in the Chair.

said the Government had, as a result of pressure, decided to give autonomy for elementary education only to non-county boroughs with a population of over 10,000, and to urban districts with a population of over 20,000. He had endeavoured to point out that this proviso was not justified by educational considerations, and entirely destroyed the "one authority" scheme of the Bill. It was, too, at variance with everything which the Vice-President of the Council said on a similar proposal in 1896. The Bill of that year originally proposed to create 128 authorities, but under extreme pressure autonomy was given to municipal boroughs with a population of 20,000, and that increased the number of the education authorities from 128 to 197—an increase which the right hon. Gentleman declared to be disastrous to the whole scope of the Bill. If those were the opinions of the right hon. Gentleman in 1896, what had he now to say to the proposal which would increase the number to 329? But the oracle of the Education Department was absolutely dumb; he was probably stricken speechless by the educationally stupid proposal now before the Committee. He had desired to mitigate the evil by increasing the population limit, but had failed, and now he asked that autonomy should be given in the cases of these municipal boroughs and urban districts only at the discretion of the County Council. He appealed to the Government to make that concession and he did so on educational grounds. His proposal would at any rate secure paramouncy for the County Council, and it would tend to educational efficiency. These smaller and richer urban areas ought not to be allowed to contract themselves out of their proper obligations to the whole county, as this proviso would un doubtedly enable them to do. Take the case of the county of Kent. Canterbury and sixteen other authorities would be in a position to take themselves out of the county scheme, and Dover, Chatham, Maidstone, Tunbridge Wells, Folkestone, Rochester, Ramsgate, Gravesend, Margate, Faversham, Deal, Gillingham, Bromley, Beckenham, Erith and Penge would all be able to cut themselves apart from the county, and the Committee could easily imagine the condition of an agricultural county like Kent if they took out of it all those rating areas for the purpose of elementary education. They were continually being reminded of the need for additional rural schools, for more money for teaching, and for better staffs and apparatus. They were told that the rural school was the weakest link in the educational chain, and yet they were opening the door for all these rich areas to take themselves out of the county scheme, thereby weakening the hands of the county authorities. In the county of Lancashire thirty-one areas would be cut out, in Middlesex thirteen, in Staffordshire fourteen, and in the West Biding of Yorkshire fifteen—including such places as Rotherham, Keighley, Wakefield, Dewesbury, Botley, Barnsley, and Todmorden. Only the starving rural schools would be left in, in fact. He did think the Government might agree to give the county a general controlling influence and power to say whether or not these authorities should be allowed to contract themselves out. He regretted that they had not had the advantage during those debates of the presence of the Colonial Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman, in discussing the matter with his constituents on 17th May, described the Bill as an honest attempt to deal with the education question. He admitted that it was not a perfect Bill, and that Amendments might have to be made on matters of detail, such as the area of rating and the composition of the authority to be created, and he added that the Government were prepared to consider suggestions with an open mind. Why should not the Government then accept the moderate compromise embodied in the Amendment of the hon. Baronet the Member for Berwick, and make the County Council the paramount authority for educational purposes? Would it be in the interest of the county scheme that these small urban districts should be allowed autonomy, both administrative and rating, for elementary education?

supported the Amendment, because he held that the proposal of the Government in this matter would interfere to a serious extent with the fundamental principle of the Education Bill. He took it that that fundamental principle was financial unity within the county, or in other words that the County Council should have control of the county fund, and any interference with that principle seemed to him to be materially injurious to the true principle of the Bill, it would, in fact, be reactionary; it would be going back to what was the vice of education at the present time—the system of raising the education rate in too small areas. It was necessary that they should have the rate levied in a sufficiently wide area, and that area ought to be the county area. At the same time, while he desired to maintain the principle of unity as regarded financial control, he thought it would be possible to give administrative autonomy to the smaller areas, and he did not see that there would be inconsistency in so doing. If they did not have that financial unity within the county, if they had other arrangements, the whole principle of the Bill as regarded unity of administration for elementary and secondary education was cut asunder at its very foundation. Looking into the matter, he had found that these smaller urban and borough districts accounted for a population of about six millions. The populations in the counties outside London, and the bounty boroughs which were not affected, might be taken at something like 18,000,000, and, therefore, to begin with, this proviso cut out one-third of the whole population of the ordinary county districts. If they took these districts out of the Bill for elementary education purposes, and if they were not rated to the county for such purposes, the representatives of those districts would not form part of the county authority for elementary education purposes, because ther was no principle more firmly established as regarded local government than that the representative of a district which did not contribute to the rate, had no right either to act or vote in connection with the subject affected by the rate. That was laid down in the Local Government Act, 1888. As he had said, the result of this proviso in the Bill would be to take something like one-third of the County Council representatives out of the elementary education authority altogether, and, from his own experience, he would say the most important third, for it was beyond doubt that they got increased interest in educational matters where the population was less scattered. The result would be that for elementary education they would have the County Council minus the representatives of those particular areas, whilst for secondary education they would have County Councils plus the representatives of those areas, and that would create two entirely different bodies. It would take out of the elementary education authority a considerable number of the men most active in educational matters in the country districts, and that would re-act on the educational system, because there would not be sufficient interest in the country districts to maintain education at an efficient level. He would ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he could not hold out some hope of accepting the proviso, not necessarily in the form in which it had been worded, by the hon. Member for Berwick. He wanted the County Councils to have the opportunity of saying whether their districts should be cut out in the way proposed. The constituency he represented was made up of largo urban districts, and, therefore, it was one which was particularly affected by the Amendment. That, however, was not the consideration they ought to have before them. Parliament was now establishing a great educational organisation which ought to be effective for many years, and all smaller considerations ought to be put aside. From his own experience, he was sure that the Bill, as it stood, would work badly. Every Member of the House should have the courage of his opinions, and try and secure that the Education Bill was drafted in the best possible form. That best possible form seemed to him undoubtedly, to be the preservation of the financial unity of the county while giving such administrative autonomy as was required to these boroughs and urban districts.

There is some force in the considerations urged by the hon. and learned Member for Stretford; but none of those considerations support the Amendment, because, even if the Amendment were carried, the difficulties which the hon. Member has so lucidly stated would arise with just the same force, though possibly not the same frequency, as under the proviso as it stands. I do not agree that it is essential that there should be one rating authority for the whole county. The position of these urban populations and their educational needs are different from those of the county districts, so that I cannot assent to the proposition laid down by the hon. Member. As to the arguments of the hon. Member for Berwick and others, I do not at all deny that they have some force, but they are conclusively answered by the arguments on the other side. What we want in the Bill is not theoretic symmetry and perfection, but the greatest amount of practical efficiency. In elementary education, practical efficiency is best secured by the close and vigilant control of local authorities, elected from not ton large areas, and not too far distant from the schools they have to supervise. Upon that principle, I should have been prepared to go even further than the proviso, and I hope the Government will adhere to it. That the needs of these districts are not the same is recognised by a later proviso which permits the local authorities for elementary education to be also the local authorities for secondary education. That is a valuable proviso, and will be the more valuable if the 2d. rate limitation is adhered to. The power of the local authority to raise an additional 1d. rate for secondary education will be very valuable, because it will enable more to be clone for secondary education than would otherwise be done. But if the authorities cease to be the authorities for secondary, education that proviso, as well as other provisos, will fall to the ground, so that in the interests of secondary as well as of elementary education the proviso is desirable and necessary. All the reasons which suggested the insertion of that proviso suggest its retention, and the Government would rather stultify the scheme of the Bill if they were to give way to this Amendment. It is true there may be a certain amount of practical inconvenience, but if we have to chose between theoretic perfection and real efficiency, we cannot doubt which way our choice should lie. If the inconvenience should prove to be as great as the hon. Member for Stretford division anticipates, it will still be possible for these local authorities to rid themselves of the duty and to fall into the county. That, I think, would be a far better way of avoiding the difficulty than that suggested by the Amendment. The latter seems to open up a very undesirable ground for controversy and friction between the county and the local authorities, and I hope the Committee will decide that the Government have chosen the wiser course, and reject the Amendment.

hoped the Government would not accept the Amendment, because, if they did so, it would absolutely kill the proviso. He had been a Member of the Yorkshire County Council, and of its Technical Instruction Committee, and he entirely disagreed with the view put forward by the hon. Member for Camberwell. He instanced the case of the ancient borough of Doncaster, with 30,000 inhabitants, which had hitherto conducted its educational work extremely well. The Corporation themselves had founded an elementary school, and had also set aside money for technical instruction. Was it fair and reasouable that that borough should have to go cap in hand to the West Riding County Council and ask permission to go on with the work they had so well begun? Another instance was that of Keighley. Was Keighley to be put under the heel of the County Council? If the Amendment in its present form was carried, he did not believe, from his knowledge of County Councils and County Council officials, that they would permit these small boroughs to take up educational work.

