To ask the President of the Board of Trade, in view of the dangers arising from the practice of tow-roping, will he consider the expediency of representing to the railway companies throughout the Kingdom the desirability of a discontinuance of the practice. (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) One of the rules framed by the Board of Trade under the Railway Employment (Prevention of Accidents) Act, 1900, provides that, after twelve months from the coming into operation of the rules, tow-roping shall not be allowed, except in cases where no other reasonably practicable means can be provided for dealing with the traffic. This rule has been confirmed by the Court of the Railway and Canal Commission, and will now be formally made and become operative

To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he will state for the year ending 31st December last the number of accounts in the Post Office Savings Bank with balances of less than £50, and the aggregate amount represented by these accounts; and will he state the number of accounts with balances of £50 and upwards with the amount which they represent. (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) The Postmaster General regrets that the labour and expense of ascertaining in respect of last year the particulars desired by the hon. Member would not be warranted. He thinks, however, that the following figures for 1899 may, perhaps, serve the hon. Member's purpose:—Accounts with balances of £50 and less, 7,211,244, £42,502,887; Accounts with balances above £50, 805,436, £87,615,718.

; To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that upwards of 1,100 letters and parcels were delivered during the year 1901 at Cruit Island, Kincasslagh, County Donegal; and whether he can arrange to meet the wish of the inhabitants, numbering fifty-two families, for a daily service of letters. (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) No record has been kept by the Post Office of the number of letters and parcels delivered during the year 1901 at Cruit Island, Kincasslagh, County Donegal; but assuming the hon. Member's figures to be correct, the Postmaster General fears that he would not be warranted in incurring additional expenditure for the purpose of affording a daily delivery in lieu of the existing delivery on four days a week.

To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, considering that second division clerks and Customs port clerks are granted an additional seven days annual leave, exclusive of bank holidays and the King's Birthday, after five years service, and in London the port clerks enjoy a further seven days after ten years service, arrangements can be made whereby an additional amount of annual leave may be granted to the Customs senior assistant clerks whose length of service, established and unestablished, ranges from fifteen to twenty-five years. (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) I am unable to alter the decision contained in the answer which I gave to the hon. Member on the 23rd instant.†

To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General whether he is aware that a number of telegraphists who have been sent to telegraph offices at race meetings and other special events during the last two months have not been paid their subsistence allowances; and whether, seeing that these men have been put to considerable expense as a result of lodging away from home, the sums due to them can now be paid. (Answered by Mr. Austin Chamberlain.) The Postmaster General is only aware of one case, in which, owing to the official

†See preceding volume, p. 1008.

papers having been unfortunately mislaid, the subsistence allowances have not been duly paid. Instructions have now been given for payment to be made.

To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether, having regard to the population and character of the industry of the district, he is now prepared to recommend that a postal telegraph office be open at Walsoken. (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) The Postmaster General has already authorised an extension of the telegraph to New Walsoken, to be carried out in connection with a guaranteed extension to West Walton.

To ask the Secretary of State for India whether arrangements have yet been made to withdraw from the Military hospitals in India surgical instruments fitted with wooden handles, and to supersede them by instruments with metal handles and of modern type. (Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.) The whole question of the provision of aseptic instruments and appliances for Military hospitalsin India is now under the consideration of the Government of India. The steps to be taken in the matter will be reported by them as soon as possible.

