which was calculated to be popular in the country. The second motive was to safeguard the denominational schools. The title they have given to the measure is a Bill for assisting education in the elementary schools of England and Wales, but instead of that title being a true indication of its contents and character, I submit that it should have been styled a Bill for relieving parents from some payments and voluntary schools from some subscriptions. I failed to find throughout the progress of this measure that the Government have shown anything like a strong desire to come to the assistance of education, because over and over again they have refused Amendments designed to assist the cause of education. I may instance particularly that they refused to secure by the Bill that the denominational schools, for whose activity and success they profess to be so zealous, should be supported by a living body of subscribers interested in making them a real success. Curiously enough, one of those who urged that the voluntary schools should take the money of the State in aid solely of themselves was the hon. Member for the City of London, who perhaps, of all men in this House, has given in his lifetime one of the most noble endowments that were ever given to the cause of education. No doubt it was an easy task for him to say what ought to be done in favour of voluntary subscribers, but, at the same time, I think that his practice is far better than his precept, and that he would do better to tell voluntary subscribers to do as he has done, and not do or say as he says. There was another proposal made by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) to secure some popular representation upon the Committees managing the schools, both in the country and in towns, which are supported by voluntary subscriptions. It is perfectly true that these schools, to a certain extent, are the result of voluntary subscriptions, and they remain as a monument of what can be done by voluntary efforts. But, at the same time, I maintain that when the Government are giving such an enormous grant as this from the Public Treasury to voluntary schools, they were bound to secure that there should be persons in the district acting on behalf of the public to see that the schools are well managed, and that it should not be left to a body of persons who built the schools in the past, and now support them with a modicum of subscriptions to receive enormous sums of public money without giving a full and complete account of them, and without security that the schools shall be managed in the interests of the public. The schools are not likely to be managed in the interests of the public as long as the public are excluded from a share in the management of them. The Government refused also a proposal to have a more efficient audit of the accounts, a matter which I look upon as of the utmost importance, seeing that something like 27s. out of every 36s. of the cost is contributed from the Imperial resources. Again, it was proposed on this side of the House that the schoolrooms might be used for public purposes. They are not private property, but are held on trusts, either explicit or implicit, for public purposes—the purposes of education. When you have the State coming in and supporting, as well as to some extent assisting in building, the schools, I think the least we can demand is that they should be made available for all the public needs. The Govern- ment refused to accept that Amendment, and there was a further important Amendment which the Government also refused to accept. It was to the effect that the surplus in cases where the fee grant exceeded the amount of the school pence should be devoted entirely to educational purposes. The answer given by the Government was that this was provided for already by the Education Code. [Sir W. HART DYKE: Hear, hear!] Surely the Ministers and those who sit at their back must be aware that there is an enormous difference between accompanying a grant from the Public Treasury with specific instructions in an Act of Parliament marking the purposes for which the grant is to be used, and relying upon some expressions in the Code that may or may not be used according to the whim of the managers for the time being. All the Amendments moved from this side were directed to the improvement of education and making the grant the means of giving the public a wider interest in the schools which receive the grant, and seeing that better means are taken to secure proper management and control. We have been met by the argument that the denominational schools must be safeguarded, and it was supposed that all the Amendments which were submitted would do something to injure the position of denominational schools. I do not hold the same views as hon. Gentlemen opposite; probably I do not hold the same views as many who sit on my own side of the House, but it is a little strange to me to hear those who, like the noble Lord the Member for the Darwen Division (Viscount Cranborne), insist on fixed principles of religious teaching, and lay such stress upon them, condemn the religious instruction which is given in the School Boards, although quite willing to join with the heterogeneous religious instruction given in the various denominational schools. Provided that it is denominational and has a fixed principle of some sort they seem to think it matters very little what it is. Nay, hon. Members opposite seem to entertain a strange objection to the religious instruction which is given in the Board schools. I should like to remind the House that children from the age of 3 up to 14 are hardly capable of taking in all the points of theology and ecclesiastical doctrine which the school managers seek to impress upon them. They may be got from time to time to repeat with more or less intelligence the formulas taught them, but I am afraid that they understand very little of them. One hon. Member—I think the hon. Member for the Loughborough Division of Leicester—spoke of the distinction between Christians and nondescripts, describing as nondescripts the children who attend the Board schools. I may be permitted to say that, for my own part, whenever I hear these claims put forward on behalf of the denominational schools, I am reminded of the famous letter of Paul to the Corinthians, in which the Apostle, referring to those who said, "I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas," spoke in terms of the highest condemnation of divisions and contentions among Christians. I claim that, with very few exceptions, in this land we are all Christians—with one notable exception, of which I speak with the utmost respect—the Jews. In my opinion, it is not only offensive, but utterly wrong and illogical to speak of the religious instruction given in Board schools—such as that of Manchester—as being in any way non-Christian. It is essentially Christian, and the children attending the Board schools are Christians—far more Christian, indeed, than those who lay stress on small differences, instead of urging men to follow the example and the teaching of our common Lord. I differ from them because their action tends to prevent common working in a common cause. I do not confine religion within the narrow area of so called denominational instruction. Every attempt to relieve poverty and distress, and to cast out the evil spirits of ignorance and idleness, are better entitled to the name of religion than any instruction in metaphysics and ecclesiastical history. I do hope that this Bill, which will create some stir and ferment in the education of the people, and may disturb both the financial business and the general relations of elementary education through out the country, will be worked with success, and that hon. Members who support the voluntary schools will seek to work out the problem of free education which now presents itself on friendly terms with the Board schools and with one another; and that they will endeavour so to conduct the education of the country that while full opportunity is given for religious teaching in all the schools, the primary duty of assisting the education of the younger portion of the community will be adequately discharged. There is one other aspect of the question which I desire to mention. We have here another instance of what has taken place within the last year or two under the control of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—namely, the giving of large grants from the Public Treasury to be administered in the country. I regard such a policy with doubt and reluctance. I do not think it is a good thing to make grants even to the County Councils without giving them any control over the collection of the money or making them responsible for the application of it; but if there is danger in giving it to an elected body like the County Council, there is still greater danger in giving it to a large number of small bodies all over the country who are without proper representation or control. I think it is most important that we should decentralise as much as possible. This matter is peculiarly one of local importance, and it is best that it should be carried out under local supervision and supported as far as is possible by local taxation, the grants being administered by the localities themselves. Surely it is also desirable that we should go one step further in the direction of establishing District Councils. It is not enough to have given us County Councils, but we must have smaller Councils, and it is to these smaller Councils that I look for the establishment of a great system of decentralisation. I certainly desire to see, to a large extent, each district charged with the administration of education. I thank the House for the kindness and patience with which it has heard me, and I heartily hope that this Bill, whether it works for the advantage of one political party or the other, will work for the benefit of the children in our elementary schools.

Before the Bill finally leaves this House I wish to say a few words in regard to it, although I do not intend to frighten the House by enlarging at any great length upon the question. I look upon the Bill on many accounts, educationally, socially, and financially, as wrong in principle, and I further regard it as a serious attack upon voluntary schools; but, unfortunately, the view which I and my friends take was utterly annihilated by the Division which took place, so that I am not encouraged to divide the House again. But I wish to remind my hon. Friends behind me that although we figured in small numbers in that Division the Division itself gave evidence of a fact which ought to weigh gravely with Her Majesty's Government, namely, that in the Division List the names of not one-half of the Conservative Members appeared as having voted for the Second Reading of the Bill. That is a matter upon which I for one rejoice, although I am fully aware that hon. Members opposite rejoice the other way. In passing through Committee the measure has undergone several important changes. The first point to which I wish to call attention now is, that the idea which lies at the foundation of this measure is that inasmuch as compulsion has been made the law of the land, and children are compelled to go to school, it is only right and proper that we should enable them to be taught for nothing. There is a certain amount of logic in this argument, but we threw it all over in the course of the debates. It was the foundation of the whole Bill when it was originally introduced, but it has been ignored since; and we provide now, as a material and vital point, that children under five years of age and over 14 shall have free education, although the law does not compel them to go to school. However, as all principles have been thrown to the winds, I voted for an increase of the maximum age, because I thought that if we are to have free schools we should keep the children there as long as possible, and that there should be no inducement to take them away. I should even have voted for an extension of the limit indefinitely so long as the parents choose to keep their children at school. We are now going to vote £2,250,000 For free education, and yet this Bill gives no sort of return for an increase of education to that extent. I very much regret that when the Bill was passing through Committee we did not put something into it to secure an educational return for this enormous outlay. To my mind we are going to pay not only the fees which are now received, but something more, and the position is so peculiar that I cannot imagine it will last long. As an educationalist I maintain that this is anything but a satisfactory result. Then, in regard to the 3rd clause, I must confess that I look upon it as a most unfortunate and disastrous one. It will inevitably give rise to agitation in all parts of the country against the voluntary schools. As a matter of fact they are not now voluntary schools at all, but simply denominational schools. It is of no use to quibble over names; since the Act of 1870 these schools have become not voluntary but denominational schools, and as denominational schools I am prepared to support them. Judging from the enthusiasm with which this Clause 3 was received on the other side of the House, I am satisfied that it will work immense mischief to the denominational schools. It will lead to agitation in every district and an unpleasant political and social agitation, and in the course of a few years the practical result will be to destroy a great nnmber of the denominational schools. I know that for those hon. Members who are not within the charmed circle of official life, it is always an unpleasant thing to oppose the Government which they generally support in other matters. I have felt this strongly, but I must candidly confess that I have not at any moment been alarmed that any action we may have taken would be likely to damage the Government, seeing, that they have so many allies on the other side. I had, therefore, no fear as to the result of our action on the fate of the Government. At the same time, I feel that it is most unpleasant to be compelled to take this decided opposition to a measure which has been brought in by Her Majesty's Government. It is only right that I should say we have never pledged ourselves to it, but that on the contrary, we have most emphatically pledged ourselves the other way. The disastrous state of the position is this. If what we say is correct, the Government are damaging their future prospects, and it will take pretty well our lifetime before we recover our position, while, if we are not correct, we shall be regarded as false prophets of evil. Many of my hon. Friends have told me that I am acting the part of a Cassandra in this matter, because I have ventured to prophecy great disaster and misfortune from the passing of this measure—a disaster so great that it will be like the fall of Troy. No doubt I feel that the disaster is great, and certainly, in my judgment, it somewhat resembles to our Party the fall of Troy in the time of Cassandra. But the House very well knows that, whatever happened, Cassandra was right in the prophecies she made. [An hon. MEMBER: She did no good!] An hon. Member says "She did no good." That is quite true, and I am afraid that I shall do no good. Nevertheless, whatever she predicted came to pass. Why were her prophecies not believed? Let me remind the House of a line in Virgil—

"By the gods' decree:

All heard, but none believed the prophecy."

