laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, viz,:—

Hendon Tramways Bill [Lords].

Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.

PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS [Lords] (STANDING ORDERS APPLICABLE THERETO COMPLIED WITH)

laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders which are applicable thereto have been complied with, viz.;—

Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time to-morrow.

Great Eastern Railway Bill

Newry Port and Harbour Trust Bill

Tees Valley Water Board Bill

Lords' Amendments considered, and agreed to.

FAVERSHAM WATER BILL [Lords]

Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.

AIRE AND CALDER NAVIGATION BILL [Lords]

As amended, considered; An Amendment made; Bill to be read the third time.

SOUTHWESTERN AND ISLE OF WIGHT JUNCTION RAILWAY BILL [Lords]

As amended, considered; to be read the third time.

CORK, BLACKROCK, AND PASSAGE RAILWAY BILL [Lords]

reported from the Committee on the Manchester and Liverpool Electric Express Railway Bill [Lords], That, for the convenience of Members, the Committee had adjourned until Wednesday at Eleven of the clock.

Report to lie upon the Table.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can now fix a date for the discussion of the question of the financial relations of Great Britain and Ireland.

As far as I can forecast the course of business, we shall take the Committee stage of the Education Bill next week, and the financial relations discussion will be the first business after that is disposed of.

Can the right hon. Gentleman not name a day next week? There are reasons why the debate should be taken next week, if possible.

If there are special reasons in the view of the hon. Member which make it desirable to take the debate next week, perhaps he will allow me to communicate with him.

Take it on the 18th.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can now state upon what day in the present month the Vote for the Board of Agriculture will be taken.

I am afraid I cannot make any statement on this subject.

Can the right hon. Gentleman indicate when he is likely to make a statement?

I am afraid that is quite impossible.

I beg to ask as to the business for Wednesday and Thursday, and also whether the time has not come to make a statement as to the allocation of the remaining days in Supply.

I am afraid that it is rather difficult to make that statement. I could not do it now. It is rather unusual to attempt a forecast for so large a number of days still remaining for dealing with business in Supply; but I will consider the matter. I understand that there is very little likelihood of finishing the Second Reading of the Education Bill to-night. In that case we shall not be able to begin the Report stage of the Finance Bill until Wednesday. It will be taken on Wednesday and continued on Thursday.

reported from the Committee of Selection, That they had discharged the following member from the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure: Mr. Lloyd Morgan; and had appointed in substitution Mr. Herbert Roberts.

further reported from the Committee of Selection, that they had discharged the following members from the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure; Sir Benjamin Stone and Mr. Ure; and had appointed in substitution, Mr. Richards and Mr. Craig.

further reported from the Committee of Selection, That they had discharged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure; Sir Charles Dilke; and had appointed in substitution, Mr. Compton Rickett.

Reports to lie upon the Table.

I ask leave to introduce a Bill which has been framed to remove, or at all events to diminish, certain difficulties in the practical working of the Congested Districts Board Acts. The experience of the last ten years has revealed difficulties which have retarded, even if they have not defeated, the very objects that Parliament entrusted the Board to effect. Parliament, in the original Act and in the amending Acts, directed the Congested Districts Board to deal with and attack the problem of congestion in the west of Ireland by two methods—by purchase and by resale of land. But in the west of Ireland, upon estates so purchased, there are many holdings of inadequate size, inconveniently situated, and insufficiently accommodated with roads, and holdings distributed through a number of scattered patches. Let me give two extreme cases I have in my mind. In one case a man holds seven acres scattered over twenty-four patches. In another case of two brothers, they jointly hold twenty-five acres in thirty-five patches. Now, if this transaction of first purchasing estates and then reselling them to the occupiers is to be secured from the point of view of the Government credit, and if it is to be beneficial to purchasers and their successors, it is in the opinion of the Government necessary that before reselling you should be in a position to concentrate all these patches, to amalgamate holdings, and in some cases to add additional land to the holdings. For all these purposes there are enabling powers in the Statute-book, but only enabling powers; and if a single occupier is such a crank in his disposition as to stand out from a general scheme arrived at by the Board and its inspectors for his own benefit and that of his neighbours, then he can defeat that scheme and hang up the operations indefinitely, and lock up the credit placed at the disposal of the Board for that purpose. Clause 1 will provide that in such a case the tenancy of that man may be determined. The principle underlying it is analogous to that of the 40th section of the Act of 1896. No proceedings will be possible under the clause unless by the assent and at the request of three-fourths of the tenants. There is this further safeguard—namely, that the tenancy shall not be determined except the tenant is given the option of another holding of equal value, and he will have an appeal to the county court upon the question of value, or if he prefers cash to land, upon the amount of compensation due to him for relinquishing his holding. I will not say more on that point now, as it will be necessary for hon. Members to read the Bill before they pronounce an opinion on its merits. The next important question is that of turbary. It is difficult to decide turbary disputes upon some of those estates where there are no statutory rents. On most of the estates covered by the Congested Districts Board the large majority of the tenants have statutory rents, but on most estates there is a minority who have no statutory rents. In those cases the land inspectors of the congested districts are unable to enter upon the land, and give a decision upon the question of turbary. The result is that all the operations of re-sale would have to be suspended for a year or more, during which fair rents or statutory rents should be fixed. I may say, upon the Dillon estate, upon which a large sum of public money has been expended—£290,000—unless some power is given to the Board to decide these turbary disputes the sale would be retarded for another year. Therefore the proposal made is that upon the minority of holdings where there are no statutory rents the Board should have the same power that a landlord has, and which the Board as a landlord has upon all other holdings on which there are statutory rents. I pass now to the third difficulty. The Board is authorised by the Act governing its operations to purchase land outside congested districts for the relief of congestion by migration. Experience has proved that this enabling power is and must remain a dead letter, unless the Board be given on estates so purchased the privileges and authority which are exercised and enjoyed on estates purchased within the scheduled boundary of the congested district. The Bill is not one of an ambitious character, but it is urgently needed. It embodies the con- clusions arrived at unanimously by the members of the Congested Districts Board after ten years experience of the practical difficulty involved in the task which Parliament entrusted to the Board.