said he really put forward the Amendment as a compromise, in the hope that it would make the proviso less deleterious to educational efficiency than it would otherwise be. He did not pretend that the proviso even with the Amendment would be as at is factory arrangement, but he would infinitely prefer the proviso thus amended to the proviso unamended. His solo object being to make the proviso less mischievous and arbitrary, he would willingly agree to any other compromise which would secure some definite point. The hon. and learned Member for the Stretford Division, who had put his finger upon some really important matters, had an Amendment on the Paper covering certain points. If the Government were prepared to accept that Amendment, he would willingly sacrifice his own in its favour, because a certain practical gain would be thus secured. Much of the argument of the hon. and learned Member was in support of the present Amendment; that part which was against it was also against the proviso as a whole, and that which was not against the whole proviso was in favour of the Amendment. There would doubt less be anomalies. The County Councils would have great difficulty in carrying out the present education scheme, but they would be much better judges of the needs of their own districts than Parliament could be, and if an authority like the County Council was to be placed in such a responsible, important, and difficult position, as the House had decided it should be, it ought to have a free hand, The hon. Member for Doncaster had given telling instances of individual boroughs which had done excellent work, and had said what a pity it was that they should be interfered with by the County Council. But the Committee were now discussing how to get a better and more complete educational system for the country than at present existed, and the fact that individual non-county boroughs had done the work well ought not to be made an obstacle in the way of a complete scheme for the whole county. If places like Keighley had done the work so exceedingly well, it was most desirable that they should be brought into close relation with the County Councils; they would be the leaven and the inspiration of the County Councils in extending the good works they had done within their own areas. He had put forward his Amendment in the interests of practical efficiency; the right hon. Member for South Aberdeen had said that he opposed it on the same ground. Some hon. Members on that side of the House were afraid the County Councils would be very bad authorities for dealing with elementary education. But the House had decided that they were to be the authorities, subject to this proviso. That being so, even supposing they would be bad authorities, was it desirable to insist upon their being worse than they need be? Was their power in the poorer districts to be crippled by there being withdrawn from them the great advantage of having some of those urban districts and non-county boroughs as part of their scheme? A rich district coming under the proviso might very reasonably feel that it had managed its educational affairs well, and that it would lose by being thrown into the county with its much larger area. But a poor district would be able to relinquish its powers under the Bill and to throw itself into the county, and it would, no doubt, do so. Therefore, if the Bill were left unamended, the County Council would be left with every urban district which would be a difficulty and a burden to it, and deprived of every urban district which would be an advantage to it. That certainly did not seem to make for efficiency. A further point that he would address to Members on his own side was that he was anxious to use every possible opportunity, whether in regard to education or anything else, for promoting a system of devolution. If the present temper of the country continued, they would be still pleading twenty or thirty years hence for devolution. He desired to work towards that by building up big local authorities, but the passion for setting up small separately elected independent authorities for special purposes was going to be one of the great obstacles to working out a big scheme of devolution. If they desired devolution, they must take their authorities and give them a clear field of control. Even if the Amendment were carried a County Council would still have power to delegate its powers to these local authorities. The plan he proposed seemed, from the point of view both of educational efficiency and of the future development of local government, to be the true lines on which to proceed. The County Council ought to have a clear field and ample powers of delegation to subordinate local authorities, but, above all, it ought to have a fair start.

Two opposite schools of educational thought have been represented in this Debate. There is the school of thought represented by the hon. Baronet, by the hon. Member for North Camberwell, and, though perhaps in a less degree, by my hon. and learned friend behind me. They think that the Bill as drawn is educationally inefficient, and that it would be enormously improved by inserting the Amendment of the hon. Baronet, or, failing that, the Amendment of my hon. friend behind me. There is another school represented by the right hon. Member for South Aberdeen, who says that to accept the Amendment would be to destroy or greatly to impair the educational efficiency of the Bill-Now I find myself in full agreement with neither one nor other of these contending parties. My view is a more humble but, I think, a more practical one. The hon. Member for North Camberwell pours contempt on any man who is influenced in the structure of an Education Bill by any but purely educational considerations. He approaches the Bill purely in the spirit of a theoriser and professor. In my opinion, the man who approaches a question like this in that spirit may produce an excellent paper scheme, but it will be a scheme destined to remain a paper scheme for all time. We have to do with an existing system. We have to deal with a scheme which we have sufficient difficulty in modifying even to the extent which we are modifying it under this Bill; and if we are to pile up difficulty upon difficulty by uprooting every arrangement which has been come to in previous times, if we are to add unnecessarily to the labour already sufficiently great, by throwing into the opposite scale every single one of the communities whose interests will be touched by this Amendment, then it is quite conceivable that the Bill might be a much better one, but it will never be more than a Bill, I do not think the House would be well advised on that ground in taking either the hon. Baronet or the hon. Member for North Camberwell in this particular as their guide. I want to know how far these Gentlemen who want to make the educational map of England absolutely afresh, as if there had never been any educational or local government arrangements before—I want to know how far they are to proceed in their search after theoretical consistency. Are they going to deprive all those boroughs and urban districts of the powers they already possess in regard to technical and secondary education by the Act of 1889? If not, do not let them talk about consistency and theoretical perfection in our arrangements. If they are, then I give them ail credit as theorists, but from a practical point of view their scheme is even wilder than perhaps they intended it to be. Nor do I agree with the contention of the right hon. Member for South Aberdeen, that the plan we have proposed will, in its working, prove seriously detrimental to the cause of education, primary or secondary, or of the coordination of the two. Let mo, in the first place, point out that the view of the hon. Member for North Camberwell that the effect of the Bill as it stands will be to take out of the counties all the richer areas which are required in order to enable the poor agricultural districts to deal with their voluntary schools, is based upon a misconception. I have taken some trouble to go into this; and I find that, though there are counties that will lose by the exclusion of these boroughs and urban districts from the rating area, there are counties, on the other hand, which distinctly gain; and no general proposition can be laid down as to the effect upon rating which will be produced by the Amendment he supports. Again, in reference to the argument of the hon. Baronet, I must point out that he forgets the actual words of the clause. No merging of boroughs or urban districts is possible, except with the consent of the County Council, and under conditions which the County Council must agree to. Therefore, we may take it as certain, that whatever line the County Council take in respect of any borough or urban district which may desire to merge itself in the county, will be taken with full knowledge of such merging, and with full desire on the part of the County Council to accept the surrender offered them. We have been told ad nauseam that the effect of the proviso is to overthrow the one authority principle. Now the phrase "one authority" is a convenient and a brief phrase, and I should have thought well understood. What we aim at in the one authority principle is, in the first place, from a local government point of view, to got rid of the ad hoc business, and not to have two popularly-elected S bodies in the same area with equal authority over the rates, and both dealing with primary education; and, secondly, that primary education should not be divorced from secondary education in the artificial manner in which it is under our existing system; that the two should not be in antagonism and should not overlap, but that there should be a natural passage from one to the other on the part of those scholars who are fit for higher training. That principle is not interfered with by Clause 1. It must be remembered that these boroughs and urban districts have already powers over secondary education, and when you give them power over primary education in their district, you do give to a single authority in a single district those powers which will enable them to co-ordinate the two great and inseparable halves of education. I believe it will be found that if you give them the powers we give them, they will not only be able to co-ordinate primary and secondary education in their areas, but that they will gladly fall in with some general scheme of the county of which they are a part for dealing with secondary education on oven a larger basis. Therefore, though I do not contend that this clause as it-stands, with the proviso, reaches that theoretical finish and perfection which all of us in our speculative moods might desire, neither do I admit that it destroys the principle of the Bill, or that it will seriously impair that co - ordination of primary and secondary education which it is one of our great objects to attain.

said he was indebted to the hon. Baronet, the Member for Berwick, for raising this question, because the debate which had taken place had very much cleared the air. He heartily endorsed the arguments which his right hon. friend the Leader of the House had used to show that this clause with this proviso was really one of the best provisions of the Bill. He had tried to amend the Clause itself in the direction of retaining the School Boards in large areas, and he had not yet given up all hope of being able to discuss that question again. For the moment, however, he thought they should fix their minds upon the fact that education, under local authority in some form or another, had been going on in non-county boroughs for something like thirty years. They must not forget that there were 115 towns with above 10,000 inhabitants, and urban districts with 20,000, which, at the present moment, were exercising all the functions of the new local education authority through the School Board In his own division of Lancashire, education had taken a, very progressive form during the last few years in small towns, and the Amendment under consideration would make a very considerable difference in small towns in Lancashire. It was essential above all things in regard to the education of the country in future, that the localities, and even the small localities, should be imbued with the spirit of progress in education—the local pride and ambition to enable them to say that their population would be the most highly educated people in the county or the country. They must not in any way discourage that ambition by the operations of the Bill. It was because he believed that the Government on this particular point had carefully regarded the conditions which existed in towns of above 10,000, up to the county boroughs, that he hoped they would tenaciously bold to that which they had laid down, namely, that it was only in the absence of that local spirit and local pride necessary to induce local authorities in the prescribed areas to undertake primary and secondary education, the County Council would in any way come in to undertake the duty for them. From that point of view he thought it was most important that his hon. friend the Member for Berwick should not divide the House on this subject. He thought the Committee might thank him for having raised the question, but after the expression of the opinion of the Government through the First Lord of the Treasury, he hoped his hon. friend would let this provision pass in the interest of education. It had been proved to demonstration in America that the smallest communities in that country had a perfect educational system from primary education upwards. What could be done in America in this respect could be done here. There was a further difficulty which might arise. He thought the councils of towns of upwards of 10,000 would be up in arms against this Amendment. They were proud of what they were doing, und he-believed it was the interest of Parliament to cultivate that spirit in them.

stated that there were towns with largo populations, which no doubt would in the course of a few years become county boroughs, and it was better for the country that they should at once been endowed with full powers to deal with education, There were Oxford and Cambridge eminent in education. In Yorkshire, such towns as Rotherham, Keighley, and Wakefield, with populations, in the case of the former of 54,000, in the case of the two latter of 41,000 each, were surely entitled to regulate their own educational affairs. In Lancashire, Southport and Blackpool would soon become county boroughs. There would be great disappointment felt by those places if a change were made in the Bill whereby they would be prevented from getting the powers proposed to be conferred on them. They would be grievously hurt if the change suggested in the Amendment were adopted.