The gods, in this case, are the Government on the Front Bench, and it is by the decree of the Government that my hon. Friends have been blind and deaf to all warning, and refuse to listen to it. As I have been called Cassandra, I have taken the trouble to read up once more the classical tale, with greater ease I acknowledge in Dryden's translation than in the original Latin. I think the Government are to be regarded as the gods who have turned a deaf ear to Cassandra's prophecies. I think the story affords a curious and a serious omen for us. We have been besieged by our enemies, the Greeks, on the other side, but they have hitherto failed to get into our strong places. As a last resource, our enemies invented and built the wooden horse of free education for it. It is not our measure, but that of hon. Members on the opposite side, that we are passing. It is of no good to say that it is not so. I wish to give everybody his due. Our opponents then built the wooden horse of free education, and they loaded it with a destructive and treacherous cargo of secular schools, absence of parental responsibility, discouragement of self-reliance, and the annihilation of denominational schools. I should not have objected to this but for the extraordinary fact that we have been induced to admit this wooden horse within our own walls. In the case of Troy this result was brought about by a subtle and clever freak. We are told that it was Sinon who undertook to persuade Troy to admit the wooden horse. He said that it would be beneficial in every way, and that it would be dedicated, when it was got inside, to Minerva, who was the goddess of Wisdom, Literature, and Education. He said that this would not only appease the gods, but would turn away the anger of the gods from Troy (probably having in view the next election) and turn it on their enemies. May I ask if the modern Sinon is not the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain). Has he not persuaded the Front Bench to receive the wooden horse in this instance? My conviction is that he is the man who has done it all, and that he is the man whose influence has been so all-powerful. We have all been convinced by his wisdom, and perhaps I may be allowed to quote a line or two from Dryden's translation of Virgil, which are on all fours I think with the present position. What is it that Virgil says?

"All vote to admit the steed……..

Some hoisting-levers, some the wheels prepare,

And fasten to the horse's feet; the rest

With cables haul along the unwieldy beast."

Well, my hon. Friends voted to admit the steed, and have helped to haul it along. They have become so enthusiastic that they compete with one another. Even the Junior Member for Stockport was found pushing the horse a little at the back. In the words of the poem—"Each on his fellow for assistance calls," and so we now find hon. Members coming forward and saying that, in honest truth, they have had for a long time a sort of secret idea that free education was the right thing. Others, like the Member for South Islington, say now that ever since they stood for Parliament they have believed in free education, and yet others again have talked so enthusiastically on the subject that one would almost suppose that free education was drawn in literally with their mothers' milk. But like many of the qualities of their parents, their mothers especially, my hon. Friends have not thought of those things until maturity has passed, and old age has come upon them. This is exactly on all fours with our present position, and the result now is that we have reached the Third Reading of the Bill with all this enthusiastic support and—

"At length, the fatal fabric mounts the walls, Big with destruction."

That is the view I take of the position. We know perfectly well what was the result in Troy. We know that in Troy, the very night the wooden horse was brought in, and before it had been there 24 hours, the great city which had resisted, as we have resisted our opponents for years and years, was taken and destroyed. I venture to assert that the same sort of thing will happen with us. We have been deluded enough to believe that the horse of free education which we have admitted, is but a harmless hobby. But it is not so. It is as dangerous as that wooden horse of Troy, and we shall be as ruthlessly undeceived before long by the destruction of our denominational schools. I believe, to end as I began with the classic simile, that in the night of a not far distant future our "sacred city" of religious education, "built by hands divine," like the homes of the "Valiant heroes of the Trojan line," will be taken and destroyed by this measure of so-called free education, which we are now admitting, and that unnecessarily, though perhaps unwittingly admitting, at the dictation of the modern Sinon, in spite of the warning of 10,000 Cassandras, within the hitherto impregnable stronghold of religious education.

We have listened to a very amusing speech from the hon. Member for North Islington (Mr. Bartley), and having heard the statement he has made I should recommend my hon. Friend to repeat that speech in some of the 25,000 parishes of this country among the men and women who hardly know what it is to get the means to provide their next meal, let alone the 1s. 3d. a week they may be called upon to pay for their children's school fees. They would hardly compare the measure brought in by Her Majesty's Government to the wooden horse with which the hon Member has compared it, and I think that if the hon. Gentleman had gone to those districts as I have done, and assisted in the relief of human beings who are destitute of human necessities, he would probably have spared himself the trouble which I daresay occupied some considerable portion of his time last night in order to prepare the amusing story he has put before the House about the wooden horse which obtained admittance into Troy. But my hon. Friend the Member for North Islington has told us the object of his speech. He is followed by a brand new fourth party, of which he is at present the only possible sign of membership, and I may here express a hope that the other three will be as able, and that their prospects and career will be as favourable as those of the other fourth party. But it is not my intention to go into all the questions which have been raised by the hon. Member, and which have been discussed in this House over and over again. The speech of my hon. Friend touched on every point connected with our complicated system of national education, and his object seemed to be to endeavour to hang all the questions arising on that subject upon a simple Bill for relieving parents from the payment of school fees. The apparent object of that speech was to minimise the value of this measure and support the voluntary school system, to show how much the Government have not done, and to carefully conceal the great things they have accomplished by this measure. But I think it would take a considerable number of such speeches to explain away the fact that on the 1st September next the great mass of the English people will be relieved from what has been to them hitherto an intolerable burden. Of course, the questions as to local control, and the great religious question, and all those other matters which have been referred to by my hon. Friend, in preference to the main topic of free education, will probably take years to settle, and, although it is easy to hang them on to a simple Bill for free education, my hon. Friends in this House and the country generally must not forget that if their efforts had been persistent, whether in the case of the Instructions that have been moved or of the Amendments which have been referred to, the Free Education Bill must have been killed, and there would have been no relief of school fees for the people of this country—at any rate during the present Session. But, Sir, my object in rising was not to enter into the details of this question, but simply to congratulate Her Majesty's Government and the country at large on having practically completed—so far, at least, as the House of Commons is concerned—a great and important public measure. I think it is not only the greatest measure of the Session, but that it is also the greatest measure which the present Parliament has done. It is a measure that has been subjected to a large amount of criticism, and there are one or two great dangers from which we, the supporters of Her Majesty's Government, have happily been successful in saving the Bill. But the fact, at any rate, remains, that the Bill will leave this House as a good Bill, a satisfactory Bill, and an efficient Bill—efficient for the object it is intended to serve—the one and the only object for which it was introduced—namely, to relieve the people of this country from the payment of school fees. It is a great Bill, because it will remove the reproach that has been hanging over this country, that after having made education compulsory for the public good and for the general safety, we nevertheless imposed fees on the parents and the children whom we have compelled to enter our elementary schools. This Bill will remove hardships such as only those who are engaged in the work of education in connection with the School Board system are familiar with. It will remove a terrible hardship under which poor parents are now suffering in striving to make good the weekly fees. Those who have been on the Attendance Committees, as I have been, and who have seen the poor people coming up to explain their position and to beg for a remission of the fees, must know what a humiliating process that is. There are Magistrates who will not convict for breaches of the law in regard to the payment of fees, and who refuse to imprison the parents, because they know they are too poor to pay. And there are also people whose time is taken up very much by the collection of fees, and all those demoralising agencies which directly tend to the destruction of that self-respect which ought to be one of the first objects of education, who desire to see those demoralising agencies done away with, and who think that education will receive an impetus from this Bill such as we can hardly have estimated. But, Sir, as I have already said, I only rise to express my thankfulness to Her Majesty's Government for having passed this Bill. I have a large personal acquaintance with men to whom the payment of fees has been one of their greatest burdens, and I am sure that in almost every cottage in this country, while the other questions may be admitted to be matters of great importance, the effect of this free education measure so long talked of, and which has been at last conferred, will be fully recognised, and I venture to say a great debt will be held to be due to Her Majesty's Government, or to any Government that shall have conferred this great boon upon the people, and especially upon the poorer classes. I ask my hon. Friend to rise to the greatness of this occasion, and not to be prevented by a feeling of miserable partisanship from recognising the great boon which is now being given to the country. I must remind my hon. Friend that when we talk about the conversion of this or that or the other Member—

^* : I did not use the word "conversion."

Well, I will substitute alteration of opinion in regard to free education—I say, I must remind them that when the question was first raised by the hon. Member for the Edgbaston Division of Birmingham, he had only 32 Members following him into the Lobby in favour of free education. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby, the former Home Secretary, is an exception, but with a few exceptions the bulk of the Members who are supporting this measure may be called converts, because there has hitherto been no Party that has adopted the principle of this measure as a Party, and there has been no Government that as a Government has ever tried its hand upon it. I am very glad to find that Her Majesty's Government having tried their hand upon this question have so far succeeded, and I beg to congratulate them upon the result, and especially the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council, who has piloted this measure through the House with so full a sense of its importance, and so anxious a desire to make it what it is in point of fact—a Free Education Bill.

I congratulate Her Majesty's Government on having got through the difficult task they have undertaken in the passage of this Bill, although I do not know that hon. Members on this side of the House can congratulate themselves on the manner in which some of the Amendments, neither hostile to the Bill nor to the Board schools, have been received. Those Amendments have been proposed simply with the object of improving the position of voluntary schools in the North of England. I hope that when the Bill reaches the other House the Government will consider the desirability of introducing an Amendment dealing with the quarterly payment of the fee grant. I do not see why that matter should be left entirely in the hands of the Depart- ment. I should also like to call attention to the 4th sub-section of Clause 3, relating to the extent of school accommodation in the district, and to ask whether the Government will object to the insertion of words making it quite clear that the inquiry should be public. I trust that, on the whole, the Bill will be found valuable in the interests of education in the future.