^* said the Bill was a very small one, and in stating that it embodied the results of the ten years experience of the Congested Districts Board he thought the Chief Secretary was giving a very exaggerated description of the measure. The Bill could not for a moment be accepted as in any sense being a very substantial step in the right direction towards settling these difficulties. It was not necessary, however, to express a final opinion on the measure at the present stage. As far as he was able to gather its provisions from the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman was good as far as it went, but it went only a little way. All he asked for at present was that a brief period should be allowed for discussion on the Committee stage, because it would be unreasonable to expect that, even if Members were generally agreed as to its principle, the Bill should be allowed to pass absolutely without discussion.

rose to speak—

^* intimated that he was out of order.

I understand ten minutes are allowed.

^* : No.

How long?

^* : There is nothing in the Standing Order about ten minutes but there is something about only one Member following the mover.

Bill to amend the Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Acts, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Wyndham and Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.

Congested Districts Board (Ireland) Bill

"To amend the Congested District Board (Ireland) Acts," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time to-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 255.]

The Bill of which I have to move the Second Reading is one to enable provision to be made for carrying on certain schools; and perhaps it may be for the convenience of the House if, before the general discussion, I state certain facts relating to the position of these schools which will be the subject of our debates. This is the more necessary because most exaggerated and inaccurate statements have been widely circulated about these schools, about the great danger of their being suppressed, and of a catastrophe arising to national education.