The, right hon. Gentleman rather challenged me on an observation which I made on this Bill—that it does not appear to be a single authority Bill. It has been enthusiastically supported by the hon. Member for Rossendale. My hon. friend accepts the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman on the ground that the great object ought to be to have the largest possible number of small local authorities, because they have greater knowledge of the localities and greater facilities for looking into their educational requirements. I may have misunderstood the right hon. Gentleman, but from the first I thought his view was that the great evil had been the existing small School Boards, and that we were now going to have a great educational measure which was to set up single authorities. They were to be the county borough and the County Councils. Why to ordinary persons reading this Bill, it would appear to be exactly opposite from the principle laid down by my hon. friend the Member for Rossendale. What does the first Clause say? It says—

"For the purposes of this Act the council of every county and of every county borough shall be the local education authority."

This is the main principle of the Bill, and then those smaller authorities come in by way of carrying out that plan. But it would now appear that it is only the small authorities that are really of a valuable character, and that the county and the county borough councils are mere supplementary bodies to supply the wants of those valuable small local authorities. Now, that is the single authority Bill which has been paraded throughout the country as a great educational reform. We are coming—after I do not know how many days discussion, and we are not yet at the end of the first Clause—to learn that it was all a mistake, and that we must encourage, and, if possible, multiply to the greatest number, the small education authorities, and reserve to them not only the power of dealing with elementary education, of which they might have some special knowledge, but the power of dealing with higher education also. In point of fact this is not a single authority but a multiple authority Bill. That is an entire revolution upon what I think has been generally understood by the country. I believe that the phrase about a "single authority" has had a good deal to do with the opinions formed by many in regard to the Bill, and so as we go on with the measure it seems to me to change its character. The right hon. Gentleman said that by a single authority he meant nothing else but an authority that would combine elementary and higher education. That is the only singleness he contemplated.

I did not say that.

It is very difficult to understand what the Government view is on that subject. I believe a great many persons supposed that there would be great benefit in having this powerful and intelligent County Council, as the dominant and regulating authority on education within the county. That was the idea presented. But this proviso doubles the number of authorities that are to be set up under the Bill. There are about 200 authorities at present, and to these you add other 200. When we proceed to discuss the Bill it must be treated from the point of view that there may be twenty or thirty different authorities, some larger and some smaller, but all acting from some different view of education, which is the great virtue of the measure according to my hon. friend the Member for Rossendale.

indicated dissent.

Very well, instead of getting something like uniformity of action, you will have in the counties different authorities proceeding upon different principles in their arrangements for education. The more you multiply small areas, according to the view of my hon. friend, the better the Bill will be. I am not one of those who think that the County Council is by any means a perfect body in which to deposit your education authority, but really when you come to this multiplication of inferior bodies for dealing with education, I would prefer what I understood to be the single authority principle.

said this Amendment had been recommended on the ground that it was a compromise, and that it ought to be accepted in the interest of local government. Those who used that argument wholly ignored the history of this question which had preceded the present debate. What was really inspiring their action was that the non-county boroughs had long made a strong protest against the manner in which they had been treated by County Councils in dealing with the allocation of what was known familiarly as the whisky money. He hold in his hand a protest by the non-county boroughs of Lancashire against the mode in which they had been treated. They contended that they had not received their proper share, and the result had been that, instead of the advancement of education, which was promised by the Technical Instruction Act, great friction of feeling had been generated, and, forsooth, the suggested compromise was to say that those non-county boroughs which had been protesting against what they considered a very great injustice, should be placed under the domination of the County Council, by whom they contended that injustice had been inflicted. He could see in this nothing but cause for friction in the future. The real practical compromise consisted in the proviso which was inserted in the Bill by the Government for the purpose of maintaining conditions which were historical and in the interests of educational peace and progress, and it was not inconsistent with local government, but the contrary. They must remember that this was a local matter involving considerable care and detail, and, if he recollected rightly, the recommendation of the Royal Commission was that the areas for elementary education should be smaller than those for higher education. He ventured to say that the very best educational work of any kind whatever which had been done in the country had been accomplished by some of the smaller boroughs. He had in his possession a long list of such boroughs, and if their educational supervision was to be transferred to the rural authority the change would be reactionary. The educational interest in the boroughs was owing to their urban character, and the possibility of their united action with the surrounding districts which they actually served educationally at the present moment. The fundamental fact must be recognised that there was a paramount difference between the urban and the rural educational position. Take the case of Ripon, which petitioned that it should not be transferred to the educational supervision of a manufacturing interest in the West Riding of Yorkshire while it was itself a largely agricultural community. He would take another case, which could not be represented in the House, because it happened to be the constituency of the right hon. Gentleman who presided over the deliberations of this House—he meant Carlisle. There £40,000 to £50,000 had been spent largely on elementary education, and in the petition he had from that city it was stated that if they were educationally attached to the county there would be a great educational reaction. One great practical test was, whether the county authorities had rated themselves for the sake of education. There might be one or two slight exceptions, but he thought that no County Council had rated itself for educational purposes. [An HON. MEMBER: Wales.] Wales was an exception, but no English County Council had done so, perhaps with one slight exception. He should like the Committee also to consider for a moment the comparison between even the county boroughs and the non-county boroughs. He found that twenty-one county boroughs had rated themselves for education and thirty had not; and yet these were to be, most properly, the educational authority for all purposes. The proportion was only a third. In the case of the non-county boroughs it was surprising to find that no fewer than sixty-one had rated themselves and seventy-one had not, or, in other words, the proportion was nearly one-half. He believed that almost better educational work had been done in some of those non-county boroughs than in other parts of the country. They should be encouraged, and nothing should be done to destroy their existing educational work. The machinery might be different, but the men who worked that machinery would he largely the same; and if they found men doing useful, distinctive, successful work for education let them rely on these men to give their fellow citizens that education which would be most useful to them.

said that the speech to which they had just listened was a most powerful indictment against the whole principle of the Bill. He had been filled with alarm in listening to the speeches on both sides of the House. The whole series of arguments went, in his opinion, to the destruction of the principle of the Bill. He was beginning to ask himself in the light of those speeches, "Why were they doing away with School Boards?" Hon. Member after hon. Member had declared that no educational authority had done such good work as the School Boards, and that the educational areas ought to be small, not large. But the object of this Bill, as they understood it, was to substitute for these small areas large areas with large educational authorities. That was the great principle which was held up and pressed upon the House when the Bill was discussed on the Second Reading. There was to be a large authority with large resources; and they had heard arguments which seemed to have great force about adding to the dignity of the local bodies by giving them these increased powers. But now they heard that the County Councils were thoroughly reactionary in educational matters, and that, therefore, the supervision of education was not to be thrown upon them. He could quite understand the concern of the hon. Member for Rossendale who had quoted American precedents and methods, and who had said that the smaller the area of the educational authority was, the better.

said that what he had argued was that in America they could secure educational efficiency under local authority in an area with a population of 10,000 and even 5,000.

said he could understand the views of his hon. friend who supported the small educational authority; but he could not understand the views of hon. Gentlemen opposite or the arguments now being used, and which would be used later on with overwhelming force when they got to Clause 8. It would be said that the rural authorities were reactionary, and that the only really progressive authorities were the boroughs. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury had endeavoured to argue, with great subtlety, that the proviso did not destroy the principle of one authority; but he could not understand how any human being could accept that theory. If the proviso was adopted the principle of one authority was given up as regarded the non-county boroughs which were excepted by the proviso, and the result would be the worst conceivable system in the world. There would be authority to deal with elementary education but which had not full power to deal with secondary education. There would be only small atoms of authority to deal with secondary education, which could only lead to perpetual squabbles with the County Councils. It would be infinitely better to give them either all or no authority. They were going, by the Bill, to set up 270 to 300 new authorities who were not to have complete control over all education. He supported that Amendment with all his heart, and he must confess that some of the speeches the evening had filled him with concern in regard to the future of the voluntary schools.

said that he proposed to support the Amendment, and as he had spoken in favour of the proviso on an earlier occasion, he desired to say why he considered both the Amendment of the hon. Member for Berwick, and of the hon. Member for Stretford Division were quite consistent with the maintenance of such benefits as he thought would arise from the proviso. One merit of the proviso was, that they were throwing on the County Councils the immense burden of elementary education, and that burden would be lightened if autonomy in elementary education were allowed in the districts now under consideration. Whether or not any County Council felt the burden too heavy would be a matter for its own consideration. Then he had said, and still thought, the proviso would be valuable because it would retain that keen and concentrated interest in educational matters which had no doubt come to pass in great urban centres. It appeared to him that there was an impression amongst Members on the other side of the House, that it was impossible to have any interest in education unless they had financial control. He believed that the interest which existed in those urban centres would be as alive, and as valuable to the community, as it now was, even if the financial control were handed over, as his hon. friend the Member for Stretford had suggested, to the county authority, leaving to the urban centres their autonomy for all other purposes. For those reasons, he thought that in voting for the Amendment he would not be acting inconsistently with anything he had already said. Further, there was very great objection, on principle, to breaking up the jurisdiction of the great local authorities, and withdrawing so many boroughs and urban districts that the area became, like the Irishman's coat, a number of holes stitched together. The policy appeared to him to be very undesirable. The county authorities would have no choice if an urban district or borough were to say that it would not become part of the county, but would retain its autonomy; although, if it subsequently desired to relinquish independence, the county authority would have to be consulted. Then, too, Clause 5 left it to the borough or urban district council to accept or reject the principle of the Bill; and the County Council would have no say in the matter. He did not know whether hon. Members had considered what would be the result if the optional clause remained in the Bill. Supposing the county with some urban districts and boroughs adopted the Bill, and others did not, there would be a conflict of authority, and a variety of educational control and jurisdiction, which would stultify the whole measure. What were the main arguments against the Amendment? They were, he would not say parochial, but local and personal. Member after Member had stated that they knew school boards and individual boroughs which had done good work. One hon. Member stated that the intellectual level of the rural district councils was so low that the grant of educational power was required to improve them; but he should be unwilling to make the children of a county the corpus vile of experiments for the education of rural district councillors. That was the sort of argument they had heard in favour of the autonomy of these small districts. There were, no doubt, important urban districts where good educational work was carried on, and one objection to the Amendment was based on the assumption that it would put such districts in the humiliating position of having to come, as the expression went, cap in hand, to the County Councils. But was it to be supposed that there was such little regard on the part of one authority for what had been done by another authority, that those great urban centres would be maltreated by the County Councils; that they would be set "under the heel" of the County Councils; and would not have their work recognised and their position approved and accepted by the County Councils? He had too great a belief in the common sense and good feeling of their local authorities, to suppose that the Amendment of the hon. Baronet would be followed by any such uncomfortable if not unfortunate results as had been suggested. For that reason, and because he did not desire to see the general principle of the Bill needlessly departed from, he would support the Amendment.