I do not think that the Debate which has been raised on the Third Reading of this Bill has been altogether useless, because it has afforded an opportunity not only of saying things which we found some difficulty in saying while the Bill was in Committee lest we should be accused of delaying the measure, but also of reviewing the position into which it has brought us with a better and wider prospect than was possible when the measure was in the Committee stage. It is only on these grounds that I desire to offer a few words on the present occasion. I think, Sir, the time has come when we ought to ask ourselves when this Bill leaves us what the future education of the country, as set up by it, is likely to be? The measure has three aspects. First of all, there is its political or electioneering aspect, on which I shall say nothing now, because that aspect of the subject has been dealt with by the Cassandra of Islington. It is very interesting to us to know from the hon. Member that that noble beast which played so distinguished a part in the Siege of Troy, is still sound in wind and limb and able to show his paces so well when mounted by a competent rider. But passing this by, I ask the House to look at this Bill in its educational aspect, and I will endeavour to sum up the impression it has made on those of us whose interest in the question of education is of 20 or 30 years' standing. In our view, a great opportunity has been, I will not say neglected, but very imperfectly used. The Government might have made this Bill an opportunity for insisting upon improvements in education which it would have been hard to secure at any other moment. They might have raised the standards. That would have been an enormous gain, and this would have been the aptest moment for undertaking the work. The occasion has also been neglected for obtaining a higher education in efficient schools and for re-organising and resettling a number of school areas. I do not, however, make this a charge against the Government. I feel that they had an extremely difficult problem to deal with. But looking back at the whole question, it surely is a neglected opportunity. It was unfortunate that ecclesiastical disputes should be mixed up in any way with educational policy. In this case the ecclesiastical question has been forcibly brought to our attention by the language used by Lord Salisbury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Prime Minister said that the object and scope of the Bill would be to place denominational schools in a position where they could not be shaken; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer ascribed it to the necessity of saving denominational schools. Therefore we cannot ignore the ecclesiastical side of the question. What, then, will be the result of the ecclesiastical provisions in the Bill? It is necessary to distinguish between town schools and country schools in considering this question. In towns, especially in the North of England, the fees, as a rule, are much in excess of what would be covered by the 10s. grant, and the voluntary schools there will be placed at a considerable disadvantage. They will have to raise their subscriptions, and it is by no means certain that this can be done. Therefore, unless there is a larger rally to the denominational schools in the manufacturing towns by subscriptions, those schools will be unable to maintain themselves. Board schools will come in, and the schools will become free. But in the rural districts the managers will gain, and the Government will attain their object of easing the burden of local subscribers and of confirming the clerical control of these schools. I think we ought now to get rid of the word "voluntary," because these schools will be State-supported, though left under denominational and, in many cases, under clerical managers. I think that no school should be in the hands of one denomination, and I should be glad to see schools managed by elected bodies. I admit, however, that in the case of towns there may be a case for allowing denominational schools, because it might be argued that there is no reason why we should not allow a denominational school to be managed on its own principles so long as there is no grievance on the part of the other children. I do not personally adopt that view, but I admit there is great force in it. It may also be said that there are advantages in having schools under a variety of private management—that there should be an honourable rivalry between schools of one denomination and another. Denominational schools in towns or thickly populated districts stand on the whole on a different basis to those in the rural districts, where often the denominational school is the only school, and to which the child is compelled to go. It goes there on sufferance; it is to be treated exceptionally and to be tolerated. Is that right and fair? The Dissenter is just as much a taxpayer as the member of the Church of England, and the child of the former is entitled to equal terms with the child of the latter. We want something more than toleration. We want equal civil rights, and the right hon. Gentleman may rest assured that the claim will not be allowed to rest. That is a grievance of which we complain, and it is one which is greatly aggravated by the present Bill. I read with some interest the evidence before the last Royal Commission, and the argument was used that the State made a payment in respect of secular, and not religious, teaching. That might be so, while the denominational contributions bore a large proportion to the State grant; but when denominational schools are almost entirely supported by the Public Treasury, then the argument is destroyed, and we claim whatever power the denominationalists have now in the control of their schools. What will be the consequences of this Bill? I am not surprised that many Members think it will work dangerously to denominational schools. I entirely agree with that view. The most probable forecast is this: Board schools will increase in towns, particularly in the North of England; the people of the country at large will become more and more accustomed to seeing education conducted by publicly-elected bodies, and the more Board schools cover the ground in towns, the more anomalous and indefensible will be the position of schools in the country districts. We shall, therefore, have a stronger feeling over the whole country in favour of School Boards than we have at this moment. We will in the end see a sort of rural revolt. When the benefits of Local Government work down into the districts, there will be a strong feeling among the inhabitants of rural parishes that they should have control of their own schools. I believe, therefore, that the ultimate result of this Bill will be to strike a fatal blow at the denominational system. I may be asked why, then, am I discontented with the Bill. I say, with all sincerity, that I care more about education than about anything else, and I look forward with regret to the prospect that our education in this country will for some time to come involve ecclesiastical controversies. I believe in the interests of denominational schools themselves the Government would have done far better had they accepted some one of our proposals for local control. By so doing, they would have left the Church of England and denominational schools in a better position than they are likely to occupy. I know many think that the true policy of the Church of England is to fight every parish, the weak and the strong. That is a mistake constantly made by the Established Church. They defend what they consider the outposts, lest the citadel be taken. They did so on the Universities question, and on the question of the burial of Dissenters. Has the Church been made weaker by the removal of those grievances? She is stronger. If I may venture to prophesy in the present instance, the effort of the Government to maintain ecclesiastical exclusiveness is an injury to denomination and to the Church of England. Now that the question of civil and religious liberty has been re-opened, we will lose no opportunity of endeavouring to get this Bill amended. Not only have old controversies been re-opened, but new ones have been introduced, and we will lose no opportunity which may be afforded us in the course of politics to get rid of the educational deficiencies which this Bill leaves, and of that ecclesiastical injustice which, as we think, aggravates them.

I thank Her Majesty's Government for having successfully carried through this Bill, and I do not pretend to argue whether the Conservative or Liberal Party ought to claim free education as their own. Looked at historically, free education is a principle 1,000 years old. We have it in our Westminster school, which is brought down free to the people of England. I congratulate Her Majesty's Government on having given effect to a very ancient principle, which will conduce to the happiness and prosperity of the people. I think it is almost time to drop the distinction between voluntary and denominational or other schools. Practically, all the schools of the country are subsidised to a very great extent by the State. They should be divided into two classes: Board and denominational schools. There is a great difference between the two. The latter while subsidised by the State are not supported by the local rate. The Board schools are supported by the rates. The denominational schools are confined by the 17s. 6d. limit, while the Board schools enjoy an enormous revenue from the local rates. The total yearly cost of Board schools was £3,373,845 for educating 1,468,892 children. The yearly cost of the denominational schools is £4,201,592 for educating 2,262,435 children. The denominational schools educate their children for £2 per head, and the Board schools for about £3 per head. I proposed the other day that there should be some limitation of the extravagance of School Boards, and that the 10s. grant should not be made where the rate was 1s. in the £1. The School Board of London is about to plunge into a 1s. rate. I was very much surprised that the right hon. Gentleman (Sir W. Harcourt) did not come to my assist- ance, because in 1870 he was very eloquent on the point that the rate should not exceed 1d. in the £1. We were told that it would not be more than 3d., but it has amounted to about 1s. This is a direction in which the present Bill will prove a failure. In the long run those who support voluntary schools will be beaten out of the field by the unfair competition of the School Boards who have the local rates in which the voluntary schools have no share. I suppose we must be thankful for small mercies in these days and be content with what we have got. I very much regret that Her Majesty's Government did not see their way to getting rid of the 17s. 6d. limit which confines denominational schools, and to limiting the extravagance of School Boards. It is useless to say that the ratepayers have the matter in their own hands. But for these defects I think the Government have certainly succeeded in carrying a most admirable Bill, and one of the principle of which they certainly may be proud. The hon. Member for Eccles referred to an expression of mine, which I did not intend offensively. I was representing the views of those who complain of the secularising tendencies of School Boards. I admit the necessity of School Boards where denominational schools cannot be supported. With regard to the question whether Christian teaching should be imparted in Board Schools, I think the recommendations of the minority of the Royal Commission are ominous. The minority, traversing the Report of the majority, state their strong opinion that the moral teaching under the present system had been most valuable; it was given throughout the whole school time, and was not confined to religious teaching, but given through secular instruction. It was not my purpose to say anything offensive to any quarter of the House, and I hope I have justified what I said. I think of all Members of the House, the hon. Member for Poplar may claim the parentage of this Bill. In his evidence before the Royal Commission he made the suggestion which fairly entitles him to that position—that free schools should be established out of the Consolidated Fund. I am sure this Bill carries out his intention. I would only say, in conclusion, that I am certainly in favour of the popular control where the schools are rate-supported, and if denominational schools received a share of the rates, I should be prepared to concede some form of public control. (2.0.)

^* (2.16.) : It is somewhat difficult, Sir, to answer speakers in their absence. I do not know whether I am at liberty to call attention to the fact that there are not 40 Members present.

Notice taken, that 90 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

^* : I should like to assure the hon. Member for Leicestershire (Mr. De Lisle) that we on this side of the House do not impute to him any idea of saying anything offensive to persons opposed to him. We look upon the hon. Member as a most interesting, but, at the same time, a venerable relic, and we are desirous of treating him in a spirit of kindness. The feelings we experience when we listen to the hon. Member for Leicestershire are not exactly the same as those we experience when we listen to the hon. Member for the Bordesley Division, and his leader, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain), when we hear ourselves addressed as hon. Friends by a speaker whose tones are full of sneer, we experience something very like the nausea which is the beginning of influenza, and I should be very glad if the word friend were used only when it means a political friend in this House. Now, complaint has been made that the Government have given way to their supporters. While I thank the Vice President of the Council (Sir W. Hart Dyke) for the great courtesy with which he has conducted these discussions, I am bound to observe that the Government seem to have leaned heavily against us. We have asked for some measure of popular control, and we have been denied the smallest concession in that respect. The question of popular control is very frequently argued as if it were entirely a matter of religious difference. As far as my experience teaches me, it is nothing of the kind. The master of a school not very far from my home in the North had been in the habit for a considerable time of picking out from a so-called London letter in a Conservative newspaper all the spiteful bits about the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, and reading them to the pupils. Alluding to the matter in public, a short time after I heard of it, I said that if any schoolmaster who professed himself a Liberal resorted to similar tactics I should refuse to shake hands with him, and regard him as a cad. The schoolmaster gave up the practice, very much to the gratification of his neighbours. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. De Lisle) complained that the Government has not given way about the 17s. 6d. limit. I think the right hon. Gentleman has given way, and to an amount which is a very considerable percentage on the 17s. 6d. We have asked the Vice President to put into the Bill words to secure that any free schools shall be as good in their curriculum as those schools in which fees are paid. He has denied us that concession. Again, the right hon. Gentleman has refused to insist that a certain definite proportion of the income of the voluntary schools shall come from voluntary subscriptions. We think this a matter of principle. We would all much prefer that no fees should be paid at all, and that the schools should be really national schools; but we think it only right that if any set of people claim to themselves the control of the schools, they should be called upon to pay a considerable portion of the cost of the schools. The Government have refused to make a grant for night schools, greatly to my regret. Night schools have been very steadily discouraged by one Administration after another, and my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham has done very good work in encouraging the supporters of these schools to make headway again. The result of the action of the hon. Member's Society has been that the number of pupils in night schools has of late been largely increased. It is a great pity that a little more money should not have been expended in the encouragement of night schools, for the reason that it is largely in the first year after leaving school that boys and girls feel for the first time the advantage of the education they have received. I should have been delighted if the Government had done something which would have encouraged our young people to continue their education in night schools. I give the right hon. Gentleman fair warning that I mean to agitate and agitate until he gives way as to night schools. Again, the Vice President has refused to give any definite instruction to the managers of the voluntary schools that they are to use any surplus they may have in the improvement of education. He has refused to give us an audit of the accounts of schools, and what to my mind is rather worse, he has refused our proposal that the managers of schools shall send copies of their accounts to the Local School Authority. I can understand managers resisting an audit. They claim that the schools are private property, as to which they are not bound to account to anyone. But we have the analogy of the local charities all over the country. Parliament has decreed that the managers of charities shall be bound to send in their accounts to the Commissioners, and the Commissioners are willing to supply to the Local Authorities copies of the annual accounts. Why should we favour the managers of voluntary schools in a way we do not favour the managers of charities? It seems to me the duty the managers of the schools owe to the public is just as clear as that the trustees of charities owe to the public. I have recounted a number of cases in which the Government have refused to give way to us. What have they done on other points? No spectacle could be more humiliating than the attitude taken up by Members from Lancashire. I am a Lancashire man myself by birth, and I am proud to think there is truth in the adage that "what Lancashire thinks to-day, England will think tomorrow." I am not competent to say what Lancashire thinks of a section of its representatives to-day, but I am satisfied that England will agree that the continual policy of grab, grab, grab, pursued by Members from Lancashire on behalf of these half-time full-fee schools has not by any means been a credit to that great county. Especially would I say this with regard to those hon. Members who represent districts in which half-time schools are situated. Those Members have been coming to us all through this Session, asking for consideration for the population in those districts on account of their poverty. They have been asking that they should be allowed to send their children to work at 10 years of age on account of this poverty, these people perhaps the best paid in the country. We have heard since the discussions on the Factory and Workshops Bill from the right hon. Member for Sheffield that these poor little children get no wages for a long time after they attend the factories for half-time; they go to work at half-past five or six in the morning, and they get only half the proper schooling, and are charged the full fee, and it is to these schools that the right hon. Gentleman has been peculiarly generous. I do hope and trust that at no distant date this House will give these Lancashire Representatives to understand that no more concessions of this kind are to be made, and that many of those made will be rescinded. The hon. Member for Bordesley (Mr. Jesse Collings) has congratulated the Government upon this Bill; but I think we on this side have reason to congratulate ourselves, for many of us have been advocates of free education since 1868. That the Bill will do great good I readily grant, that it will be amended hereafter and do very much more good I heartily pray. I congratulate hon. Members on this side upon the passing of the Bill, and I wish I could congratulate them upon having been more successful in amending it.