The recent judgment which has rendered this Bill necessary decided practically two things. First, it decided that school boards could not employ the fund produced by the school rate for giving instruction in any of their schools which was not elementary. It is quite true that the court did not, and probably could not, define the exact meaning of the word "elementary"; but they intimated that the day school Code of the Board of Education was what I think they called the high-water mark of elementary education. The second point decided was this—that school boards could not give any instruction of any kind whatever to persons who were not children. Again the court did not define where childhood ceased; but the Board of Education have been advised, as the London School Board appears to have been advised by its counsel, that it would not be safe to place the limit of childhood higher than fifteen. Now, this judgment affects a considerable number of schools carried on by school boards, but it affects two classes of schools in a very different way. I think it will contribute to the clearness of debate if I deal with these two classes separately. As regards day schools, there is not a single day school in the country that will be shut up in consequence of this judgment. Not only will no day school be shut up, but the effect produced by the judgment, even if there were no legislation at all, on the day schools is of a very unimportant and almost infinitesimal character. It has been stated that the higher grade schools are endangered. The higher grade schools will not be affected by the judgment in any way whatever, except to the extent that in a few higher-grade schools there are classes which are receiving instruction in science and art; but, so far as I have been able to ascertain, those classes are only receiving instruction in elementary science and art, which is within the day school Code of the Education Department, and there are no advanced students whose instruction will be stopped by the judgment. Therefore, so far as the higher-grade schools generally Tally are concerned, there is not one that is in danger of either extinction or of being seriously damaged by the judgment. But there are forty-eight higher-grade schools in the whole of England and Wales which have what is called a science top. There is an upper division of the school which studies science under the old Science and Art Department of the Board of Education. Those schools will undoubtedly be affected by the judgment. I have taken some pains to discover how far they will be affected. There are forty-eight of these schools, and I have made inquiry into the case of forty-seven—one higher-grade school, that of Bradford, not having replied to the circular I sent out. These schools have about 7,000 or 8,000 scholars, but of these there are only 900 who are receiving advanced instruction. Therefore it may be said as regards the instruction given that the whole number of persons, boys and girls, affected in the country by the judgment amounts to not more than between 900 and 1,000. Of course a great part of these could easily be provided for in the secondary schools with scholarships, of which there are abundance to be had, and there is not the slightest doubt that these 900 or 1,000 young people would receive as good, or rather a better, education in that way than they do in the present higher-grade schools. I particularly looked into the case of Cardiff, because the chairman of the Cardiff School Board came up and had an interview with my noble friend the Lord President of the Council, and said we were going to turn 300 clever children of the working class into the streets. But what are the facts? There are 268 alto- gether in the school of science. Of these 160 only are over fifteen years of age, and of these forty-five only are in the advanced course, so that the result of the judgment, if carried out most rigidly, would be the exclusion of 160 children only from the school, and the exclusion of only forty-five who are taking the advanced course; and the whole of these young people could be provided for in the Welsh intermediate school in the same town, where there is a far better staff and a far better curriculum, and where the young people, instead of being isolated in a day elementary school, would be mixing with young people of their own age, who are receiving similar instruction, and where no doubt they would be much better off from the educational point of view than they are as the top class of the higher-grade school of Cardiff. So far as the age is concerned, it affects not only the higher-grade schools and the schools of science, but it affects all the higher elementary schools in the country. There are above fifteen in the whole of England and Wales only 3,828 boys and girls—that is, in day schools managed by school boards. Remember, I am speaking now only of the day schools. There are only 3,828 boys and girls above fifteen in the day schools managed by the school board, and these, according to the strict terms of the Cockerton judgment, could no longer be instructed. This is not so great a number as to create an educational revolution. All these boys and girls had better be in secondary schools than where they are. If boys and girls are going to continue their education after they are fifteen, it is much better that they should have that education in secondary schools than in public elementary schools of this kind. Lastly, if they were "turned into the streets," as the agitators describe it, it would not close a single school, or seriously damage any of the higher-grade work which is going on with reference to children over fifteen years of age.

I now come to the evening schools. They are of a great many different kinds. Some are extremely good schools which it would be a misfortune to see closed; others are extremely bad schools which might be closed with great advantage to the public education of the country. But the facts about these schools have been most grossly exaggerated. There are 2,174 separate departments, and it is generally represented that of the scholars on the rolls of these schools there are 228,000 above fifteen years of age, and that the judgment of the courts would have the effect of turning those students into the streets, and thus putting a sudden stop to their instruction. I have made careful inquiry lately into the case of London, which covers a good deal of the field, because in London are to be found nearly half of the whole of the students on these registers. There are said to be 108,030 of these students on the registers of the London schools. But it does not follow that there are as many students, because the same student may count over and over again. Every time a student enters for a fresh subject, or at a fresh school, he counts as a fresh student, For instance, an inspector told me the other day of the case of five boys who had learned shorthand during last year in no less than six evening schools—the evening schools being free, they move about from school to school as they like—and they counted as thirty students.

The attendance at these schools is quite phenomenal. I will give one example, which is neither better nor worse than other schools, and which I select at random. I have many more by me, but it would weary the House if I gave too many. In the Battersea Park Road School there are 230 students on the roll—that is, 230 who are to be "turned into the streets." Of these, for reading and writing there are 102 students on the roll; the school was open for reading and writing forty-seven hours in the year, and only ten of the students attended as much as twelve hours. For arithmetic there are 158 on the roll; the hours of instruction number ninety-nine, and twenty-six students only attended as much as twelve hours. Book-keeping—I am coming now to the commercial subjects so much in vogue—is taught for seventy-two hours; on the roll there are thirty-eight students, and ten only attended as much as twelve hours. In commercial geography there are 152 on the roll; it is taught for sixty-four hours, and twenty-nine students only attended as much as twelve hours. In shorthand there are 101 on the roll; it is taught for 162 hours, and forty-two students only attended as much as twelve hours The same kind of discrepancy between the numbers on the roll and the attendance occurs in every school, and although the House cannot come to any accurate idea as to how many are receiving instruction, it will be seen that the number is a great deal less than has been generally represented.

I will now go on to show that this state of things is peculiar to free schools. I have inquired from the Technical Instruction Committee of the London County Council how the pupils attend in the various polytechnic and evening schools which are carried on by them, and I am told that on an average every student attends more than thirty times in the first thirty weeks, and that each attendance means in their case at least two hours. With reference to the laboratories and workshops, the attendance has to be throughout the whole time they are open. The House will therefore see that the attendance at the schools of the Technical Instruction Committee is very much higher than the attendance at the free schools. I should, however, be very sorry if the House carried away the idea that I am saying that all these schools are of an ineffective character. There are some very good schools carried on by the London School Board. They have schools for the metropolitan police, in which constables are prepared for the examinations which they have to undergo for promotion, and in these schools you may hear a school board teacher instructing police officers how they are to answer questions on the life and duties of a policeman. Then there are schools in which telegraph boys are prepared for their examinations. There are other schools in which instruction is given to teachers of board schools themselves. In these schools the parts are interchanged—the pupils of one night become the teachers of another night; they teach each other. I am told that many of these teachers would very much prefer to go to some of the adjoining polytechnics, or other educational institution, where they would pay a fee.