said he could not help thinking that a great deal of the opposition to his hon. friend's Amendment was due to a misconception as to how it would work out in practice. There was an idea that the County Councils would manage the whole of the schools within their areas. Nothing of the kind would, of course, happen. For instance, he had heard the argument that a County Council could not possibly manage between 200 and 300 schools in the county. That was perfectly obvious; but the idea, as far as he could see, was that the County Councils should not manage the schools, but should supervise the education within their own areas. That was a totally different thing, and not at all inconsistent with using the town councils as local agencies. Hon. Members should recollect that the Amendment would not keep alive school boards at all, although it had been argued as if it would keep alive school boards in districts of 10,000 or 20,000 inhabitants. Nothing of the kind. School boards went in the districts referred to as in all other parts of the county. The town council became the local authority; and the only effect of the Amendment would be that the County Council would exercise its option in certain districts of making itself the paramount authority, and of arranging with the local authority in regard to the management of particular schools. He had none of the horror of County Councils which some of his hon. friends appeared to have. They had had experience of the educational work of the County Councils in Wales for ten or twelve years; and he did not think any one would say that they had not done their work well; indeed he would go further and say that no other body to whom the work could have been entrusted would have done it better, at least in Wales. Therefore, after twelve years experience they in Wales were absolutely unable to participate in the horror of County Councils dealing with educational work which seemed to terrify some of his hon. friends. The hon. Member for South Islington said that the matter was started in some quarrel about whiskey between the non - county boroughs and the county boroughs; but the whiskey quarrel would remain exactly as it was.

said he only mentioned that as an illustration of the kind of feeling which existed.

said it was, of course, a very natural feeling, as every town wanted to get as big a share of the money as it possibly could. But that was not friction. It was a simple natural operation. Wherever money had to be distributed, there would be men who would say that their share was not adequate. He wished to point out, especially to his hon. friends, what would really be lost if the boroughs were cut out from the general operation of the authority of the County Council. What would happen? The notion of managing three hundred schools was folly. He would appeal to hon. Members who had sat on County Councils, as he and many of his hon. friends had, as to what would happen. The first thing would be that the County Council would appoint a kind of superintendent of education for the county. That superintendent would visit the schools, and examine them, and report if there were any defects in any of them; and if there were, the schools concerned would be brought up to their work, and the result would be that the whole level of education throughout the county would be kept up. At present there was a system of inspection by the central authority. An inspector went down once a year, paid a casual visit to the schools in the rural districts, and if there were any defects he wrote to the Education Department, and correspondence followed between the clerks of the Department and the local managers. What effect could that have? The pressure was too remote and too intermittent, and the inspector did not visit the district again for another year. Then, perhaps, a little further correspondence followed; and the result was that it took years and years to remedy defects in the rural schools. What would happen if there were really effective County Council supervision? The superintendent would report to the County Council, the pressure would be constant; the superintendent could report what progress was being made; and if the managers declined to act, the County Council could refuse them the grant until they did. The result would be that the managers would act; and if they did not, the County Council could act for them. There would be constant and not intermittent pressure. What would happen if the Amendment were not accepted? The districts referred to would not have the advantage of the organisation which the County Councils would set up; and they would not be able to retain the services of high class officials, who could not possibly be employed by small districts; If, however, they were inside the County Council area, they would have all the advantages of the organisation of the County Council. Speaking as a representative of boroughs, he said they ought not to be deprived of that advantage. They had, been told that the educational work in the towns had been magnificent; but that was an argument in favour of bringing them inside, and not leaving them outside the County Council area. He would ask the First Lord of the Treasury, or the Vice President of the Council, would the representatives of the towns be entitled to a voice in education out side their own districts? He thought he Committee ought to have an answer to that question. In Glamorganshire, twenty urban districts would be autonomous. He wished to know whether the representatives of these twenty districts would have a voice in the arrangement of elementary education outside their own district. Would the First Lord of the Treasury point out a single Clause of the Bill which said so? As things stood now, they would be entitled to manage schools outside their own area, and impose taxation on districts where they had no responsibility. However high it might be the taxation would not affect them, because they were autonomous. They were entitled to know that before the discussion closed. Take the other side. These twenty districts which were autonomous were the most talented districts in Glamorganshire. Cardiff and Swansea were outside because they were county boroughs, but take the great district of the Rhondda Valley, which had the best school boards in the whole county, and which had a first-class system of education. What was left after these were left out? They had the district of Gower where, with all due deference to the hon. Member for that constituency, the main thing was to keep down the rates. And what a curse it would be if they deprived them of the educational zeal with which they had been filled for so many years. Liberalism had nothing to fear from education, and to leave these rural districts to themselves, without any impetus from the urban centres, where education was part of the daily life, would be a curse indeed. He appealed to hon. Members not to sever these interests; it was a bad thing to do in any case, but in the matter of education it would be worst of all. He knew the fears they had of the County Councils; they had been beaten in the County Councils. That was the feeling Conservatives had in Wales, but many of the far-seeing Conservatives had come round to the other view. When they were electing members of a County Council, judging by what the County Councils were now, all they had to consider was whether the candidate had the intellect of a road breaker. But directly they gave County Councils the management of the schools, they would bring in the religious and educational interest; it would be education to the electors themselves, and they would get the best type of men. In the ordinary way a farmer voted for Squire "A" or Squire "B," the labourer did not care anything about it, and the grocer voted for his best customer. But that was not the ease when they approached a great question, and he asked the Committee not to judge the circumstances as they were now, but as they would be; not to sever these two interests, but to bring the urban to help the rural, and the organisation of the whole country to help the urban and rural as well.

said he desired to ask the First Lord of the Treasury one question. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken just previously in very broad language of the powers of these boroughs under this Bill of co-ordinating education. Did the right hon. Gentleman allude to the powers they had under Clause 3 of the Bill, or did he foreshadow something that would give these boroughs higher power" than they had now? Was he to under stand that the Government only desired to maintain what might be called the status quo between small and middle-sized towns, because if that, and that alone, was the compromise, it appeared to be fair.

said if this could be accompanied by a series of other Amendments, he might possibly support it. If, for example, its effect, if carried, would be to enable the County Council to exercise that complete system of devolution, by making use of the existing educational authorities, which had in so many places done excellent work, and to preserve above certain reasonable limits the existing school boards, the Amendment might be worthy of support. But most of these Amendments would be out of order. The only effect of the Amendment, as it stood, would be to apply to the non-county boroughs and urban districts, and to leave out the other educational authorities and the other smaller local Government areas, which they might like to include. In the former case, the local authorities would be subordinated to the County Council, and an unfortunate impression would be created upon the public mind, and they would be acting in a sense opposed to the best interests of educational efficiency by removing from those who lived in these particular areas the true sense of local educational zeal, and local knowledge, and local responsibility which required to be exercised. At the same time, the moving of the Amendment had done useful service. It had shown the want of logic which existed in this proviso to the first clause, and it had elicited from the First Lord of the Treasury and others on the Ministerial side some extremely powerful arguments which might be reserved for future use against the very principle of the Bill itself. The non-county boroughs were at present represented on the County Councils, and all the educational zeal which was said, no doubt rightly, to be exhibited in certain non-county boroughs and urban districts would under the new condition of things permeate and leaven the County Councils, even if the Amendment were not carried. The non-county boroughs above a certain population, as for instance Lowestoft, in his own county, would be treated as separate entities under the proviso, but in addition they were, and would continue to be, represented upon the County Councils and would be able to permeate the County Councils with their real or alleged educational efficiency, and would be able to effect the very object at which the supporters of the Amendment were attempting to strive. Under the circumstances it would be wiser to support the proviso as it stood, strongly as he disagreed with it on the ground that it did not go far enough.

appealed to the Committee now to come to a decision on the Amendment.

asked whether the right hon. Gentleman would answer the question raised by the hon. Member for the Carnarvon Boroughs with regard to the excepted districts being still represented on the County Council.

was understood to say they would still be represented, but their representatives would not have power to levy the education rate.

pointed out that they would be in the extraordinary position of having people levying a rate over an outside district with which they were not connected at all. Could the right hon. Gentleman point to a single sentence which deprived them of the power of levying the education rate over other districts than their own?

thought they ought to follow the analogy of the Bill of 1888, in which certain places were given police powers independent of the county. They were in that respect out side the county, but they were represented on the County Council. The difficulty was not so great as it might at first appear, because the actual work would be done by the Education Committees.

Not the levying of the rate.