^* (2.34.) : Twenty years ago, when I was a candidate at a School Board election, I advocated free and undenominational education, and ever since I have held the same view. Now, I think the speech of the hon. Member for the Bordesley Division (Mr. Jesse Collings) was conceived with bad taste, and delivered in a bad tone. He seemed desirous of claiming a Party victory in the passing of this measure, and he congratulated the Government and those who had assisted the Government in saving the Bill from dangers that threatened it. But there has been no Motion from this side of the House that was not friendly to the Bill, and all the speeches delivered here have had but one object, the improvement of the Bill, the widening of its scope to make it more efficient, and more useful to the people. I yield all honour to the Government for the drafting and introduction of the measure and for finding the money for the remission of school fees, but to no Party in the House, but to the House as a whole is the final result due. We are glad the measure is about to pass, and I, born in an agricultural district and having knowledge of the difficulties of the agricultural labourers' life and the burden of the tax school fees impose upon him, thank the House and thank the Government for this act of tardy justice to the class. I am glad to know that on this Third Reading stage there is no discordant voice from our side. We admit that the Bill is to a great extent a further endowment of Church authority and Church influence in rural parishes, a fact that the promoters of the Bill and the supporters of the Government have not attempted to conceal. They are desirous of maintaining the influence of denominationalism, which means the extinction of the independence of Dissenters in 10,000 rural parishes throughout the country. It will have that effect no doubt for a time, but it is as certain as the Bill passes this House to-day that this will not be allowed to endure. To the agricultural labourer and his family it is, of course, of the greatest importance to be released from the payment of school fees. Yet the Dissenting agricultural labourer is as keenly alive to the necessity of religious freedom and equality as are the dwellers in the towns. That religious freedom and equality will inevitably follow in the wake of this measure, and before many years have passed. You cannot hope in these days to continue to use public funds—the funds of the taxpayers for the advantage of one religious denomination. It is hopeless to suppose that such a system can continue to prevail, and all these props set up by the Government in this Bill for the maintenance of denominationalism will surely, and in natural course decay, and those strong enough to resist the natural process will certainly be removed ere long by Liberal legislation. I am delighted to witness the passing of this great measure, and I can fully appreciate its enormous advantages. I have experienced all my life the disadvantage of the want of early instruction. I know that there are thousands of children among the labouring community as capable of receiving and using instruction as the children of the wealthy class. The opportunity has been denied them in the past. Only want of opportunity has prevented many of them from rising to positions of influence and public usefulness. This measure will to a great extent remove the initial difficulty from the labouring classes, and so far as it does that it is a great measure worthy of the commendation of the House of Commons and the thanks of the whole country. But let it be for all time understood that there have been no stronger supporters of the Bill in the House of Commons than the Members sitting on the Liberal Benches. During the whole of the Debates on this Bill we have not heard a single speech from the other side of the House in praise of education for the people on its own merits. Yes, I have listened with attention throughout the whole of the Debates, and there has been no great speech from that side in praise of education, and the merits of education, but there has been a continuance of Party and sectarian wrangles as to whether denominational schools would be benefited or not. In the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to his constituents, a few weeks back, in commending this measure he did not commend it as a great means for aiding and developing the intellectual resources of the labouring community, he only recommended the Bill, because, he said, if his Party did not pass it the other Party would do so, and it would be so much the worse—for what? For education? Nothing of the kind. There was no appeal to the patriotic instincts of his constituents in favour of education, he appealed to them to support the Bill, because the other Party if they passed such a measure would make it worse for denominationalism than his own Party would. But I hope the occasion for recrimination has gone. They would not have been raised to-day but for the friends and supporters of the Government, the tail, I might say, of the wooden horse, dragged out by the hon. Member for North Islington (Mr. Bartley). I rejoice that the Bill has reached this stage, not for the sake of Party purposes or any political advantages. I would rather that the labourers should have this free education, though denominational teaching is mixed up with it, than that they should not have it at all, for I am sufficiently acquainted with the labourers to know that they will use the advantage this measure will confer to free their schools from the dictation of the parson and the squire, and will place control in the hands of representatives of the people duly and publicly elected. I am delighted, I say, at the passing of this measure, and I think it a great privilege and honour to have a seat in this House, and to be permitted to say a word in favour of a measure that will go far to raise the status of the labouring community, and enrich the nation, giving to the working classes the opportunity of taking a high position in the future in the affairs of the country. I feel it a great privilege to be able to say "Aye" to the Third Reading of this important measure.

I join with the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down in thinking it a privilege to be a Member of the House of Commons which passes this important measure. It certainly, if it does not crown the edifice of education, lays another stone which will carry the building up towards that crown which some day we may hope to see. I join too, in saying that though credit is in the first place due to the Government for the introduction of the Bill, so is it due to the entire House for the way in which the Bill has been carried through. Nor do I wish to exclude even those 10 or 12 Members who opposed the Second Reading, because I believe that every one of them is an educationist, and did not oppose the Bill from an educational point of view. I was very much struck with an observation from my hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon, in dealing with a point frequently raised, that the Bill would strike a fatal blow at voluntary schools, that this could only be under certain conditions; if the managers of voluntary schools do not rise to the occasion, a fatal blow will no doubt be struck at the system, but if they rise to the occasion, if they make their schools effective in the future, instead of a blow struck at them this will be a pillar raised for their support. Our system of education throughout is not, and should not be, of one cast-iron design; it is to the advantage of the country that it takes different shapes, and when this Bill becomes law we shall see in the future, as we have seen in the past, voluntary schools and Board schools flourishing side by side. There is really no antagonism between the two systems. I have not been a member of a School Board, but I can speak from personal experience as manager of a voluntary school some time ago, and I know that in Liverpool, ever since the Act of 1870 passed, the managers of the Board schools have unquestionably derived great assistance from experience in connection with voluntary schools. In only one instance have I found the religious difficulty arise, and that was very soon got over. It is not truth to say that the Board school teaching is irreligious, or that morality and religion are not recognised in the instruction given. I, of course, do not speak for all, but, speaking generally, I believe that in the management of Board schools the education is given a religious turn; there is the force of religion behind it just as much as in the voluntary system. I may mention that the Chairman of the Committee of Management of the School Board to which I refer is Chairman also of the management of a voluntary school in connection with the Church of England, and though his colleagues are not in connection with that Church yet they work most harmoniously together, and the education given in the Board schools is thoroughly efficient. We shall find, I believe, in the future that efficiency under either system will be in no way diminished, but the competition will be as useful for education as it has been in the past. I may take the opportunity to mention a fact that has not, I think, been referred to, that the amount derived from the rates in aid of education is not a very large amount. In Liverpool, to take an example, a sum of about £54,000 comes from the rates in support of schools, but of this sum only £11,000, or 20 per cent., is devoted directly to educational purposes. The balance is applied indirectly and to such purposes as the payment of interest due in connection with the erection of school buildings, the repayment of principal, and the enforcement of the compulsory clauses. In this voluntary schools and Board schools equally share the advantage. I join in the expression of regret that the Government have not thought right to assist continuation schools, for our system permits children to be withdrawn from school too soon for the completion of their education. One of the best parts of the Bill is the clause which sanctions children remaining at school until 15 years of age without payment of fees. In closing these few remarks I venture to say it is not given to every Minister to introduce Bills having such far-reaching consequences as those winch must attend that which it has fallen to the lot of the present Vice President of the Council to propose. Most ably has he piloted this Bill through the House. This is not the first time he has so well discharged similar duties. Not many Members probably remember that when the right hon. Gentleman held the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland, he had charge in this House of the first Ashbourne Act, an Act which has been productive of more benefit to Ireland than any other Land Act, and of which the Land Purchase Bill we have just passed is but the supplement and complement. I trust that the success which has attended that Act in Ireland will be repeated over a wider area in con nection with this Bill with which the name of the right hon. Gentleman is associated.

I was, unfortunately, prevented from moving the clause which stood in my name on the Paper yesterday, and may be allowed a few words at this stage. It is to be regretted that the Vice President has not repaired what must have been an omission in the drafting of the Bill. The Bill rests so far as voluntary schools are concerned on administration of schools by managers, but it is a fact well known on both sides of the House that in many schools there is no manager. It is a delusion to suppose that there are only a few schools in the country which are not under the administration of a committee. It is a delusion to assume that the managers always sign the documents constituting the authority for the payment of the annual grant. Many Members of this House, I feel sure, must often have been asked to sign such documents, although they might know little or nothing about the management of the schools for which the grant was claimed. This state of things has already created some hostility against the voluntary system, and under this Bill the mischief will be still more serious, for there is a likelihood of the increase of arbitrary and irresponsible management. Provision ought to be made against despotic management, and I trust that the point will be dealt with in another place.