Why do they not go?

I will tell you why. Because they know very well that if they do they will suffer for it from the London School Board. ("Oh.") At any rate, that is the reason they give, but of course I have no means of judging whether it is so or not. These independent people do not like free education, they prefer to pay for their education; and, besides, they object to be in the same class with pupil teachers whom in the day they instruct. At any rate they say they do not like going to these schools, but they are obliged to do so, because their promotion depends on the favour of their employers.

Can the right hon. Gentleman give an instance in which the London School Board have dismissed a teacher under such conditions?

; Another thing about these teachers is that they are all preparing for examinations or for gaining the great number of certificates which a teacher under the London School Board is expected to possess to qualify for promotion. Then there are clerks who are learning shorthand and bookkeeping for the purpose of obtaining an increase of wages in their situations. But, excluding these cases, most of the other schools in London are purely recreative. It is a very curious thing that in coming to the House to-day a letter was put into my hands by a parent in Bethnal Green. I cannot, of course, say that it is genuine, but it looks like it. The writer says that his two children are being educated at a board school. He complains of the great number of things they are being taught. They learn clay modelling, drawing, chemistry, animal physiology, French, shorthand, laundry, and cooking. He goes on to say that his daughter attends the evening school, and adds—

"I can fully bear Out the statement you made some time ago as to dancing. The scholars are supposed to have two hours instruction nightly. The schools open at 7.30, but it is nearly 8 o'clock before they begin, and at nine they leave off for dancing."

Who is the writer?

I am not going to give his name.

Is the letter signed?

Yes, it is signed, and it bears all the appearance of a genuine letter. It may, however, have been written by some member of the school board to make fun of me. I would remind the House that some time ago. I stated that pupils learned dancing in these evening schools, and that they earned Exchequer grants in doing so. That statement was received with the most lively indignation by the London School Board. I was denounced in the public press for having made an absolutely false statement. Since then I have inquired of the inspectors, and they laugh at the idea of there being any doubt upon the subject. They say that at this moment there are schools in which dancing is taught under the name of physical exercise, and that Exchequer grants are paid for it. I find this remarkable statement in the report of the London School Board itself, and it is such a remarkable statement that I earnestly direct the attention of the House to it— School, in which there are no less than 205 students receiving regular instruction in English, 307 in French, 101 in German, and 109 in Spanish, besides smaller numbers learning Latin, Danish, Italian, Portuguese, and Russian. There are 201 learning commercial arithmetic, 296 bookkeeping, 401 shorthand, and 96 English literature, besides other subjects; but I do not see "suitable physical exercises" in the school programme.

The real point I want to press on the House with regard to these evening schools is that they furnish the very worst case of overlapping in the whole of our educational system. The Education Department and the school boards for years have been in active competition with the Science and Art Department and Technical Instruction Committees, and it is only quite recently that this ruinous system of competition has been properly discouraged by the Board of Education. In Manchester there has long been a concordat between the city council and the school board, and there, I believe, there is practically no overlapping. There are some other large towns which have imitated the Manchester example; but in the great bulk of the towns of this country there is actual chaos in this evening school education system, and practically the same sort of instruction is being given in rival schools maintained at the expense of the ratepayer and the taxpayer, and efforts are made to draw students from one another and injure each other's position. And the worst part of this competition is not merely the waste of public money, it is that the competition degrades the kind of education given. When schools begin to compete for pupils, instead of thinking of what the pupils ought to learn, they think only of what is likely to attract them into the schools, and I believe it is this mad competition on the part of the London School Board which has produced all this dancing and recreation in their evening schools. I will just give one example. It was this very overlapping that brought about the action of the Local Government Board auditor. It was the Camden School of Art which was driven into an appeal to the law by the competition of the London School Board. The Camden School of Art is subsidised both by the taxpayer and the ratepayer—that is to say, it is subsidised by the London County Council out of the local taxation money, which they could apply to the rates if they thought fit, and therefore, in that sense, it is subsidised out of the rates. It is a body which, for the three years up to the time when the London evening schools were freed, had 156 students, 153, and 175. Then came the freeing of the evening schools by the London School Board, and they got 166 students, 156, and 109. How could they compete with, the free evening art classes of the school board, which not only supplied the students with models and drawing materials, but with the canvas and paints and everything they wanted for the purpose? Naturally a poor student who has not got too many half-crowns in his pocket will go to the free places instead of getting the better instruction—[cries of "Oh"]—yes, I venture to say the better instruction he would receive in a proper school of art. It is cheap and bad. The education which you are spreading amongst the people is cheap, shoddy education instead of the better and higher education which we wish to promote. Let me give another example. There is the Goldsmiths' Institute, which, is one of the very best polytechnics in London, and where the most excellent teaching is to be obtained at very low fees. These were the figures of the Goldsmiths' Institute in the three years before the London School Board's schools were freed—8,787, 8,937, and 9,116. Then came the freeing of the London evening schools, and the figures were 8,277, 7,649, 7,574. If you go into the provinces you find the same thing. Two years ago there was a flourishing school of art at Leeds. The school board built a pupil teachers' college exactly opposite. They represented to the Board of Education that it was to be strictly confined to pupil teachers. They opened art classes. in this college, and admitted not only pupil teachers and assistant teachers from the voluntary schools of Leeds, but altogether 65 people who were not teachers at all, and the teachers were practically forbidden to go to the art classes. I could give hundreds of these cases if I were not afraid of wearying the House; but there is another example I should like to mention. At Longton, in Staffordshire, the town council, which is the local authority under the Technical Instruction Act, had a flourishing technical institute. Then the school board of Longton opened a free evening continuation school close by, and the art students dwindled from 140 to 40, the shorthand students from 110 to 7, and the physiography students from 70 to 10.