No, the actual work. The levying of the rate would be done by the County Council, and in that it would not be proper for those who did not pay to have a voice.

pointed out that the boroughs to which the right hon. Gentleman referred were entirely exempted for certain purposes, whereas under the present Bill certain boroughs would be within the county for higher education, and out of the county for elementary education. If, therefore, the analogy of the right hon. Gentleman was applied, they would have the peculiar position, when the Education Budget was presented to the Council, of the representatives of certain districts having the right to vote on that Budget so far as higher education was concerned, and having no such right in regard to elementary education.

said he was Vice-Chairman of the Technical Education Committee in his own county, and represented on that Council an urban district which would be its own authority for elementary education. Therefore he would be in the position mentioned by the noble Lord. He expressed the belief that there could be nothing worse for education than such a proposition as that made by the First Lord of the Treasury, by which the County Council should be able to reject a district which, because of its heavy rates, desired to come under the Council. They were just the districts in which education would be starved, because the people in them had not the money with which to provide the education necessary. They would have to go to the County Councils, and if those Councils were to be advised to reject them,

said that in the absence of the, hon. and learned Member for Stretford, he desired to move the Amendment standing in his name. He could not follow the First Lord of the Treasury in his statement as to what was the rating authority over the whole area, and what rates were to be levied in certain districts. What would he the effect of this Clause in regard to the incidence of the rates in the administrative counties? Roughly, they would have the rural area having no rate at all, for they would have no School Board, and the inhabitants would say that they preferred denominational instruction. It was true that in such areas there might be a number of devout people who spent much money voluntarily, and they would have a preference for a system which permitted them to contract out of paying for either system. In some cases half of the areas would have no local rate at all, and the other half might be rated up to 3s. or his. 4d. in the pound. If they were not going to throw the whole charge upon the National Exchequer, it ought to be equalised. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that the local authority was going to continue its old rate. Some districts would still be, rated at ½d. in the pound, and some at 3s. 4d. in the pound. Some districts might contract themselves out altogether. Therefore he hoped the Committee would put the finances of education upon a satisfactory basis and not continue this grotesque muddle which existed at the present time. Take the county of Essex, where the rateable value was about £3,000,000. There a rate of 1d. in the pound would produce £12,500. Perhaps in one-third of a rural area they would not levy a rate at all, and thus escape all local contributions, whilst in the other two-thirds they might have a hundred School Boards and be levying a rate ranging from 3s. 4d. in the pound down to ½d. in the pound. Village A might have no contribution at all; village B, perhaps, would have only a few devout people contributing handsomely to voluntary schools; in village C, because somebody left some money for educational purposes, there might be no rate at all; and in village D they might have a rate of 3s. 4d. in the £. Tins Clause would perpetuate the financial muddle which was characteristic of the present system. With regard to Essex the total voluntary contributions from endowments and School Board rates and every other source was just about £100,000. He was trying to show the present state of muddle which they ought to endeavour to clear away before they went further in the matter. If a rate could be levied over the whole of Essex of 8d. in the£, they would then get more local contributions than from all the School Board rates, endowment foes, and every other local source, and that was what he wanted to conic to. They ought to have a statement from the Government about finance. They had heard from the First Lord that the non-county borough which was the administrative autonomy for elementary education purposes was itself to rate for this purpose. He protested against that. He asked, in the interest of the county as a whole, if they could not have an administrative unity they ought to have financial unity. It might be said—how can you have a rate for the whole county of 8d. or 9d. and hand it over to certain localities which have autonomy for administrative purpose? That what the Education Department was doing in connection with its grants. It gave them at so much per head. He admitted that the scheme was not ideal, but that was the fault of the Government. What he proposed was in the Bill of 1896 and the Government laid great stress upon it at the time. The proposal in this proviso was a matter which was denounced very strongly in 1896 by the Minister in charge of the Bill.

The right hon. Gentleman a short time ago explained to us what we had not understood, namely, what was meant by a single education authority. Now we should like to hoar from him what he means by a single rating authority, because over and over again in these discussions the right hon. Gentleman has insisted upon a financial rating authority. I should like to know, in accordance with this proviso, whether there is going to be a single rating authority in the county. As I understand there are to be a multitude of rating authorities, and that the authorities that come under this proviso will be rating authorities independent for this purpose of the general rating authority. That is perfectly plain. Therefore what we have understood to have been put forward by the right hon. Gentleman over and over again with regard to a single rating authority, has disappeared very much like the single education authority. Then there is another anomaly arising out of this which has only now come forward in the discussion. I think we are just beginning to inquire what is the meaning of this Bill. Nobody, who has been studying it has understood its principles or anything about it, and the explanation we have read has not made it clear, or, at all events, quite clear. As I understand now each of those independent authorities amounting to 200, or there about, will stand in this position in their respective counties. They will—the right hon. Gentleman will tell us whether they will or not—vote for the constitution of the Education Committee which is to conduct the education in all the rest of the county except in their own district, which they will conduct in their own manner. I do not know whether I am mistaken in that. If they have a voice in the election of the Education Committee they, of course, are dealing with the general education of the county, and the education which they themselves conduct in their own district may be of a totally different character from that conducted by the Education Committee. Then there is the point which was well explained by my noble friend on this Bench in regard to the rating authority and in regard to their rating liability. I understand from what the noble Lord has said, and it has not been contradicted, that in respect of primary education they will stand in a totally different position from that in which they will stand with reference to secondary education. Therefore as to the rating authority, and as to the liability for rates, you will have a multiplicity of rating anomalies created by this proposal throughout the whole area. It appears that the single rating authority and the simplicity of financial administration entirely disappears, and so far from there being anything like financial unity on rating identity, every one of those several entities created by this proviso will create anomalies and an irreconcilable situation both in regard to education and finance. These are points on which I am sure the House will be glad to have fuller information.

When the right hon. Gentleman speaks on this Bill it always seems to me as if he had just casually taken - the Bill from the Table of the House and for the first time cast his eye over its contents. I do not know where he gets them, but he also appears to be always imagining utterances made by myself or my colleagues which we certainly have never made, and which do not agree with anything which we have ever said, either in public or private. And these "dream Hansards" are thrown at our heads across the Table and we are asked to reply to them. I must decline to explain any speeches except those I have delivered, and these I will answer for to the best of my ability. The actual provision which the right hon. Gentleman appears to disapprove of has been in the Bill from the beginning, and on the face of the first Clause. There has never been any concealment about it, and so far as I remember it was dealt with in the opening speech in which I explained the provisions of the Bill. This Amendment seems to me to have all the disadvantages which may be urged against the Amendment we have just rejected, and also a great many disadvantages peculiar to itself. In so far as the Clause has been framed to respect existing interests in the localities, the end would not be attained by the adoption of the Amendment. I turn from that aspect of the question to the educational aspect of the question. We have been told over and over again, and it has not been contradicted, that in a great many boroughs there are most admirable examples of educational energy and efficiency. They have done that out of their own rates, which they have raised to meet their own purposes. That you would stop entirely. By the Amendment these localities are left the nominal power of managing their own education, but they are forbidden any real power of maintaining the high standard they are anxious and prepared to pay for, because they are to be put under a, uniform rate settled by the county authority. I would earnestly hope that the House will not think it necessary to occupy very much time in the discussion of this Amendment.

ruled as out of order all the other Amendments to Clause 1, standing on the Order Paper.

said that the issue raised by this Clause was of supreme gravity, and at the same time of great difficulty to handle adequately. The Committee would remember that he had taken I upon himself, at the beginning of the discussion, to move the postponement of the Clause, for the obvious reason that its true and full nature could not be really determined by the House until a great many other points had been fully considered and decided upon by the House. He thought that difficulty was still before the Committee. The main issue raised by the Clause could not be separated from many subsidiary considerations which had to be settled afterwards. The question this Clause raised was whether they were going to make the local educational authority the County Council or the School Board. Many hon. Members had spoken in those debates as if School Boards had been killed by the rejection of a limited amendment earlier in Committee. He did not consider that the School Boards had been killed by their decisions, nor would be killed by the passing of this clause, or that the vitality of the School Board principle would be destroyed by the passing of this Bill in whatever shape it passed. This would not be a final discussion as to the destiny of the School Boards as one of the instruments for advancing the education of the country. The question was, whether they should have a definitely localised representative authority, vital and energetic, or have a remote and indirect authority to deal with education. The discussion that afternoon had shown how easily the issues of this question might be confused. The case of the School Boards as educational authorities seemed to him to have been enormously and needlessly prejudiced by the arguments pressed against them. He had always held that the arguments made use of by the Vice-President of the Council for ending the School Boards were based on absolute misinterpretation of what the School Boards really were, and the work which they had done. He believed that all Members were nearly at one in the wish to have a strong and energetic central authority in a large area such, as a county, and at the same time to have within that area smaller authorities to work in smaller areas. He believed that that was what the Bill aimed at, though imperfectly, and that was what was aimed at both by the supporters of the County Council and the supporters of the School Board principle. He maintained that they could not obtain what they all aimed at, except on the ad hoc principle. It was obvious to anyone who studied the history of the question that the genesis of transferring educational administration to a county authority began in the suggestions of the reactionary officials of the Education Department to the Royal Commission appointed in 1886. The main idea of the proposals put forward then, and in subsequent years, one of which he had himself the satisfaction of defeating in the Local Government Bill of 1888—was to get rid of Mr. Forster's machinery pro vided in the Bill of 1870, and to transfer the schools to an indirect authority. That was intended to get rid of all restrictions on the voluntary school system and to hand over the educational resources of the country, both in the form of grants and rates, to the denominational schools. It seemed to him that any Bill which did not provide for the full development of the School Board system, or something equivalent to it, in large and small areas alike, would fall entirely short of the mark. The objection to the County Council as the educational authority for elementary education had been admitted S over and over again. Even that after noon it had been admitted that it was wholly impossible for a County Council, cither by itself or its Committees, to deal with the details of the elementary schools all over the county. He knew that difficulties were already felt in regard to the very limited duties involved in the administration by the County Councils of the Technical Instruction Act. The tendency of the machinery of the Bill was destructive of all popular control, and it would inevitally throw the whole administration into the bauds of officials, who would really become the dictators of the situation. In the rural districts it would be physically impossible for he County Council and their Committee to deal with these details, and they would be left to the officials or to the representatives of the Associations of Secondary Schoolmasters' or of the Associations under the Voluntary Schools Act, or diocesan bodies, or some kindred body wholly irresponsible to the people. These persons would be free to give their time, and the officials would also give their time with the result that all the local schools throughout the district would be dealt with by officials in that way. By this machinery we were removing the control entirely from the people and handing it over to officials and others interested in furthering their own and objects not directly responsible to the people. He therefore considered that the machinery of this Bill was not machinery for improving local government as applied to education. What the Government were destroying and what they were seeking to destroy of this Bill was the principle of a directly elected authority responsible for education with the supreme duty thrown upon it of providing school accommodation and education in the locality. In the authority created in County Councils there was no obligation at all except to provide sums of money. The whole control of the education of the district was to be handed over to those who were not responsible to the people and could not he controlled by them. He considered that this Bill was the last outcome of an unfortunate series of prejudices and shortsightedness in the past which some of the wisest friends of the Church of England had deprecated in the past, men like Dr. Perowne, the late Bishop of Worcester, and Canon Bury, of Northamptonshire, whose opinions he had himself quoted in former debates, and he objected to it on the ground that it would not conduce to educational efficiency. He regarded it as an educational loss to the people themselves that the management of education should be transferred from the hands of the School Boards where both women and direct representatives of labour had a, chance to control the education. On some School Boards that he was acquainted with women had done most excellent work. Under this Bill they would be debarred from doing anything. Equally important in his opinion was the direct representation of labour on School Boards. He had known most, admirable educational experts created out of working men, who, themselves, had been educated, so to speak, by taking a share of the educational work of the School Boards. He regretted the sweeping away of the system which had raised among the cream of the working classes Can enthusiasm for education which they had never had before and which had made experts and most enthusiastic workers of them, and most splendid workers from an educational aspect. First of all the work of higher education was taken away from the School Boards, and now we had a, complete surrender by the Government to the Ecclesiastical Party. He protested against the clause and begged to move that it be rejected.