To ask the Secretary of State for India whether he can lay upon the Table the draft of the new opium scheme for Burma, of which particulars have appeared in India, and which has been under consideration for some time past; also what means are being taken to ascertain Barman opinion on the new scheme, and whether it is calculated to lessen the evils produced by opium consumption in Burma, as set forth by Chief Commissioners Sir Charles N. Aitchison, and Sir Alexander Mackenzie. (Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.) I have not as yet received a copy of the regulations for giving effect to the revised arrangements for the licensed sale of opium in Burma, which I have sanctioned with the object of suppressing smuggling and checking illicit consumption. These arrangements were the result of careful and prolonged inquiries on the part of the Government of Burma, and I have every reason to think that due account was taken of the wishes and habits of the people.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware Mr. Liuvee Harris, sometime resident in Jersey and Guernsey, was charged at Weymouth with stealing a boy whom he had adopted and maintained for twelve months with the full consent of the parents, and although the justices refused to entertain the charge was subsequently arrested on a warrant of the jurats of Guernsey, where he was taken in custody and sentenced to three months imprisonment; whether he will consider the propriety of repealing the Indictable Offences Act, 1848, as regards the Channel Islands, and leave such cases to the operation of the Fugitive Offenders Act, 1881; and whether he will recommend compensation to Mr. Harris for the imprisonment he has undergone. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Ritchie.) I have no reason to think that Mr Harris was wrongly convicted, nor is this a case in which the suggestion of compensation could be entertained. I cannot undertake to legislate in the direction desired.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his attention has been called to the case of Sydney Ed. Pratt who, on Monday the 21st instant, was prosecuted before the Bench at Grimston, Norfolk, for failing to have his child vaccinated, and fined 10s. and 12s. 6d. costs, though he had on two occasions appeared before the same Bench asking for a certificate of exemption on conscientious grounds; and will he say whether he is prepared to promote legislation to deal with such cases. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Ritchie.) If, as would appear from the Question, the defendant had not established his claim to a certificate of exemption, it is not clear on what grounds it can be suggested that the conviction was wrong, or that any action on my part is called for.

To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state what arrangements have been made to enable Colonial and Indian guests to witness the Naval Review. (Answered by Mr. Arnold-Forster.) The Admiralty are in communication with the Colonial Office and India Office, and, as soon as it is known what their requirements are, arrangements will be made to meet them as far as is practicable.

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, considering the necessity for a pier at Dunquin Dingle, and the present rates and circumstances of the district, he will advise the Board to increase their grant. (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) There are no funds available at present, but, as I said on Monday, I will give the matter my personal attention.

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state how many justices of the peace there are permanently residing in the petty sessions district of Boyle; of this number how many are Roman Catholics; and will he consider the advisability of appointing additional magistrates for this district. (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) Exclusive of ex-officio justices under the Local Government Act, there are six ordinary magistrates who have residences in or immediately adjoining the Boyle petty sessions district, of whom five are Protestants and one is a Roman Catholic. There are also ten other magistrates, of whom three are Roman Catholics, who were authorised when appointed to attend the Boyle petty sessions, but they are not resident in the district. The Lord Chancellor and the Lieutenant of the county are always ready to consider the names of any properly qualified persons that may be brought to their notice.

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Mr. W. H. Crawford, an Inspector under the Agricultural Board for the nomination of bulls, has, through himself and through relatives, bought and sold bulls which subsequently received nominations; and whether he can state how many nominations were made by Crawford at the Cork Spring Show, at which some animals were sold for over forty guineas. (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) Mr. Crawford is occasionally employed as inspector of pedigree bulls for premiums under the Department's live stock schemes. The Department has no cognisance of his private transactions as a farmer, and has no reason to doubt his integrity. Eleven bulls were selected for premiums at Cork.

To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the grant to time-expired men who have served more than one year after their period of service with the colours, if they now return to civil life, of a bounty of 14s. for each month completed beyond the extra year they have served, will be extended to those who would otherwise be eligible, but who have elected to prolong their period of service with the colours instead of passing into the Reserve. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) Soldiers extending their service or reengaging will receive the special gratuities to which they would have been entitled had they been transferred to the Reserve or taken their discharge.

To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he has considered the advisability of abolishing the guard bed, which consists of sloping planks with a wooden head-rest, and which is at present in use in guard rooms in the United Kingdom; and if so, whether he will state what action has been taken. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) Experiments are being made with new guard beds, and I hope we may be able to add to the soldier's comfort when on guard.

To ask the Secretary of State for War whether prisoners of war on parole, at present in England or elsewhere, are allowed to proceed to South Africa provided they are prepared to pay their own expenses and duly declare their acceptance of the position of subjects of His Majesty King Edward VII. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) Prisoners of war on parole, provided they are burghers of the late republics, come under the arrangements explained to the hon. Member on the 16th instant in regard to prisoners of war generally.

To ask the Secretary of State for War if he can inform the House of the total number of applications for resignation that have been sent in (from the conclusion of peace to the present date) by the officers of the Regular Army. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) Sixty-five such applications have been made.

To ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in the new scheme of pay for the Regular Army, the non-commissioned officers receive any increase, and, if so, what proportion does it bear to the increase to be allowed to the rank and file. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) Non-commissioned officers and privates participate equally in the new advantages, and it has been decided to considerably increase the number of the paid lance ranks.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the question of establishing a Municipal Council in Hong Kong, on lines similar to the Councils which have already been established at Shanghai, Singapore, and Penang, is again under consideration; and, if so, will he say when he expects to arrive at a decision on the subject. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Chamberlain.) I have not received any representations on this subject lately, and there has therefore been no occasion to re-open the question.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can now inform the House what will be the order of reference to the Commission to be appointed to inquire into the conduct of the war, and how the Committee will be composed.

I have not been able to get on with the formation of this Commission as quickly as could be desired, but I am glad to say that I hope confidently that we have been able to secure the services of Lord Elgin as chairman. Lord Elgin is a gentleman who has taken no part in the controversies connected with the war, and I think he commands universal respect. We propose that the Commission shall not be a large one. I should be disposed, without committing myself absolutely, to confine it to about seven with Lord Elgin as chairman. I do not propose to put a political element upon it at all from either side of the House if I can possibly avoid it. As to the reference to the Commission, I think it ought to be in general terms, and yet I do not want to throw upon the Commission the intolerable burden of inquiring into every kind of transaction throughout the whole course of the war. I thought if we could frame the reference so that no question connected with contracts of any kind made during the war should be outside their purview, and which would also enable them to inquire into the preparations for the war, we need not have any military events inquired into after the occupation of Pretoria. I think that would be some relief to the Commission, and I do not think that it would do any injury to any of the interests which are anxious for the inquiry. The sort of reference I should suggest would be "to inquire into the supply of men, munitions, equipment, and transport in connection with the South African war, and into the military operations up to the occupation of Pretoria." I have given to the House a full account, perhaps a fuller account than I ought to have given, of a matter which is still pending, but I wanted to take the House into our confidence, so that there should be no secrecy about the matter.

Is it intended that the Commission shall be composed of civilians or soldiers or both civilians and soldiers?

My idea of the composition of the Commission is that we should have a civilian chairman, and that probably civilians should be in the majority; but I think that there should be a military representative and also a naval representative.

Will the inquiry include land as well as sea transport?

Yes, I want to include everything. I am very anxious that nothing should be kept out.

May I ask whether the reference will cover the work of the Intelligence Department before the war?

Yes, it is certainly intended to cover the preparations for the war.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what steps are being taken for the repatriation of the Boer prisoners of war still kept in Bermuda; whether permission will now be given to such of those prisoners as may be willing to pay the price of their own passage back to leave Bermuda in order that they may return to South Africa; and how soon transports will be sent to Bermuda to convey to South Africa those prisoners who desire to return thither, and are not able to pay for their own passages.

350 prisoners of war have sailed already, and 1,000 more will leave Bermuda about 10th August. Arrangements will be made for further batches to leave as soon as they can be received in South Africa. Those who are willing to pay their own passage may do so, provided they obtain permission from their Camp Commandant and secure the concurrence of the High Commissioner: only three have applied for such permission up to the present.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will state what facilities are being given to active service volunteers who desire to remain in South Africa to obtain employment, and what steps Volunteers should take in order to secure such employment.

Active service Volunteers who obtain employment will be allowed to take their discharge in South Africa. I have no information as to the grant of any special facilities to such Volunteers for obtaining employment, but they will retain their right to a free passage home up to twelve months from the date of discharge.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will state the steps taken by the War Office to inform reservists to whom working furlough had been granted prior to the issue of the Army Order 200, of September, 1901, of the terms of that Order; is he aware that men were allowed to continue on furlough in ignorance of the effect of the Order in depriving them for every week they remained on furlough of the gratuity earned by one month of service, until the whole of the gratuity earned during mobilisation was forfeited, and were in some cases not informed of the fact until after their final discharge; and, seeing that officers engaged in making up the accounts of reservists prior to demobilisation included the full gratuity earned, and that subsequently the gratuity, or a portion of the gratuity, was deducted from the amount paid, will he state the number of men so treated, and consider the desirability of paying them the full amounts to which they were led to suppose themselves entitled.

This information was, as usual, promulgated by Army Order. It is not practicable to communicate with each man on furlough as to the nature of Army Orders published during his absence. It is not proposed to add a furlough gratuity to the furlough already granted to these men. I am not aware of the numbers of men so treated.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of questions which have arisen in India, the regulations for the use of the garrison churches in South Africa, erected in whole or in part by public funds, will be so framed as to provide for equal rights as to conducting services therein by the chaplains of the Presbyterian, Anglican, and other communions who desire the use of such fabrics.