I think the House will see what is the problem that is before us. You have here day schools not one of which is in danger of closing, but there are forty-eight schools of science, with, roughly, 1,000 pupils doing advanced work and 4,000 pupils above fifteen years of age, and about 2,000 evening schools, some of which certainly will be continued, some of which certainly should be stopped, and some of which should be regulated so as to prevent them from killing existing schools which are really better than themselves. Why is any legislation necessary at all? It is not that there is not already an authority in the country authorised by Parliament to carry on these schools. The county borough councils are the special authorities under the Technical Instruction Acts, and their Technical Instruction Committees have equally power to carry on all these schools themselves. I believe there is a small question of elementary instruction which was raised by the hon. Member for Camberwell, but so far as I know there is no difficulty in bringing any kind of instruction, except Latin and Greek, under the Technical Instruction Acts. But they have not in all cases funds. In many cases the "whisky" money is all appropriated, and even the penny rate, which they are authorised to levy under the Technical Instruction Acts, has also been appropriated. Though they have got the legal powers they have not got the funds; and therefore, if these schools are to go on, it is necessary to make application for a school board rate. According to the present law, nobody has any authority to touch the school fund for such a purpose. Parliament has appropriated it to another purpose, and the question which we have to settle in this Bill is, Who is to give leave for the school board rate, which at present is not applicable to any such purpose, to be applied? Three authorities have been suggested—first of all, the school boards; secondly, the local authorities under the Technical Instruction Acts; and, thirdly, the Board of Education. I was very much astonished to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen give as one of his reasons for preferring the school boards that they were elected for this particular purpose. That is exactly what they are not. That is exactly what the judgment of the court—

I said elected for educational purposes.

The judgment of the court said that the educational purposes for which a school board was elected did not embrace educational purposes of this kind.

The people who elected them thought it was so intended.

Are we to keep up in this House the farce that school boards are elected for educational purposes? Everybody knows that educational purposes are the very last ideas in the minds of the members of school boards. [Opposition cries of "Oh."] I have heard that they are elected, some on religious grounds, some on party grounds, but I have never heard of anyone being elected on educational grounds. Are we also to keep up the pretence of saying that the ratepayers care for these elections at all? Why, everybody knows that in London, whereas about 80 per cent. vote at parliamentary elections and between 50 and 60 per cent, vote in county council elections, there is, I think, only some 20 to 25 per cent. who can be got to go to the poll in school board elections. Will anyone say that that represents a zealous determination on the part of the electors to elect anybody on educational grounds? But while school boards were not elected for this purpose, whatever the 20 per cent, of electors may have supposed, there is a body which is elected for this particular purpose. The Technical Instruction Act has now been in force for more than twelve years, and when persons elect a county council or a town council they must know that among their other powers they have powers under the Technical Instruction Act. Well, one assumption is really as good as another. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen laugh at a borough elector having the powers of the town council in his eye when he gives his vote, and yet they solemnly declare that when he votes at a school board election he is thinking of education. I was very much astonished to hear the right hon. Member for South Aberdeen speak of these technical instruction committees as uninstructed bodies which do not possess knowledge or experience. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman can know what has been going on for the last five or six years in education. The county councils all over England and Wales have in day schools, in science and even in technical schools, schools exactly of the same type as are run by the school boards. They are in direct competition with them. If the school boards are winning in the competition with them It is not because their schools are better, it is only because they are cheaper; because, having an unlimited command of the rates, they are able to give this education without charging any fees at all, or to give it cheaply. Outside London and the county boroughs, in all the populous urban districts, the county councils give a great deal more to evening schools than the school boards. The average income of an evening school is £41, and of that amount on an average £8 is contributed by the county council and £5 10s. by the school board. Besides that, the authorities under the Technical Instruction Acts have built eighty-one new schools and extended 150 existing schools, and they have expended altogether about three-quarters of a million of money. How you can call these bodies uninstructed bodies and without experience I cannot understand.