I think almost every Member of the House is delighted that parents are in future to be relieved of the Poll Tax which they have hitherto had to pay in the shape of the school fees of their children. The Bill has been made to a certain extent a battle field between the respective supporters of secular and denominational education. There were two remarkable speeches delivered at the beginning of this Debate—one by the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Roby), expressing regret that the Bill had not been made more of a settlement, and the other by the hon Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen. The latter was a very fair speech from the hon. Gentleman's point of view, although I think the practical effect of his views would be to crush out the voluntary schools and to have a large system of education with a certain amount of religion, defined by Act of Parliament, introduced into it. The question of denominational or secular education is not necessarily mixed up with that of free education. Roman Catholics could send their children to a secular school, although they would prefer not to do so, but they would rather suffer persecution and imprisonment than send them to a school where there is given a certain amount of religious instruction which is not that sanctioned by their own Church. I understand the hon. Gentleman to give us fair warning that in future times he and his Party will attempt to introduce a system of that kind.

What I argued for was the establishment of complete religious equality in those schools which are alone accessible to the children in any district.

I had better not, perhaps, follow the right hon. Gentleman into that subject, because we are all agreed about perfect religious equality The desire of those Members who are anxious for denominational education has been in these discussions, not to gain any point for denominational education, but to prevent this Bill being turned into an engine for secular education, or for the control by one denomination of the religious education of another. Fortunately most of the Amendments that would have been detrimental to voluntary schools have been rejected, and the question between denominationalism and secularism has been left as nearly as possible where it was. The Bill does not extend to Ireland, where, however, it may have a serious indirect effect, for already large numbers of parents are saying that, as there is to be free education in England, they do not see why they should pay for it in Ireland. I hope the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President will represent the matter to the Government. It is easy to get it into the heads of the people that they ought not to pay money, and it will take a long time to convince the people that they are not taking a right view of the matter. The result will be that education in Ireland will suffer.

I look upon this Bill as the complement of the Act of 1870. When that measure was before the House I protested against the enforcement of compulsory attendance, with its consequent burden upon parents, not of fees only, but of the loss of the labour of their children, and I took the sense of the Committee on the clause which enforced compulsory attendance. I pointed out that it was an injustice to the great mass of the people, and I took the liberty of dividing the Committee against the clause. I was supported by a very appreciable number of Members, though defeated by what may be called a considerable majority. More than 100 Members followed me into the Lobby, and. I am by no means ashamed of the course I took on that occasion. I have been greatly struck by the altered tone which has been adopted as to the question of education during the discussions on this Bill. Of course I make allowance for the altered views which are entertained on many subjects in our day, but throughout these Debates I have heard scarcely any reference made to the pecuniary burden cast upon taxpayers as well as upon ratepayers. I am not going into the question of whether our action is right or wrong, but by this Bill we are simply adding in perpetuity 1d. in the £1 to the Income Tax. That is what it will resolve itself into. I have no doubt I shall be told we are simply dealing with a surplus, but I deny the existence of any surplus at all, because, without going into an analysis of this somewhat nebulous surplus, as is well known, we have been with one hand borrowing for the current requirements of the year, and with the other spending money in addition to that required for the ordinary expenditure of the year. All this involves a distinct contradiction of what we were told by Mr. Forster in 1870—that the School Board system would not, in the lifetime of anyone listening to him, cost more than 3d. in the £1. ["No, no!"] That is an historical fact which I commend to the attention of hon. Gentlemen opposite who do not seem to be acquainted with it. The question remains—how far are we safeguarding the interests of taxpayers and ratepayers in the course we are adopting? I am well aware that the interest of the ratepayers and of the taxpayers of the country are very little thought of now-a-days. The vast majority of those who have to spend the money raised by the rates, and who return to Parliament the men who raise the taxes, pay an infinitesimally small proportion towards the taxes they spend, and, therefore, the interests of the ratepayers and the tax-papers go by the board; but, at the same time, I hope the House will note that an additional burden is being permanently thrown upon the income tax and upon the rates by this measure. I may, perhaps, be told that I have no right to earmark the income tax as the source from which these funds are drawn, and that no additional burden is being thrown upon the income tax by this Bill; but my reply is that when a future Chancellor of the Exchequer has to choose between taking off direct or indirect taxation, he will find himself compelled to select the latter, and, therefore, the burden will be left upon the income tax and upon the rates. One of the grounds upon which I felt bound to oppose the Act of 1870 was because I feared that the School Boards would be subjected to the influence of self-opinionated doctrinaires on both sides of the political line, who would be very apt to endeavour to carry out their fads regardless of the cost that might be imposed upon the ratepayers or the taxpayers of the country. I cannot say that the gloomy forebodings that I then entertained have been belied by the subsequent experience of the last 20 years. The Government, I have no doubt, when this Bill was introduced, thought they had better leave all the machinery of the Act of 1870 to stand by itself, and that they need only concern themselves with the one single question of freeing the parent from the duty he had to discharge in regard to the education of his child. No doubt those who support this measure may think that those who oppose it do so because they regard a Bill which frees the parents from the discharge of their duty towards their children as objectionable, because of a Socialistic character. For my own part, I cannot go that length, because I have always held that when Parliament steps in and interposes the law between parents and their children, and makes the attendance of children at school compulsory, Parliament should pay the cost itself. On this question, therefore, I have felt it to be my duty to differ from those Members of my Party with whom I am accustomed to act. Parliament having interfered into the domestic life of the country to this extent is bound to provide the money for carrying out the object that it has in view. I think, however, that the Government are wrong in supposing that this will be a universally popular measure throughout the country. On the contrary, I have found that there is uncommonly little enthusiasm evinced in its favour, even in quarters where one would expect some anxiety to be felt for relief from the burden of school pence. I believe that even in the rural districts uncommonly few people appreciate the boon that the Bill is intended to confer upon them, while in the great urban districts the measure appears to be received with considerable distrust, and I am afraid that it will give cause of offence in those quarters from which Her Majesty's Government derive their strongest political force. It may be that my views are erroneous. My own view is that there has been a vast amount of exaggeration on both sides. I believe the popularity of the measure has been enormously overrated, while I believe that many of the objections that have been raised to it in the towns will ho found by practical experience to have been to a great extent overstated also. But there is one point, and one only, which I would venture in a very few words to urge on the notice of the House. The right hon. Gentleman—whose able conduct of this Bill is, I am happy to find, so generally appreciated on all sides of the House—said that a large discretionary and controlling power will remain vested in the Education Department in regard to seeing that fair play is maintained amongst the various interests concerned. Now, I confess that I do not coincide with the right hon. Gentleman in thinking that that is a point from which any great consolation is to be derived. What does "department" mean? We are familiar enough with the expression "My Lords," but that generally means some 5th class clerk who arrogates to himself that title. I have myself known requisitions made for structural alterations involving very material cost to the managers and owners of voluntary schools. One day it may be perhaps thought that a classroom is required because the isolation of certain grades of children recommended itself to "my Lords" and their nominee. At another time precisely the opposite theory may be in vogue, and we may be told that the main structure of the school requires enlarging at very great cost. I heard the other day of an Inspector going down to a certain place and actually talking of a cloak room being built—I suppose on some architectural principle, which "my Lords" thought of enforcing at great cost and injury to the system of voluntary education. These are the points I would venture seriously to urge on the notice of my right hon. Friend. I hope that some means will be taken to prevent the heads of Departments in future going in for measures of this kind, which have in the past been found to be a serious impediment to the efficient working of the voluntary schools. There is one fallacy which pervades the replies of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council, and to which I should like to draw his attention. He seems to think that he has conclusively replied to the objections urged as to his measure pressing hardly on the voluntary schools, when he says that the Bill will affect equally the voluntary and the Board schools, but that is not quite an accurate statement, because there must always be a great distinction between the School Board schools, which are supported out of the rates, and voluntary schools, which are struggling for their existence, and which can only look to voluntary subscriptions. In connection with the Board schools, those who spend the rates are not largely affected by the imposition of the rates, but in the case of the voluntary schools, those who are mainly interested in them have to provide a large proportion of the funds necessary to carry them on. But my main object in rising was to enter a protest against the disregard that has been shown on this question for the interests of the ratepayer and the taxpayer. Education, no doubt, is a great boon and a great benefit to the great mass of the people, but, at the same time, when the Act of 1870 was agreed to, the idea was that elementary education alone was to be given at the expense of the ratepayers and of the taxpayers, whereas now we have gentlemen urging on the Vice President of the Council the necessity of arranging costly classes for the completion and finishing of what goes perillously near the higher order of education. I cannot help thinking that we have unlearnt many of the lessons we learnt in 1870. ["Hear, hear!"] An hon. Member says "Hear, hear!" Is he acquainted with the scandalous extravagance of a former London School Board, which was thoroughly exposed in this House? We have heard of the purchase of pianos, and luxuries of that kind, at the expense of the most needy section of the community. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give the House some assurance that some limit will be placed upon the future expenditure for educational purposes, otherwise I am afraid that we shall find ourselves committed to a system of absolutely reckless extravagance.