said this clause established a new doctrine and the problem that had to be determined was whether this was a good or bad educational authority. They had to consider what powers the authority would have and what were the obligations under which it would be placed. In dealing with this clause to which they were asked to assent the Bill must be taken as it stood, for the Government had refused to give indication of any modifications. Last week two deputations were received by the Government. In one of these Nonconformists made known their grievances, especially in reference to elementary schools and the system of management provided by the Bill. But they received no satisfaction from an answer in which the right hon. Gentleman held out no prospect of modification in the Bill in that respect. The next day there was a deputation of ratepayers, and the right hon. Gentleman gave it to be understood that he would make a statement upon the proposed financial arrangements after laying the views of the deputation before the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But on Monday the right hon. Gentleman said he was not in a position to make any such statement, so the rating question must be taken as standing as it did before. The principles that had been put forward by the Government, with regard to this Bill—the merits of the new educational policy as illustrated by the Bill—had been in some respects explained away. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord was astonished that anybody, for instance, should have thought that one of his principles was autonomy; again our delusion that the Committee laboured under was that there was a merit in the single rating authority. There, again, they were mistaken. The single rating authority had no merit whatever. A dozen rating authorities were as good as one. He had always understood that one educational authority and one rating authority was one of the objects of the Bill, but there apparently he was wrong. When considering the creation of a new educational authority certain requisites would be looked for. It would be assumed that the authority would have some special aptitude for the purpose, and it had been said that County Councils had this aptitude, reference being made to the manner in which they had dealt with technical education. But technical education was not at all the same thing as elementary education; and, whereas, technical education might be dealt with by a Committee not meeting frequently and having one essential purpose to deal with elementary education was a totally different thing. Elementary education should be the principal work of an education authority and not a mere subsidiary business of the authority responsible for it, and one would suppose that such an authority should be specially elected for the purpose of education, and that education should be the prominent feature of its business. Those seemed to him to be the obvious requisites of a first-rate education authority. One would desire, no doubt, that it should be an authority which should have a popular election and an authority which should represent the people on education, and one would also desire that it should be an autonomous authority conducting its own business in its own way without being subject to any interference from any superior authority, and further, that it should manage its own schools, and not be under the domination of any of its managers. How did the authority created by the Bill fulfil those requirements? It appeared to him that the Bill violated every single one of those principles. It was not an independent authority, for all through the Bill they would find that its action was subsidiary to that of the Board of Education, and in point of fact it had no control over a majority of the managers as against the minority. The authority might be a very good authority for managing technical or even secondary education, but when it came to primary education then it seemed to him not a suitable authority for managing 14,000 voluntary schools over a very large area. The County Council had no experience in primary education management, and it had to act through the Education Committee. The whole working of the Bill depended on that Committee, but it had not the right to appoint the Committee according to its own views of what such a Committee should be. He had been told that the Committee would be like any other Committee of a County Council; but, if so, what was the meaning of the clause requiring a scheme to be submitted to the education authority that anybody might come in and criticise, that might be changed at the will of the authorities of Whitehall, who, if the County Council did not accept a totally different scheme, had power to create a Committee according to their own views?

No, no.

said that if the right hon. Gentleman looked at the twelfth clause he would find that it was said of the scheme for the appointment of the Education Committee—

"Before approving a scheme the Board of Education shall take such measures as may appear expedient for the purpose of giving publicity to the provisions of the proposed scheme, and may, if they think fit, hold a public inquiry."

From this it appeared that any body might come, in and say that the scheme of the Education Committee of the County Council was a bad scheme, and upon that the Board might alter or refuse it. Then supposing the Board of Education and the County Council did not agree, what happened?

"If a scheme under this section has not been made by a council and approved by the Board of Education within twelve months after the passing of this Act, that Board may, subject to the provisions of this Act, make a Provisional Order for the purposes for which a scheme might have been made."

Therefore, if they did not agree within twelve months, the Board of Education could make the Provisional Order, and through the Committee made by that provisional order the County Council was to act as an educational authority.

A Provisional Order requires confirmation.

knew that; but what a position the County Council would be in They were supposed to make a scheme of their own, but had to come to Parliament to contest a scheme they did not approve. That was called the autonomous authority which was to conduct the education of the country. The managers of the voluntary schools could, if supported by the Education Department, snap their fingers at the County Council and refuse to obey their injunctions. The Government thus treated their own proposed education authority with the greatest distrust and most profound contempt. They treated the County Council as it they were children running in leading-strings, and not fit to be trusted with these great powers. According to the Vice-President of the Council, one of the great measures of the Bill was its decentralisation; but in reality it centralised education to a degree to which it was never centralised before. It was absolutely controlled by the central authority. Over the voluntary schools the education authority had had authority at all. A number of illusory powers were given under Clause 8, under which it was said that authority might order this or that, and that they could determine the curriculum of these schools. They could do nothing of the kind. The lowers of the Board of Education in regard to the code and curriculum remain, he understood, whore they were, and in order to earn a grant an inspection must be carried out to the satisfaction of the Department. So to say that the curriculum was in the hands of the County Council and under their control was to say what was not the fact. It was perfectly idle to say that the curriculum was in the hands of the education authority. There were other important provisions in the Bill which the authority was supposed to control. Let the Committee consider how far the authority they were constituting really controlled the important matter of elementary education. The local authority was supposed to have power to inspect these schools. But suppose their inspectors took one view and the inspectors of the Board of Education took another, what was to become of the Parliamentary grant? There was no power to enforce obligation except that of the withholding of the grant, and that power was in the hands of the Board of Education, not of the local authority. So much for the matter of inspection, on which the whole vitality of the schools depended. Then the consent of the local authority was required to the appointment of teachers. Surely they should be required to appoint the teachers, and not merely to consent to their appointment. That the primary act, the appointment of teachers, should rest in men who were superior in authority to the local education authority was a condemnation of the scheme altogether. They were the owners of the schools, and it lay upon them to show that the appointments by other people were improper appointments. That was a fatal blot in a system of education. Then there was the question of keeping these schools in repair. Even here the educational authority had not the determining voice. They might direct improvements or additional repairs, and the voluntary managers might reply; "Oh, no; you are making requisitions which are quite unnecessary." If the local authority attempted to enforce their requirements the local managers could carry the matter to the Board of Education in London, so that the Board of education had there the final authority to decide the matter. Then there came the appointment of additional managers. This was the great concession made in respect of voluntary schools. The education authority might appoint one-third of the managers. Was there ever a more insulting position in which men could, be placed, than to say; "We put you in a position in which your authority shall be constantly called into question, and in which you shall always be a statutory minority." That was the plan proposed for conducting the educational work of the country. That was as regarded the powers given to this educational authority. But an authority of this kind ought not only to have powers; it ought also to have duties and obligations. This Bill imposed no obligations on the education authority. There was nothing to compel them to do anything at all. The Committee had never yet been told whether or not the optional clause was to be dropped. They were asked to establish this authority without knowing whether it was or was not to do anything for primary education. That was one of the most preposterous demands he had ever heard. If it was to be optional, they might have half the country conducting primary education under the Bill and the other half not. Could anything more absurd be conceived? If it was not to be optional, why was it not to be optional? Because if it was left optional the Government had grave doubt whether the Bill would be adopted. Was this great authority to be a co-ordinate authority for all education—primary, secondary, and so on? If so, how could it be optional? If it was not to be optional, why did the Government ever propose that it should be optional, and, having proposed it, why had they abandoned the option? Because they knew that a great many people would not accept the Bill. Then as regarded secondary education, that seemed to be put in the situation of the lady of whom it was said, "Oh, no, we never mention her, her name is never heard." There was not a word about it in the Bill. All that was said in Clause 2 was that the education authority might do something which was not elementary education. That was a most extraordinary form of establishing secondary education.