Now the right hon. Gentleman suggested that giving the power to the school boards would maintain the status quo . Yes, it will maintain the status quo . It will maintain the status of competition, of waste, of extravagance, and will prevent the arrival of a better state of things. I have been very much impressed during the whole of my term of 'office with the Report that was produced almost immediately after I came into office, which has, I have no hesitation in saying, powerfully affected all my opinions and conduct since. It is the Report of the Secondary Education Commission, and I should like to ask the House to allow me to read two extracts from the Report of that Commission. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen was chairman of that Commission, and the Member for West Nottingham was a member of it, and other Members of this House were also members of that Commission, and the Report was unanimous. At least this was the opinion of these gentlemen in 1895. That is what they say speaking of overlapping. They say that, so far from tending to cure itself, it is an evil that strikes its roots more deeply. Vested interests are being created which will stand in the way of needed reforms. How they are to stand in the way no one knows better than the President of the Council and myself. The difficulty of introducing internal coherence and correlation becomes, the Report says, constantly greater, and will be more serious a year or two hence than it is at the present moment.

What did the Commission recommend? I think it is very much the Bill before the House. They say that, whatever type these schools belong to, whether they are organised science schools or connected with elementary schools, or belong to what are called mechanics' institutes, or are managed by town councils, or are technical schools pure and simple, they seem to fall properly within the scope of the action of the local authority for secondary education which can best correlate with the other agencies under its control and help them by such pecuniary resources as it may possess. They therefore recommend that these schools, in which they included evening classes and technical schools, be declared to be within the jurisdiction of that authority subject to the provisions mentioned by the Commission. One of the provisions was that, whereas school boards had carried on institutions of this kind for a considerable time, they should not be lightly interfered with, and they therefore suggested—as the Government suggest in this Bill—that the governing or managing body of any school or institution of the foregoing classes should either be left to continue to manage that school subject to the supervision of the local authority for secondary education or else be reconstituted.

That was not the recommendation.

I submit that in order to prevent this House from being misled the right hon. Gentleman ought surely to say that the authority contemplated was not the existing authority, but a different authority altogether.

That may be so, but the school board was to be put under an authority. The school board was not to be left to its own judgment in carrying on these schools. It was not to have every restriction withdrawn, but to be subject to a local authority, and that is the principle of our Bill. Our local authority may not be perfect; we have not had time; but our local authority is the best authority, and the only one possessing parliamentary powers to carry on these schools. I am afraid the House has not gathered from a previous part of my speech that the authorities we have put in the Bill are the only authorities which already have parliamentary power to carry on the schools. They do not want any other power to carry on their work. All that they require are funds placed at their disposal. I must just say one word about the proposal to give powers to the Board of Education—to allow the Board of Education to dip its hand into the local purse and apply the money of the ratepayers to purposes not authorised by Parliament. The answer to that proposal is that it could not be done in time. The Board of Education has not got that local knowledge which is possessed by the local authority. What is the constitutional objection to allowing the ratepayers' money to be used by the local authority? I think it is an extraordinary instance of the extent to which party feeling will drive people in these days that I should be standing at this box, a Tory Minister, pleading the cause of the elected representatives of the people to dispose of the money exacted from the people in the shape of local rates and that Radicals, forsooth, should be urging upon the, Government so monstrous a doctrine as that a Department of Government should help itself without the control of the ratepayers.