I do not desire to interpose for more than a few minutes at this stage of the Bill. The measure was originally introduced as one to further assisted education, bnt I think that Her Majesty's Government may congratulate themselves with regard to it on having acquired the right to the title of an assisted Government, so far as the Opposition is concerned. I have now been in Parliament for a good many years, and have had the satisfaction of seeing many Liberal measures carried by a Conservative Government, and when each such Bill is on the point of being passed we have always seen some such scene as we have just witnessed. We always have some staunch Members of the Party opposite, like the hon. Member for North Islington (Mr. Bartley) and the right hon. Member for Thanet (Mr. J. Lowther), who have wailed at the fate of the principles they at one time entertained. The hon. Member for North Islington has refreshed the House with a classical quotation from Dryden's "Virgil." If he will permit me I would apply to him another classical illustration: Victrix causa deis placuit, sed victa Catoni, and will say that if the conquering cause of free education has recommended itself to the gods on the Treasury Bench, the hon. Member for North Islington well represents the atrocem animism Catonis. Faithful to his principles, he has clung to them to the last. Well, that is not a new spectacle. We remember the language of Mr. Disraeli on the repeal of the Corn Laws. We remember the sentiments which were expressed in 1866 by Lord Salisbury with reference to the reform of that year. Many evils were predicted. It was said that the ruin of the country would ensue from the adoption of Free Trade, and the destruction of the Constitution from Household Suffrage. Somehow or other we have managed to survive these things, and I hope we shall survive the evils which have been predicted from the adoption of Free Education. We have had experience of dissentients on this side of the House, and we are not surprised to find dissentients opposite. But I am not going into the details of the Bill. The hon. Member for Eccles and the hon. Member for Aberdeen have pointed out what, from their point of view, are the defects of the measure. I will only say that recognising, as Members on this side do, the great boon which the Bill will confer upon the poorer classes of the community, we still regret that it should be defective in some respects. To some gentlemen the defects are a recommendation. We have heard recently that the incompleteness of the measures of Her Majesty's Government are their main recommendations to certain gentlemen who sat on that side of the House, and I am, therefore, not surprised that the admirers of incomplete legislation should welcome this Bill as the perfection of human reason. One of those gentlemen, meaning to administer consolation to the hon. Members for North Islington and Thanet, pointed out certain things that made one think that there is still balm in Bordesley, and that there are still physicians there. That is to me a melancholy recollection, because, when the right hon. Member for Thanet was speaking, my mind was carried back to the days of 1870. We then sat opposite one another as we do now, and if the right hon. Gentleman maintains the sentiments he advocated in those days, I also maintain the sentiments that I then advocated. The hon. Member for the Bordesley Division was good enough to bear testimony in that respect, though he seems to have for rotten ten that I no longer hold the office of Home Secretary. I regret that having contended in those days for the principles of the Birmingham League—free education, School Boards everywhere, and popular control—the chances of carrying out those principles have been defeated by the very gentlemen who were then the leaders of the Birmingham League. The hon. Member for Bordesley, who was Secretary to that League, while complimenting me upon my adhesion to those principles, has himself abandoned them. We have achieved, after 21 years, the pause of free education; I hope that it will not be so long before we achieve the rest of the principles that were maintained by the Birmingham League, and which we might have achieved at this time if the Representatives of Birmingham had been faithful to their own friends. There are two features which we regret are absent from the Bill. We are sorry that the principle of popular control has not been established in the Bill. I was rather struck by a sentence in the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan). He said what "we object to is that men of one class of religious opinion should manage the schools of persons who don't belong to the same opinion." It is exactly upon that ground that I object to the management of the rural schools being exclusively in the hands of persons with one set of religious opinions. Therefore, when the hon. and gallant Member advances arguments which he thinks are in favour of denominational schools, he is using the strongest arguments in condemnation of the denominational system. Another thing which I regret is that we should be advancing £2,000,000 under a Bill which practically gives no security for advance in education. The main thing which the Government has done is to safeguard and protect the denominational schools. It has never been on the other side a question how far these £2,000,000 are to be expended to advance education, but how far it is possible to spend £2,000,000 and redeem the fees without injury to denominational education. I believe the more we make it apparent that the cause of denominationalism is in opposition to the interests of education, the more certain it is that in this country the denominational system will come to an end. I should not like to sit down without recognising, as gentlemen on all sides recognise, the extreme ability and courtesy with which this Bill has been conducted by the right hon. Gentleman, who disarmed opposition, and certainly stifled to tu quoques by the frankness of his confession in his opening speech that he has changed his mind on this subject. I believe that the responsibilities of office have the effect very often of altering the opinions of persons whose views have been founded only on theory before. I remember altering my views with regard to the liquor question when I was Home Secretary, and I am sure the experience of the right hon. Gentleman in the Education Department has made him alive to the interests of free education. I have observed that no man ever entered that Department without embracing more liberal views on education than he entertained before. When a man comes frankly forward and says be has changed his views, we accept that declaration at his hands. But I cannot speak in the same terms of the two great protagonists in the cause of free education—the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Member for West Birmingham. As there is only one of those right hon. Gentlemen present I will only speak of him. The right hon. Gentle- man opposite advocates the measure, not because the dread of dangers of a socialistic character has been removed from his mind, but because it is possible that the successors of the present Government might carry out measures more injurious. I never heard great principles of public policy maintained on such grounds. When Sir R. Peel changed his views and adopted the policy of Free Trade, he said it was because he was convinced it was a sound and just policy, and he was prepared to recommend it to the country. So when Mr. Disraeli proposed Household Suffrage he did not admit that his opinions were unchanged. It was a more reckless politician who said he had adopted it for the purpose of "dishing the Whigs." I observe that the nearer the present Government approach the General Election the greater seems their dread of their successors. It is quite plain that they do not anticipate being their own successors. They proceed, as a beaten and retreating army sometimes do, to devastate their own country and burn their own villages in order that their pursuers may be starved out. That is the policy of a great Administration representing a great Party. That is the policy which the Chancellor of the Exchequer says lies at the root of free education. [Mr. GOSCHEN: I did not say that.] I am merely illustrating the position of the right hon. Gentleman. There is another thing which is noticeable, namely, that as a General Election approaches the Conservative Party become more and more enamoured of Liberal measures. To recur to a military image, they have put on "the uniform of their opponents" in order that they may be mistaken for the other side. That is the policy which is favoured by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There is only one thing wanting in this Debate. I remember that when Sir R. Peel passed the measure for the repeal of the Corn Laws he paid a well-deserved tribute to the unadorned eloquence of Richard Cobden. I think we ought to hear to-night similar grateful testimony from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain). After what has passed upon this subject a compliment of that kind would be well deserved. I remember perfectly well that differences of opinion upon that subject existed between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and my right hon. Friend, and I am glad to think that those differences have been completely removed. With reference to the measure generally, though it is not all we wish it to be, or all we intend it to be in the future, we can accept with satisfaction what has been obtained. The Party who are in favour of complete legislation may look with satisfaction to the legacy of incomplete legislation that has been left them by the Party of "incompleteness." With reference to this Bill, I may venture to repeat what I said with reference to the great Bill of Mr. Forster in 1870. Differing, as I did, from many of the principles on which that Bill was founded, I felt no man could deny that it marked a great advance in the cause of education in the country. I ventured then to say of that Bill what I say of this Bill in the words which end the great romance of Sir Walter Scott,—"There are many things that are ower bad for blessing, and ower gude for banning; like Rob Roy." I think that may be fairly said of a measure like the present. It contains great good, and also some evil—evil which may be remedied in the future; and we may all be glad, at least, at having taken part in passing a measure which will be a great relief to the poorer classes of the population, and which we hope in the long run will lead to the extension of the cause of education.

^* (3.50.) : I have listened to the Debate with great interest, and I should be ungenerous were I not to thank hon. Members for the allusions they have made to my conduct of the measure. I have had a difficult task, and I have done my best. That is all I wish to say concerning my conduct. I wish also to be allowed to offer my thanks to the First Lord of the Treasury for the constant advice and assistance I have had from my right hon. Friend in carrying forward the measure. As far as I am concerned, I am satisfied with this discussion. The Bill has been, as I always expected it would be, criticised on both sides of the House from adverse points of view. The measure in its inception and production was essentially a compromise between contending parties, and I think the criticisms we have heard from various quarters show that we have, at all events, arrived at something like a balance of opinion. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir W. Harcourt) has criticised the Bill in a very adverse spirit. I am not sure whether in one part of his speech he did not come perilously near a tu quoque. He alluded to the prospects of the Party opposite at the next election, and he indulged in metaphor. I remember in bygone days that Lord Beaconsfield, contemplating a General Election, also descended to metaphor, and referred to the members of the Administration of 1868–74, at the conclusion of their labours, as a row of extinct volcanoes. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman opposite will find, when the picture he has imagined appears on the canvas, that it is painted in totally different colours from what he has assumed. In the first place, the right hon. Gentleman assumed that his opponents would all run away. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that those who have done battle for the Conservative Party, some of them for a quarter of a century, have not won their laurels by running away; and, whatever panacea they may seize upon for any evils which threaten, the last thing they will think of doing will be to run away from their opponents. I should like to deal with one or two points of interest in the discussion. And first of all I must refer to the Virgilian oration of my hon. Friend the Member for North Islington (Mr. Bartley), who has had the cast of gloom on his countenance ever since the introduction of this Bill. My hon. Friend endeavoured the other day to impress upon the House that the Bill was introduced at the bidding of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham. I can assure the hon. Member that he never made a statement more at variance with the facts. The Bill was introduced in pursuance of a pledge given long ago, and I fearlessly assert that if there was one cause more than another which induced the Government to produce the Bill it was the strong pressure brought to bear upon them by a very great number of their own supporters. The hon. Member stated that the Government had conceded everything to hon. Members opposite, and rejected proposals coming from their own side. The statement is unjust, unfair, and absolutely devoid of truth. I have gone most carefully through the Bill as it is to-day and compared it line by line with the Bill as read a second time, and I find it has been modified in only three or four particulars at the suggestion of hon. Members opposite, and with regard to the most important of the Amendments, the raising of the age from 14 to 15, that concession was made at the last moment by the First Lord of the Treasury in deference to the pressure of a large body of opinion on this side of the House. At the suggestion of the hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. S. Buxton) a very small Amendment was accepted—that is to say, where fees were imposed in a school a Report should be made to Parliament. In addition, there was a verbal Amendment, proposed by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Summers), and one other Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Pickersgill), that where fees were reimposed they should not exceed 6d. These were the sole alterations made at the suggestion of hon. Members opposite. I will now deal with the concessions made to hon. Members on this side. In the first place, there was the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for North Lancashire (Mr. Ainslie), urging the Government to make the age for free education begin at three years. That was accepted, and it was an enormous concession for the benefit of voluntary schools. Then there were one or two Amendments introduced by the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. F. S. Powell) and others of an unimportant character. Then there was a clause introduced by the noble Lord the Member for Darwen (Viscount Cranborne) as to the grouping of schools, which was of the utmost importance. What happened with regard to the matter? When my noble Friend brought that clause forward the First Lord of the Treasury promised that Her Majesty's Government would carefully consider the matter with a view to introducing an effective clause. As a result we spent the greater part of a day in considering the question, and a clause dealing with it was carried through Committee. Another demand which was conceded was that relating to half-timers, which was a considerable concession. One other Amendment on Clause 3 related to change of population in school districts, which resulted in obvious advantage to voluntary schools. That is not a pleasing matter for me to deal with, but I feel bound to say that since I have been in Parliament I have never known so wild an assertion as that made by the hon. Member for North Islington supported by so little fact. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheshire urges that we ought to have inserted in the Bill that the payments were to be made quarterly. I can only repeat that there is in the Department a scheme ready prepared by which, if the Bill should become law by September 1 next, the first payment will be made on September 30, and the payments will go on quarterly until the end of the school year. There is a distinction between the position I take up and that taken by hon. Gentlemen opposite as to the future of this measure. It must in the future be an educational measure. It will be very easy in a few years to raise the standard, and perhaps to have one universal standard of exemption—the fifth. We are making steady progress, and I hope that in a few years we shall be able to show not only progress in the elements and in book work, but also in education which is of a real, practical, and useful character. Such a scheme has been shadowed forth in the Code, and I hope that before long a good harvest will be reaped. With regard to attendance, there will be a great change after this Bill is passed. Hitherto it has been in many cases impossible to secure a conviction against poor parents who say they have difficulty in getting the school pence together to pay the fees for the education of their children. The humane feelings of the Magistrates prevent them from convicting in such cases. After the Bill passes that excuse will be no longer available, and the laxity of attendance which results from it will be cured. The hon. Member for Hornsey has made an appeal with reference to the number of managers. No doubt it is a grievous pity that there is not a greater and more complete interest taken in the management of small voluntary and Board schools. After all the Debates that have taken place, I am not able to alter the original estimate I made as to the future of education in connection with the Bill. Gloomy predictions have again been made by the hon. Member for North Islington, but as regarded him and hon. Members opposite who see in that Bill an engine for the destruction of the voluntary schools, I think they are misjudging and miscalculating the resolution and courage with which the new situation will be met by the managers of the voluntary schools. I know it will be urged, and with truth that there is a difference between the, enterprise of the North and the South. of England with regard to voluntary schools. How that comes about I cannot say, but I think that one of the first effects of the Bill in the North of England and in large towns will be that comparisons will be made between the subscription already made in voluntary schools and the liabilities which many persons in the South have willingly incurred. It has been the habit with many of us not only to subscribe, but to render ourselves liable for any deficit in the school accounts. That is a practice with which I have for many years been personally acquainted. Hon. Gentlemen leave out of account two facts—they do not recognise the spirit and energy with which the Bill will be met by the managers of voluntary schools and the dread and terror of the large expenditure of the School Board, and the fresh energy and impulse with which such terror will naturally imbue those who have an interest in the educational reforms of any district in the North of England. I am grateful to hon. Members on both sides of the House for the generous assistance which they have given me. Whatever the educational future of this country may be, I hope that my successors will, as I have always done, endeavour to remove that question from the domain of Party politics. With regard to the advantages conferred by this measure, I hope that we shall strengthen, on safe and broad lines, our educational system, and that it will be a great benefit and an intense relief to a I large mass of_ our fellow-countrymen.