I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that it, would be better to wait until we reach the second clause before discussing that question. We are now considering only the first clause.

said he was referring to the general character of the Bill, and that all he desired to show was that there was nothing in the Bill calling upon the education authority to do anything in the matter of higher education. The provision which affected to do something of the kind would be entirely satisfied by some of the things being done which had been declared to be not elementary education, such as the establishment of continuation schools, and so on. In fact, the Bill made no adequate provision of any kind for secondary education. The country had expected a scheme in which secondary education was the main feature, and not one in which primary education had the first place, He did not say that primary education did not require more attention and further assistance, but the Government were absolutely ignoring secondary education, and the Bill offered no prospect of it being carried in at all. There was one very remarkable part of this question of secondary education, and it was a part upon which the Government had given no explanation. He referred to the financial arrangements. The whole question of secondary education depended upon—

I must again remind the right hon. Gentleman that we are not discussing the question of secondary education yet. We are still discussing the first clause—the constitution of the authority—and presently we shall reach the proper clause which; deals with this question.

said that at the beginning of these discussions he proposed to call attention to the general hearing of the Bill, but the right hon. Gentleman told him that the proper time for discussing the general question would be when Clause 1, which established the whole principle of the Bill, was put from the Chair.

No, no.

said the clause established an education authority, and whether hon. Members voted for it must depend more or less upon the general scheme of the Bill. An education authority which did nothing for secondary education was, in his opinion, a bad education authority. Therefore, when he was asked to say whether he would establish such an education authority, he would reply that it it provided for secondary education it would be a good one, but if it did not it would be a bad authority. Again, if it provided for primary education in one way it might be a good authority, and if it provided for it in another way it might be a very bad one. Therefore, he thought the Committee ought to have some idea of what that education would be, and what the new authority would have power to do. It would be quite out of order to go into detail on this point, but they were obliged to look generally at the provisions of the Bill in order to see what they were. He again repeated that there was no provision in this Bill for secondary education which was deserving of consideration until they knew what finances they were going to provide. To erect an education authority of this character, and to refuse to that authority out of its own funds the power to provide what it thought was necessary for the purpose, and to refuse to allow that authority power to levy a rate, showed a want of confidence in that authority which entirely defeated its object as an educational body, and prevented it carrying out any great scheme of education. To set up an authority such as was proposed in this Bill, and to limit by statute the rate which it should dispose of, was to adopt a course which would deprive it of its authority as an educational body. If this body were to be trusted, it ought to be trusted in its finance. The Bill was to supersede the existing condition of things. By the settlement of 1870 two systems were set to work side by side—the voluntary school system under private management and the Board School system under public management. Those two systems had been in operation side by side for the last thirty years. One had succeeded and the other had failed. The object of this Bill was to remedy the failure of the voluntary system, and the scheme of the Bill was to destroy the system that had succeeded and set up the system that had failed. That was the scheme of the Bill. Nobody had ever denied that the part of our system which had been a success had been the Board School system under public control. The part which had failed was that which came under the intolerable strain of the voluntaryists who would not volunteer. The object of this Bill was to continue and perpetuate that system. Why did the one system succeed? Because it was under public control. Why did the other system fail? Because it was under private management. [A Ministerial cry of "No."] It was proposed to perpetuate that system of private management which in elementary education had fettered and confined education in this country, and they were now going to continue that system under conditions which he had already stated would be humiliating to the new educational authority. A body was to be placed in the responsible position of taking charge of elementary education. But, instead of giving authority to that body, the Government proposed to leave them under the control of the private managers, under whom the system had already broken down. That was the scheme of this Bill. He need not go into the rating question. Hon. Members knew the difficulties which would be encountered in raising rates for edudational purposes. In the rural districts, where these councils were the rating authority, the operation of the rate would be a bone of contention. They would be called upon to deal with elementary education with all the difficulties that belonged to the rating question, and all the difficulties that belonged to the religious question. That was not a favourable start for a now education scheme. What would happen? Education would be a permanent, factor in the elections of these county councils, and in the contests which would take place we should see the opposition of a great class of this community—the Nonconformists, who rightly believed that the system of the management of these private schools was an injustice to them. They would make the county councils the battlefield of that religious difficulty. The education authority would become the cockpit of those religious difficulties. The battle would be fought out, not upon the clauses of the Bill, but after the Bill had been passed. It would go on from year to year. We should have a perpetual conflict as long as the injustice remained. The Government Bill left I he religious difficulty as it existed. The question did not concern Nonconformists alone, but all who were determined not to leave the education of the youth of this country mainly—almost exclusively—in clerical hands. That would he the battle which this Bill would introduce into county council elections. Therefore, unless the Government were prepared to change this Bill for the better in all its main elements, he believed that instead of advancing the cause of education it would be one of the most fatal blows that had ever been struck at the education of this country.

I do not propose to follow the right hon. Gentleman in the devious wanderings of his long speech, which have more to do with every other clause of the Bill than the one which is now under discussion. There is not a single important clause of the Bill on which the right hon. Gentleman has not given his opinion, and to which he has not raised objection. I really believe that three-fourths or more of his speech at least is relevant rather to subsequent clauses than to Clause 1. Unfortunately we are all human, and we have to discuss the Bill under human limitations, and one of those limitations from which we all suffer is that only one thing can be done at a time. The right hon. Gentleman thinks it is a sufficient excuse for commenting on all the subsequent clauses of the Bill that this authority has to deal with all the subjects mentioned in those clauses, and that, therefore, all those clauses are relevant to a discussion of the character and organisation of the education authority. But supposing that we had pursued the opposite course to that which we have pursued, and had put the education authority at the end, and discussed all that it had to do on the earlier clauses of the Bill, then the right bon. Gentleman could not possibly have discussed what the education authority had to do until he knew what the education authority was to be, and he would then, in discussing this clause, which sets up the machinery of the Bill, have been probably more relevant than he has been today. It is impossible, I venture to say, if the House is to conduct its debates in a businesslike spirit, to go over the whole range of the Bill in Committee in this way. It is perfectly proper to do so on the First Reading, and the Second and Third Readings; but surely it is impossible to deal in a businesslike spirit with the Bill in Committee on these principles; because, of course, if a measure deals with one subject as an organic whole, it is true that every clause has some relation to every other clause, and in that sense you might move at the end of every clause that it should be omitted, and thereupon discuss the whole Bill over again from beginning to end. That is not the way, I think, to make good, practical progress with the Bill, and I certainly should regard myself as abusing the patience of the Committee if I were to follow the right hon. Gentleman. I will, therefore, only say in one or two sentences what I have often said before, that I think it is far better for education that we should have a certain number of elective authorities dealing with primary education alone, a certain number of other elective authorities dealing with secondary education alone, and a great many other authorities not-elective at all dealing with voluntary schools. That is the present system, and it is a bad system. It can only be put right by having an authority much on the lines of this Bill. If the right hon. Gentleman's criticisms are well founded, if, for instance, it is true, as he says, that; this new authority is too much under the control of Whitehall—he took exactly the opposite line in 1896—if that is his contention, then let him move an Amendment on a later clause putting that right.

Hear, hear!

Very well, let the right hon. Gentleman wait till then. If he thinks, as he says, that voluntary school managers are not sufficiently under the control of the education authority, let him wait till we come to Clause 8 dealing with that point and move an Amendment remedying that defect. If he thinks that some alteration in another part of the Bill would prevent the religious difficulty from coming in, let him move an Amendment to that effect—though, much as I respect the right hon. Gentleman's ability, he will be a greater man even than I think he is if he finds a method of dealing with education in this country which does not raise the religious difficulty. But if he can do it, let him do it. This, however, is not the time to do it; and I would very earnestly ask the Committee not to expend time on what must after all be a profitless debate at this stage of the Bill. If we can make the Bill at the later stages in accordance with the general views of Members of the Committee, we will not object to the discussion of proposals, but if we fail in doing so, let him object to the whole thing at a later stage. I would respectfully beg the Committee not to follow the example of the right hon. Gentleman, and wander at large over the whole scope and surface of the Bill. I hope the Committee will feel, as regards the broad principles of the measure, that they have been so fully discussed on the Second Reading and on the various fundamental Amendments which have been raised in the course of the clause that we may now be allowed to have a division without any further debate.

said he would confine his observations to Clause 1, although he objected to the whole Bill from beginning to end. The first clause was that which sought to destroy nearly all that was effective in elementary education and to glorify a bad system which had most signally failed. This was a School Board killing Bill, and it set up what had been the voluntary system in the place of the Board Schools. He found that a great number of hon. Members who had now the School Boards in the death-grip spoke most respectfully and with great consideration about them, but their commendation of the boards was never heard until they were perfectly satisfied that their days were numbered, and that the old parish system was to be revived again in their place. The County Councils and other local boards had at present more to do than they could successfully get through in the time at their disposal, and he objected to a great system of national education being referred to bodies which were already overworked. That was his objection to this clause. The Vice President the other night said that the County Councils were elected on the democratic principle, and according to the right hon. Gentleman's logic the Councils must be democratic. That was not so. The Councils could not be democratic, from the fact that the members must be men of means and of considerable leisure. The electors, therefore, were limited in their selection of candidates to the class who had time and money to place at the disposal of the county work. In a speech in 1898 the Vice-President condemned these bodies as education authorities. In his speech on the Code that year he used these words—