We are told that this little attempt at the reform of the chaos in our educational system is to meet with the most vigorous opposition. I am sorry to say it has been my experience since I have held my present office that every attempt to improve the education of the Country has met with opposition. There are in the first place the teachers, who think that their craft is in danger. Then there are the school board officers, who are afraid for the official position which they hold. Then there are the members of the school boards, who feel an overweening sense of the great importance of their system. Finally, there are the enthusiasts in this House who think that the maintenance of the school board system is of very much greater importance than the education itself. This opposition is carried on by the same methods in which party opposition is usually carried on—exaggeration and misrepresentation. And then they call their opponents the enemies of education because they do not exactly agree with the system which they themselves advocate I wonder what possible motives my noble friend the President of the Council and I could have to use the scanty means placed at our disposal by Parliament for any purpose except to get the best instruction for the people that can be got out of it. We may be mistaken, but at all events we are honestly mistaken, and I do not know that it much advances the cause of hon. Members opposite to stigmatise us as enemies of education We desire to see better methods and better teaching in the technical and secondary schools which are provided for the people, and we have no prejudice either against associations of teachers, or associations of officials, or associations of school boards, so long as they do not stand as obstacles in way of progress in education.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

^* : I desire to move the Amendment standing in my name I consider that the House is face to face with a very extraordinary situation, and, if I may say so with all respect, I shall direct the thoughts of the House from the jocularity of the right hon. Gentleman to the real question at issue The Government has not found time to pass its Education Bill. It has withdrawn its Education Bill, but it has taken out the essential principle of that Bill, and put it into a one-clause temporary expedient, which is designed merely to meet an unforeseen emergency, and it desires to perpetuate that principle and to develop it as time goes on. That is what I object most strongly to. I cannot complain that the Government has not been most frank. The First Lord of the Treasury was most frank at the imposing funeral obsequies of the Bill. The Duke of Devonshire also was equally frank. The Duke of Devonshire said—

What, Sir, is the vital principle the Government desire to see vindicated by this temporary measure? It is to subordinate the school boards to the county councils in the matter of education, so that they may be at once truncated as to their operations, and ultimately entirely superseded. The First Lord's letter to the Member for West Ham said that the proposal was a temporary proposal, and not a complete scheme at all. I venture to think that letter would suggest that ultimately the Government desire to supersede the school boards. I remember in the debates of 1896 somebody asked the First Lord of the Treasury whether he desired the school boards to be superseded, and I think his answer was very specific—"Yes, Sir, I do desire that." The Vice-President told us in his First - Reading speech on the late Bill that there should be one authority for all purposes of education, but it is quite clear that he did not mean it to be the school board, and therefore the school board was to be superseded. The question of the form of local government for education is a fair one for discussion. We plead on behalf of the ratepayers as much as the right hon. Gentleman opposite for a genuine scheme of local government for the control of education, and we are prepared to discuss it. We are prepared to leave it to the localities to say whether they would desire an ad hoc authority for all purposes, or whether the authority should be the municipal council. But you cannot settle a great, complex and difficult question of this character by a Bill of this small scope in the small amount of time at our disposal at present. I venture to say with all respect that it is not quite fair or honest—if I may use the word without offence—to work the essential principle of the municipalisation of the local control of education into a measure of this sort, which is, as the right hon. Gentleman says, a temporary expedient to meet an unforeseen emergency.

My view will be set aside as the view of a progressive partisan. Now let me turn to another view—that of one of the most highly regarded and experienced of the officers of the Board of Education itself for many years. Sir Joshua Fitch has expressed his opinion of the proposal in The Times of Tuesday week as follows— introducing no great principles which cannot be fairly discussed in the present session of Parliament. The other Bill was withdrawn because of that. We have asked a Bill to maintain the status quo ante until you can settle the difficult and thorny question of local government for education. If that is too much, well, let us have such a scheme as will enable the Local Government Board to remit surcharges for 1901-2 in any case of expenditure incurred on the same lines as the expenditure of 1900-1. That would leave the matter absolutely where it now stands. We have asked for an enabling Bill, and we get in return a terribly disabling Bill. There is not a school board which looks upon it any other way. It is said that this does not in any way prejudge the future, or prejudice the ultimate settlement at all I would believe that if it were not that I have had a pretty intimate knowledge of the methods of the Board of Education since 1895. I do not know whether Members remember the Bill of 1896. I have no doubt the right hon. Gentleman remembers it intimately. It was a Bill designed to municipalise the local control of education, and in some respects it had many good features. What happened immediately after that Bill was withdrawn from the House? The right hon. Gentleman the Vice-President of the Council called together an unrepresentative Committee, of which he was the chairman, for the purpose of considering the distribution of the Science and Arts grants—an exceedingly exiguous and small matter. What happened as the result of that Departmental Committee? A report was drafted, and from if a clause was put into the Science and Art Directory—Clause VII. The right hon. Gentleman said that was done by Parliament. It practically made the technical instruction committees the local authorities, for secondary education. I say that never received Parliamentary sanction. The right hon. Gentleman was told soon Tuesday— a Department Minute by the right hon. Gentleman without receiving Parliamentary sanction for his schemes. I do not say that they are bad schemes, but I object to the way they are brought about—the securing of them by passing Department Minutes. There is another case that hon. Members will remember last year—the higher elementary school minute introduced here for the purpose of making wider and larger provision for the higher education of the few children whose parents are prepared to make a sacrifice and keep them at school a year or so beyond the normal limit. That Minute was placed in the House in that form. What happened? Directly it left the House for the subterranean area of departmental administration it was deliberately strangled. We are told that there were 190 applications, and only twelve were sanctioned, and some of those twelve were only sanctioned conditionally. If anyone thinks that by passing this Bill you will not jump the claim in favour of the municipal authorities, he must be singularly ignorant of the methods of the Board of Education under its present rule. What happened after the debate last Wednesday? The right hon. Gentleman immediately sent a circular to the county councils and the county borough councils in the following terms— that everything had been amicably settled. That is the sort of procedure of the Board of Education, and I protest against sending out these circulars, which prejudice the judgment of Parliament. The same ingenuous anticipation has been shown in the Minute issued last Thursday, which says that the— de novo next session. I protest against introducing this principle into a mere temporary expedient. Now, Sir, as a member of the London School Board, I want to say a few words in regard to the Cockerton judgment, which rendered this Bill necessary. The right hon. Gentleman told us that the Cockerton judgment determined two things. In the first place, we are not permitted to spend the rates on instruction in day schools on science and art subjects. I wonder if the right hon. Gentleman recollects how it was that the school boards came to spend the rates on science and art subjects. Soon after the passing of the Bill of 1870 the artisans in the north of England—who are more keenly alive to education than those in the south— put pressure on the school boards to make provision for higher education, if they were willing to send their children to school for a year or two after the normal school age. The school boards made that provision with the deliberate sanction of the Board of Education from 1870 downwards. In 1882 Mr. Mundella distinctly invited the Welsh school boards to establish higher-grade schools. I maintain, therefore, that from 1882 the school boards obtained the sanction of the Board of Education to spend the rates on these higher grade schools. Hon. Members are familiar with the fact that from 1882 forward every succeeding Vice-President of the Council took occasion to go down to the country to open these schools and to praise them—Mr. Stanhope, Sir Lyon Playfair, Mr. Acland, Sir Henry Holland, and Sir William Hart-Dyke.