^* (4.20.) : I also wish to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the ability and moderation with which he has piloted this difficult Bill through its various stages. When the Bill was under discussion I purposely abstained from taking any part in it, as I was anxious to see it passed safely through the House. I did so, not because I was satisfied with it, but because it recognises the right of the people to free education, and although, like nearly all popular measures which emanate from the other side of the House, it bristles with precautions and securities, I felt certain that at no distant date these precautions and securities will disappear. For upwards of 10 years I sat upon a School Attendance Committee in the Borough of Marylebone. In many cases of non-attendance which came before the Committee the fault rested with improvident or drunken parents, but in the majority of instances it was the absolute poverty of the family which kept the children from school, and rendered the payment of school fees impossible. The pinched features and half-starved condition of many of the parents and children were heartrending, and, poor as I was, I occasionally helped them to obtain a meal, other members of the Committee did the same, and it frequently happened that instead of enforcing the law the Committee winked at its violation by adjourning cases, so as to afford the parents an opportunity of obtaining the means of sending their children to school. Magistrates were also known to be influenced by the same humane considerations, and I am satisfied that the Bill will remove one great difficulty by rendering the task of school committees and Magistrates, when cases with regard to school attendance come before them, very much easier, and will remove a great deal of the friction which has existed in working the machinery of the Education Act. I hope that before many years we shall see an absolutely free system of education throughout the United Kingdom. I am glad to see the zeal for education which now exists on both sides of the House: it was not always so, and, as far as I can see, the general conversion dates from the time when household suffrage was enacted by the British Parliament. This measure has been described as a triumph of Party, out of which Party capital is to be made. It is not, however, a triumph of Party, but a triumph of Democracy, and a sign that we are now entering upon an destruction, but of construction, when more will be expended upon education, science, and art, and less upon ironclads and armies. In this spirit I cordially support the Third Reading of the Bill.

^* (4.28.) : My right hon. Friend has been unduly severe upon my hon. Friend the Member for North Islington. My right hon. Friend is himself not correct as regards the facts. If he will refer to the Notice Paper on going into Committee upon this Bill, he will see there were a host of Amendments to reduce the age from five to three, and from all quarters. I am entitled to say this, because my notice headed the long list. I think that it is hardly right for the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council to claim the credit of reducing the age from five to three as a concession to this side of the House, because both sides deserve the credit of that Amendment.

I join in the hope entertained by Members generally on this side of the House that the Bill will be read a third time unanimously, because we have long advocated and waited for free education, and are glad we have got an instalment of it at last. My only regret is that the Bill does not go further than it does. I wish to add my voice to the protest which has been made by many hon. Members during the Debates on the Bill, that so large an amount of money as the measure proposes should be granted to the voluntary schools without local control being given at the same time.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read the third time, and passed.

^* (4.38.) : While I do not wish to make any protracted observations in introducing this Bill, it is desirable that I should state briefly the amount of light sovereigns to be dealt with under it and the reasons which have actuated me in limiting the Bill to its present proportions. The Bill, as it stands, is a very simple one of only one or two clauses, and does not carry out the scheme which I hoped at one time to lay before the House—a complete scheme not only for withdrawing the light sovereigns in circulation, but for making provision for the future to put the currency in proper order. That is a task which must remain over for another year. It may be asked, however, why, if I cannot make a complete job of the matter, I should proceed with it at all. In answer to that I will only say that it is wise, at all events, that we should make some progress. The experience we have gained in the withdrawal of the pre-Victorian sovereigns was a valuable source of guidance, and if we can make a still further withdrawal of light sovereigns we shall gain yet additional experience for bringing in a complete measure by and by. The House will remember that on one occasion I proposed that £600,000—part of the surplus of the year 1889–90—should be set aside for this purpose. But owing to Parliamentary exigencies we were unable at that time to bring in a complete measure. The time has come, however, when we can no longer delay a further distinct and substantial effort to deal with those evils in the coinage, the existence of which is generally acknowledged. Therefore the Government have come to the conclusion to proceed with the present Bill, reserving the larger reforms to be dealt with on a future occasion. It may be asked why I propose a smaller amount than that which originally seemed to be the proper calculation for the withdrawal of the light sovereigns. I cannot attempt to lay down all the reasons, but. I think that £400,000 will be sufficient to withdraw and to recoin a very large proportion of the light gold in existence. There are no means of showing conclusively that that sum will not be enough for the whole, because it has been borne in upon us by evidence from various quarters that the amount of coin in circulation is probably much smaller than the estimates which have been submitted. The first substantial estimate I am acquainted with is that made by Jevons in 1868, which puts the then circulation of gold coin in the country at £80,000,000. Twenty years after this I find, on inquiry at the Bank of England, that the estimate is very considerably higher—something like £120,000,000—and from this it might be argued that during that period an amount of £40,000,000 had been added to the circulation. But these and subsequent estimates have, I think, not taken into sufficient account the sovereigns in the pockets of travellers and others leaving the country. This Mr. Giffen puts at £1,000,000 a year. Mr. Martin, the banker, Mr. Palgrave, and others who have looked into this matter with very great care, have estimated that the amount of sovereigns in circulation is about £80,000,000, and that the amount of half-sovereigns is about £20,000,000, making a total of £100,000,000. Others put it at £110,000,000. All these figures are, of course, extremely shadowy. There are no means of ascertaining the facts. The figures are based on speculation only—ingenious, industrious, but still only speculation. The estimate of the pre-Victorian sovereigns, which were included in the total of £80,000,000, was t4,300,000. It was estimated that it would cost £95,000 to re-coin those £4,300,000. All the light sovereigns of the pre-Victorian period that could be found have now been withdrawn and demonetized, and it turns out that the total was not £4,300,000, but £2,300,000, or not much more than half the estimate, and that the cost was £50,000 instead of £95,000. It seems clear, then, that if practical ex- periment shows the pre-Victorian sovereigns to have been so much less than was estimated, it is probable also that the estimate in other directions will be too large. I have had some interesting figures given me by Mr. Giffen which I will read to the House. The amount of gold, as stated by Jevons in 1868, was £80,000,000. The gold coined from 1868 to 1889 was £72,000,000. The import of British gold coin in the same period was £90,000,000—giving a total of £242,000,000 to be accounted for. The amount of light gold coin withdrawn between 1868 and 1889 to be re-coined was £22,000,000. In the same period the exports of British gold coin amounted to £120,500,000. It is estimated that £200,000 is used every year in the Arts, which in 22 years gives a sum of £4,400,000. These sums, deducted from £242,000,000, leave a balance of £95,000,000. The leakage in the shape of gold taken out of the country by tourists and travellers is estimated at £1,000,000 yearly, so that for 22 years the amount would be £22,000,000. This reduces the £95,000,000 to £73,000,000—a sum which may be taken as perhaps the least uncertain calculation of the amount of gold in circulation. Two of these items are speculative—the amount of gold used in the Arts and the amount of the leakage. I have figures, but it would take too long to give them, with reference to gold bullion, which confirm, on the whole, the figures I have given to the House. I do not base any action upon the figures, except so far that I think it is unnecessary to ask the House to vote so large a sum as was first proposed—a sum which might ultimately prove unnecessary for the work to be done. It is perfectly possible there are less than £73,000,000 in the country; and it is perfectly possible there are more. We are still continuing our inquiries to see how far these figures ought to be modified. The next question arises—What proportion of the £73,000,000 ought to be taken as light coin? Very elaborate calculations have been made by various persons, and I do not think their estimates differ very much. The most elaborate examination was one which was undertaken by the Mint, when it had samples of coins brought simultaneously from 300 post offices. Every coin was weighed and tested, and this conclusion was arrived at: that the life of a sovereign before it is below legal weight is 19½ years, while the life of the half-sovereign before it is below legal weight is only 9 years. The last calculation was that of sovereigns 46 per cent. were light, and of half-sovereigns 70 per cent. were light; but those proportions are reduced by the fact that we have already dealt with the pre-Victorian coins, thus bringing the proportion of light sovereigns down to 43 per cent. instead of 46. If you take 43 per cent. instead of 46 per cent., you arrive at a figure of about £32,000,000 out of £75,000,000. If you take the total at £73,000,000, about £31,000,000 would be the light gold coin in circulation. The experiment made by the Mint was carried out with very great care; but can you judge the ordinary lightness of a sovereign by taking those paid into post offices? I am not sure whether there is not more wear and tear amongst sovereigns so circulating than there is amongst coins which flow into and remain in the coffers of the banks, and which have been till-money for many years, thereby not being exposed to any friction. I submit that it is impossible to arrive at any definite conclusion on the subject, and we must content ourselves with going forward by degrees, and accordingly I ask the House for £400,000, which would have the following effect We find that the degree of lightness per sovereign of the Victorian reign is 2·57 pence, which gives a loss of £10,700 per £1,000,000. On half-sovereigns the average deficiency is 2·65 pence—that is to say, the half-sovereign loses as much as, or rather more than, the sovereign, not in proportion, but actually; and, therefore, the loss on half-sovereigns is equal to £22,000 per £1,000,000 worth of half-sovereigns. At this rate, £400,000 would re-coin 20,000,000 of sovereigns and £8,500,000 worth of half-sovereigns, or, putting it in another way, 20,000,000 sovereign pieces and 17,000,000 half-sovereign pieces. This operation would take two or three years. Supposing there are £32,000,000 of light coins in existence, are they likely to be presented in that time? There opinions differ. We had the greatest difficulty in getting the pre-Victorian coins in, and it was only by declaring that they should be demonetized that we could get bankers and others to bring them in. My fear is that it will take a very long time before the whole light coin which actually exists is presented to us. I hope I have made it clear, though the matter is somewhat technical, that on the one hand we cannot have any definite idea of the amount of gold in circulation, but that it may be taken at £73,000,000 or £80,000,000, or at a figure ranging in that direction. The proportion of the light coin I calculate at about 43 per cent. of sovereigns and 70 per cent. of half-sovereigns, and the cost of dealing with £30,000,000 would be about £400,000. That shows the general extent of the scheme which I submit to the House. With regard to the method, we have considered carefully how we should proceed, and we have come to the conclusion that we could not proceed by dates; at all events to do so would be extremely awkward. The dates are frequently difficult to recognise, and great trouble would be caused in examining coin by coin and sorting them. The Bank of England are of opinion, and I think bankers generally will be of opinion, that, if we have got the money and can proceed on a large scale, the Mint should be given every facility for recoining the light coins as fast as possible, irrespective of dates. I trust that, as in the case of the light coins of the pre-Victorian reign, the House will give the Treasury a wide discretion with regard to the manner of withdrawal of the light coins now to be deal with. Another point arises in relation to how the cost should be defrayed. Some time ago I shadowed forth that it might be necessary to tax private issues for the purpose, but since then, as the House is aware, we have had a great windfall in the profit upon silver, amounting to £600,000 in one year beyond the ordinary profit, and to £200,000 in another year, and it appears to me that this gain of £800,000 in relation to silver may provide the means. It is also a favourite idea in many quarters that there should be a charge made on the coinage of bullion. When a person brings bullion for coinage he does practically pay 1½d. an ounce, the difference between £3 17s. 9d., the price given by the Bank for bullion, and £3 17s. 10½d., the rate at which bullion is coined by the Mint. The House will be surprised to learn how comparatively small would be the amount we should raise by a Mint-charge to cover the cost of coinage, while it would involve considerable trouble to make new regulations. In recent years the coinage has been comparatively small. In the 10 years, 1881–90, the total was £26,000,000, or about £2,600,000 a year. In the years 1871–80 it was £42,000,000, or £4,200,000 a year. In 1861–70 it was £51,000,000, or about £5,000,000 a year. So there has been a continued decrease in the amount of coinage in these decennial periods, leaving out of account the sovereigns which have been supplied from Australia. As the cost of coinage for £5,000,000 is about £8,000, the cost for the average of £2,500,000 during the past 10 years has been about £4,000. The amount to be raised, therefore, by a charge, equal to the cost of coinage is very small. There are other matters I might deal with, but I am anxious to get the Second Reading of the Bill to-day, leaving such matters for discussion at the next stage. I think I have given an adequate statement of the motives which have induced us to introduce the Bill, to which I hope the House will give a Second Reading.