"Then there is the general dislike to education in country districts on the part of all classes of society. This is not my opinion; it is what our school inspectors say. One of them whom I have quoted before says; 'The farmer and the squire are no friends to elementary education. They associate agricultural depression and low rents with compulsory education, and they grudge to pay for that teaching which deprives them of servants and furnishes their labourers with wings to fly from the parish. On the other hand, the labourer has not learnt the value of education. The earnings of his children are important to him, and the present shilling obscures the future pound. What is good enough for them is good enough for their children.' "

Whose fault was it that the labourer did not appreciate education? Those who, according to the right hon. Gentleman, were against the higher life and thought of the people were those whom he was going to place as complete masters of education in the country. If the right hon. Gentleman favoured those opinions in 1898 how could he favour this Bill? The Bill sought to create that which the right hon. Gentleman and his inspectors entirely disapproved of. The right hon. Gentleman could not be in favour of School Boards and against them. He was in a corner, out of which, with all his powerful Parliamentary agility, he would find himself quite unable to escape. He must either deny the Vice-President of 1898 or denounce the Clause now under consideration. The right hon. Gentleman in the same speech went on to demonstrate the superiority of board schools over voluntary schools. One of the most remarkable exposures he had over read of the inefficiency of the schools the right hon. Gentleman was going to set up was given in that speech. He would remind the right hon. Gentleman of the figures he had then quoted; they were so interesting, and they were given with more authority than could have possibly been given by any other Member of this House. The right hon. Gentleman went on to describe the superiority of the board schools, which he was now going to destroy, over the voluntary schools. He said there was a considerable difference in numbers and efficiency between the board and the voluntary schools in London. There were 513,000 children in the board schools in London, and 224,000 in the voluntary schools. The board school scholars were therefore in numbers rather more than double those of the voluntary schools; but of the junior scholarships given by the Technical Instruction Committee to all elementary schools, the board school children carried off 299, while the children of the voluntary schools only gained 26. What did the right hon. Gentleman say to Clause I of this Bill now? In Manchester, the right hon. Gentleman went on to say, the board school children numbered 42,000, and the voluntary school children 52,000; but the board school children carried off forty Owen scholarships to the Manchester Grammar School, and the voluntary school children only two. In Liverpool, where there were 37,000 board school children, and 74,000 voluntary school children, the former carried off sixteen scholarships, and the latter only two. That was the result of a system which this Bill was intended to destroy. [Hon. MEMBERS on the Ministerial Benches; "No."] Yes; this Bill was intended to destroy the board schools and to hand them over to the party led in this House by the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich. That was the head and front of the Bill. All the great work for the nation which the School Boards bad been doing was to be destroyed in order to please a section of the community. If Clause 1 became part of the Bill, as far as he could see, it mattered little what followed. The worse it was, the sooner it would be ended by another general election. He sincerely trusted that the Committee, even at the eleventh hour, would rescue national education out of the deadly clutches of the authorities that were waiting outside—deadly wherever they had laid their hands on education either in this country or any other. He hoped the Committee might, even at this moment, delete this Clause from the Bill, because it would give national education into the hands of those whom the Vice-President had declared to be the deadly opponents of education in the country-districts.

said that the First Lord of the Treasury had stated that he would not follow the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouth in his devious wanderings. If their wanderings were devious, it was because the path of the Government was devious. He thought the Committee were entitled to one or two explanations—and that was the time to ask for them—as to the meaning and purpose of the Government in regard to this Bill. The first Clause started by saying that—

"For the purposes of this Act the Council of every county and of every county borough shall be the local education authority."

He thought they were entitled to know whether the County Council or the County Borough Council was to be the local education authority, or whether it was simply to have the power of appointing another body which would be the educational authority. The whole crux of the question was whether the Committee appointed by the County Council would bear the same relation to the County Council as the Surveyors Committee. When the First Lord of the Treasury was asked this question he replied—

"I imagine that the answer will be in the negative."

Surely they were entitled to have an authoritative announcement. There were two tests as to the position of the County Council. One was the test of the Police Committee, the other was that of the Surveyors Committee. If the County Council was simply to have the same authority over education as it had over the police, then it was no authority at all, and it was a gross misnomer to call it the local education authority; and this Clause ought to be deleted, if, on the other hand, the position of the Committee which would be appointed was that of the Surveyors Committee, then the County Council was really the education authority. The Surveyors Committee was entitled to do nothing except what was delegated to it by the County Council. At any moment the County Council could withdraw the authority given to the Surveyors Committee and take is upon themselves. He asked the First Lord of the Treasury whether the County Council under this Clause could say to the Education Committee "You cannot deal with such and such a subject."

said it appeared to him that that question was not relevant to this Clause, though it might be to Clause 12.

said that the right hon. Gentleman started by asking the Committee to declare that the County Council was the local education authority; and he was perfectly entitled to discuss the subsequent clauses by assuming that they would stand as they were. If that were the case the Bill was inconsistent. They were asked to stultify themselves by making a declaration, to be incorporated in an Act of Parliament, which they knew perfectly well was not true. The County Council was not the education authority, but some other body which was brought into existence not by the County Council, but by the County Council subject to the approval of the Education Department. There was another important matter. Under this Clause they did not set up one authority. The discussion on the Amendment of the hon. Member for Berwick would have been valuable if only it had brought forth the declaration from the First Lord of the Treasury that the one authority argument was a pure delusion.

I never said that. I said the argument of the right hon. Gentleman opposite was a pure delusion.

said that the statement made by his hon. friend was that the purpose of the First Lord of the Treasury in bringing in this Bill was to set up one authority, and it was that that the right hon. Gentleman said was a pure delusion.

No.

said that the Bill did not set up one authority, but several. Let them take a county where the majority of the population was in county borough areas and urban district areas. The majority of the County Council would be elected by men who were exempted from the operations of the County Council Committee, He had asked the right hon. Gentleman whether the County Council Committee would have the power of declaring the policy in regard to elementary education, and he answered that the urban and county borough areas would not have a vote so far as the rate was concerned. But the policy was the main thing. Once the educational authority declared for a policy involving expenditure, the County Council would have no option but to pay. If the educational authority was elected mainly by the representatives of the urban and county borough areas, which were autonomous, they might go in for an elaborate educational policy, and the men who would have to pay for it would be the members for the rural districts who would get up and protest that it was unfair. He thought the Committee ought to have some declaration as to how the Government were going to get out of that difficulty. The representatives of the urban areas and the town council areas would elect the same men again. It had been conceded that the educational policy, with regard to rural districts, should be different to that with regard to urban districts, but if they got au urban district which had a Board of its own, with which the County Council could not interfere, and they elected the educational men for the whole county, and if that educational authority declared for a policy involving expenditure, the County Council would have no option but to pay. He did not think any Bill had ever been introduced into the House of Commons which contained so incongruous and unfair a proposition as that embodied in this measure. As bearing on this question of the authority, he thought they were entitled to some declaration from the Government on the question of finance. They had heard all sorts of rumours as to where the finances were going to come from. If the whole burden was going to be cast on the rates there might be something to be said for giving autonomy to these districts of 10,000 and 20,000, but if the burden was to be cast entirely on the Exchequer, what possible argument was there for those exemptions? They had heard rumours that the corn tax was to be devoted to this purpose. They were to have dear bread and cheap catechisms. How was it that this declaration was withheld from the Committee? They knew perfectly well that there were going to be fundamental changes in the whole character of the Bill.

Why?

Then let us know whether that is so or not.

The hon. Member is anticipating a statement which is relevant to the next Clause, but which has no relevance to this.

said he was much obliged for the information that such a statement was going to be made on the next Clause.

The hon. Member has misinterpreted what I said. I did not say it would be made. What I meant by my interruption of the hon. Member was that if any such statement is to be made, it would be relevant to the next Clause.

thought they were entitled to get it at the first opportunity. The position as it was was an impossible one. The Government were setting up a thing which they called an Educational authority, which was no educational authority at all. It was a misnomer to call it so. What would be the position of an urban district having nothing but voluntary schools. That district would return members to the County Council, who would have a voice in the control of the schools of the parishes adjoining their own, but who would have nothing to say as to the management of their own schools. The whole scheme was so preposterous that to invite the Committee to solemnly declare that they were setting up an authority on education was a farce. It was no authority on education.

said he desired to say one last word on behalf of the great School Boards, and the managers of the urban schools, who had, for the last thirty years, worked for the educational progress of the country amidst public disregard, and who were now met with contumely in that House.

Not by me.

said the Vice-President had not hesitated to tell them that their work was shoddy.

I said nothing of the kind. What I said was that the instruction given in some of the art schools of the evening schools in London as compared with the instruction given in a proper art school was shoddy. I restricted my observations entirely to the question of art.

To the work of the science and art schools?

No, art.

said that now he was confronted with a curious spectacle, indeed, on the Front Bench, for no one could say anything but good of the great School Boards to-day. They had this satisfaction, that the First Lord of the Treasury had never said anything unkind about them, and was endeavouring to make their expiring moments extremely happy by saying nice things about them. He ventured to say that in transferring the work of these great School Boards to the county borough councils they were taking the greatest educational leap in the dark that they had ever taken in this country. If these schools were handed over to the County Councils they would add a greater work and responsibility to their duties than all the municipal work in secondary technical and university education put together. It could not be done. What would happen was that this work would be handed over, not to the councils of the county boroughs, but to a body of non-representative persons who would be largely under the influence of the paid officials of those boroughs. He was convinced that that was not wise from the point of view of educational progress. The hon. Member for South Islington had stated that the various county boroughs supported the principle of this Bill without any reservation whatever. He had been in communication with the town clerks of all these sixty-seven county boroughs, and the replies he had received showed that only one, Leeds, was unconditionally in favour of the Bill, thirteen were conditionally in its favour, but suggesting such alterations as would