I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. I never said anything about spending the rates on higher-grade instruction. What I objected to was their going beyond the elementary code.

^* : I should have thought that higher-grade instruction would have gone beyond the elementary code. I say that what the school boards have done from 1870 onwards they have done with the sanction of the Board of Education. This statement specifically laid down the way the rates were to be paid for schools. In 1882 Mr. Mundella distinctly invited the Welsh school boards to establish higher grade schools, but nothing was said about not spending the rates. From that time every succeeding Vice-President has taken the opportunity to open many of these higher-grade schools in large towns. Among the names I might quote are those of Mr. Stanhope, Sir Henry Holland, Sir Lyon Playfair, Mr. Acland, and the right hon. Baronet the Member for Dartford, who, referring on April 19th to these occasions, said— Leeds Mercury of the 12th January, 1899, and I observe that the statement was made "with pleasure." Then I claim the right hon. Gentleman's vote against his own Bill, by which he now claims to interfere with those schools.

The second point raised under the Cockerton judgment is with regard to the night schools. The judges laid it down that we cannot spend the rates on science and art in night schools, neither can we spend the rates in any night schools at all for adults. Mr. Justice Wills laid it down that between the ages of sixteen and seventeen a person ceased to be a child, and I want to show how the Government have taken that view and used it in a very hard manner. The Government go much further than the judgment. The Government say you shall not only not spend the rates upon children over 16½ years, but you shall not use the grants for children over fifteen. The eager way in which the Government have seized upon this judgment to restrict national education is characteristic of their whole policy in this matter throughout. Little wonder is it that the Colonial Secretary at Birmingham the other day said—"I regard this opening time of the Twentieth Century as a most critical time in the history of British education." For once in a way, we cordially re-echo his sentiments. There is one statement that was made by the right hon Gentleman which I desire to flatly contradict. The right hon. Gentleman said that the teachers had told his inspectors, who had told him, that the reason why the teachers would like to attend and pay for better instruction at the polytechnic classes was because if they did not go to the London School Board free classes they would be punished by the School Board. I desire, as a member of the London School Board, to give an entire repudiation to that statement, and I am surprised that it should be made in this House. I would like to know who these teachers are and who are the inspectors? [Ministerial laughter.] Well, the right hon. Gentleman should not make a statement of that sort. We have had more than one statement from the right hon. Gentleman, who likes to take these matters out of their proportion and create false impressions. He has come down to this House and gibed at spherical geometry and the differential calculus, and other matters.

I never mentioned it in my speech.

^* : May I remind the right hon. Gentleman of the debate of 7th March, the primary debate on elementary education? That was the date when the right hon. Gentleman gibed at the differential calculus.

I deny it.

^* : The right hon. Gentleman has an opportunity of referring to Hansard , and he will find that he mentioned it.