Motion made, and Question proposed, 'That the Bill be now read a second time."—( The Chancellor of the Exchequer ).

The right hon. Gentleman has made a very clear and important statement upon a matter which really lies deeply at the root of the commercial interests of the country, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer can scarcely expect that a measure such as this can be adequately considered and discussed at the fag-end of a Wednesday afternoon, It certainly cannot be disposed of in the remaining half-hour of this sitting, however we may compress what we have to say, and in the absence of Gentlemen well entitled to express opinions which the country will be glad to hear on a matter of this kind. This work of setting our coinage right is undertaken much too seldom. The right hon. Gentleman has said the life of a sovereign is about 18 years before it becomes light, and it is nearly 50 years since an undertaking of this kind was carried out by Sir Robert Peel in 1843; so that we have gone far beyond two such periods. The previous occasions were in 1774 and 1696. Now, these matters go a great deal beyond the question of light gold; they include a great many other questions, and I must say, with all respect to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that this is a disappointing Bill. We have had the promise of a measure for the redemption of light gold for years. A Bill of this kind night have been introduced and passed at almost any time if it is supposed that we shall pass the Second Reading at the end of a Wednesday afternoon. This question of the coinage is connected with a number of other matters besides that of the actual withdrawal of light coinage, and has been so connected by the right hon. Gentleman himself in speeches which he has delivered. The right hon. Gentleman connected it, for instance, with the question of the issue of £1 notes—an important and far-reaching question. He has connected it still more with what I must call an alarmist policy on his part, and which, in my opinion, requires a thorough examination, without which it is calculated to produce a most injurious effect on the credit of the country. The right hon. Gentleman said—not in this House, which I regret, for I think it is a question that should have been discussed here—

"The present condition of the currency of the country requires a solution, and is essential to a sound condition of our commercial position."

After the Baring catastrophe, when I should have thought what was required was something like a re-assurance to the country, and not a further alarm, he connecting this with the question of currency—

^* : Not coinage.

Yes, he referred to this specially as bearing upon the withdrawal of light gold. He led the public to believe by his speech that the gold reserves of the Bank of England and of the private banks were insufficient, and stated that he was engaged in devising some scheme by which to strengthen the permanent gold reserves of the country. A more important and alarming statement for the commercial interests of the country it was impossible to make, and I must say I feel it my duty in this House to question the right of the Finance Minister in this country to hold language of this kind and not be prepared to come before the House of Commons with a remedy necessary in such a state of things to save the credit of the commerce of this country. It is now more than six months since he used that language. He stated at the time that the remedy lie proposed for the creation of a new reserve of gold should be connected with a light coinage measure; but he introduces his Light Coinage Bill now without any remedy for the state of things he described. The right hon. Gentleman said at Leeds he was hopefully engaged, with the assistance of the Bank of England, in devising a means for strengthening our permanent gold reserves by which greater help would be given in an emergency, and by which he hoped panics of coming catastrophe might be avoided, and that he was preparing the draft of a Bill to effect this object. Well, but that was six months ago! Are you going on for 12 months after making these alarming statements, having told the country its commercial system is unsound and its bank reserves insufficient, before making any proposal to the House of Commons? This condition of vague and vacillating finance is not to the advantage of the commerce of the country. It is impossible to exaggerate the language in which the right hon. Gentleman indicated the commercial danger and if there is such a danger, then it is the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to come forward with proposals for the defence of the commerce of England from the danger threatening it. The issue of £1 notes was indicated to protect the reserves of gold, the larger basis of currency on which the credit of the country was to rely. How are we to go on with the absence of a provision to meet the danger threatening us? What is the nature of the reserve, when these alarms are being, as I venture to think, from the best information I can obtain, most unnecessarily raised? When Sir R. Peel passed the Bank Charter Act in 1840, it was estimated that £7,000,000 might be the amount of the active circulation which might not be covered by gold. Since then the gold basis has been very much strengthened, and in recent years the balance in the Bank has on several occasions exceeded the active circulation. Upon the average of late years the circulation not covered by gold has not reached one-half the figure contemplated by Sir R. Peel.

^* : I am sure the right hon. Gentleman does not wish to give a wrong impression. I never wished to throw a single word of doubt or discredit on the absolute security of the circulation of the country. All my observations were directed to the reserve.

I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has given that explanation. I was directing my remarks against the mischievous and, as I believe, unwarranted gold scare which is abroad, to the effect that there is too little gold in the country and the world to carry on its business transactions. I agree that the experts have been entirely wrong. Gentlemen who have tried to solve an equation with half-a-dozen unknown quantities have naturally failed to arrive at any solid result. In an interesting and instructive paper written by the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, seven or eight years ago, he attributed some of the difficulties of commerce to the enormous demands of the Continent for gold coin. He put it then at £200,000,000, and he said, speaking of the English coinage, that it had enormously increased in proportion to the growth of population. The conclusions he then arrived at were drawn upon an erroneous basis. So far from there being more coin required in this country, there is now less coin than formerly. Why? Because everybody knows that coin forms an infinitesimally small part of the transactions of the people. In London it forms, I suppose, not more than 1 per cent., and in the provinces very little more. Since the Chancellor of the Exchequer attributed so large a demand to the Continent, it is estimated that £20,000,000 in gold have been produced every year, and though estimates differ as to the amount which goes to art and the amount which goes to the Mint, the lowest estimate gives half the quantity to the production of coin. These are very serious matters. There never was a time when it was more important to satisfy the commercial community that there is no foundation for the opinion that there has been an enormous demand for gold for the Continent which has disturbed the relation of values, and it is necessary that something should be done. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has said nothing as to the regular drain of gold to the East, which is unquestionably very large, and sovereigns are melted up for that purpose. Although replacing the coin on full weight has its advantages—the full-weight coin unquestionably invites bankers and others to send the money into the Bank of England—it operates in another direction, for it is a gratuitous assay to the world; when gold is wanted the coin is melted down. In Jersey they used to ask for light sovereigns and half-sovereigns, because they would not go to France, whereas if they were of full weight they would be exported. Now, there are a great many aspects of this question which it is extremely desirable should be discussed in this House, as I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer Will recognise. I had reason to hope that this Bill would have been the first order to-day. Not only am I disappointed that the Bill comes before us as a simple Coinage Bill; I am also disappointed that the Bill contains no sort of scheme for keeping the gold coinage in good order after it has once been set right. Although it is the theory that the last holder must bear the loss on light gold, that is impracticable, and cannot be acted upon. I remember, as a boy, the time when a shopkeeper produced a pair of scales and weighed the coin you tendered; but that would be intolerable, and cannot be carried out. I do not adopt the view that the cost should be paid from the fiduciary issue; I agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer it should come from Imperial taxation, or that the cost of re-coining should be paid out of the profit on the silver and bronze coinage; but the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised that he would establish a fund to keep the coinage in order. What has become of that fund? Why is no plan of that kind laid before the House? I cannot understand why it should not be possible by a single clause in this Bill to establish a system by which the coinage should not again be allowed to fall into the condition in which we now find it. If the opportunity offered, I could show by the calculations made in 1881, that the loss on the gold coinage is about £50,000 a year, and for years have we been promised a system for dealing with this.

It being half an hour after Five of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed to-morrow.