The churches at present in use in South Africa are, with one exception, under local, and not military, control. The question raised will be carefully considered when the contingency arises.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the law officers of the Crown have yet completed their inquiries as to the possibility of a prosecution in the Irish remounts case.

The case referred to is still under the consideration of the law officers of the Crown. No time is being lost in this matter.

I shall repeat the Question this day week.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government have received any information as to purchases by a Russian consul of land in the Island of Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf, and, if so, can he state what is the extent of those purchases; and whether, with a view to prevent complications in Persia, His Majesty's Government will take advantage of the approaching visit to England of the Shah of Persia to concert with His Majesty and also with the Russian Government measures calculated to secure the independence and integrity of Persia by a formal Treaty to be substituted for the expression of views and the assurance of desiresand intentions which form the understanding embodied in correspondence between 1834 and 1888 and now existing.

The answer to the first paragraph is in the negative. I am confident that neither the House nor my hon. friend will expect me to make any statement as to the subjects which it may be possible to discuss with the Shah of Persia during his visit to this country.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to a meeting held last week at St. Helens, when it was decided to form a combination to boycott people dealing with the local co-operative society; whether a vigilance committee was started, and a list of workers and others having connection with the co-operative society was exhibited; and whether the Home Department have given any instructions to magistrates to investigate the conduct of the shopkeepers engaged in these proceedings.

I have no information on this subject beyond the reports which I have seen in the newspapers; and I have no power in any event to give the magistrates such instructions as are suggested in the Question.

Has the right hon. Gentleman any reason to doubt the accuracy of the report in the newspaper?

I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education if he has any official information showing that consumption is more prevalent among teachers in elementary schools than in other classes of the community; and, if so, will he consider the advisability of the application of remedial measures.

The Board of Education have no such information and no reason for supposing that consumption is specially prevalent amongst teachers. The remedy for such disease as exists would be better ventilation of schools.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will state the amount expended on the Irish University Commission up to date, and also the the amount received by each member of it.

The expenses of this Commission up to the present time are, in round figures: salaries, £450; travelling expenses, £1,200; shorthand, £570; printing and miscellaneous expenses, £1,000. No remuneration is paid to any member of the Commission.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he can state on what grounds he cancelled the granting of 5s. a week out-door relief by the Pontefract Guardians to John Gilmore and Bridget Gilmore, who are at present domiciled in Mohill Union, Ireland.

Will the hon. Member allow me to reply to this Question on behalf of the right hon. Gentleman. The relief in this case appears to have been ordered by the Guardians under a misapprehension of their powers. They had no legal authority to give relief to these persons whilst they were residing out of England. This my right hon. friend pointed out to the Guardians. He did not cancel their order. Indeed he sanctioned the payment up to the end of the June quarter; but he could not sanction the indefinite continuance of an expenditure which would be illegal.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he is aware that Ponte-fract Union sent to Mohill Union, Ireland, seven years ago, a couple named John and Bridget Gilmore, allowing them 5s. a week out-door relief; and whether, as this relief has now been stopped by the Pontefract Union, the Local Government Board will consent to these parties being sent back by the Mohill Guardians to Pontefract.

The allowance was stopped by the Pontefract Guardians, the English Local Government Board having advised that there was no legal authority for its payment. The Irish Department is not empowered to consent to the return of the parties to Pontefract, nor would the guardians of the Mohill Union be acting legally in expending the rates for this purpose.

I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether he is aware that at the Cork Summer Assizes within the past week, in the case of a man named Edward Horgan, indicted for a dangerous assault, twenty-seven or twenty-eight jurors were challenged by the representatives of the Crown; and will he say if this action had the sanction of the Irish law officer; and, seeing that in the case of Quartermaster Sergeant Rammage, of the Royal Engineers, indicted for breaking into the Sacristy of a Roman Catholic Church, no jurors were ordered by the Crown to stand by, will he explain why a different course was adopted in regard to this soldier.

The Crown solicitor, in setting aside twenty-eight jurors in the first mentioned case, acted strictly in accordance with the instructions issued to him in February, 1894. No special directions were given to him by the law officers. Jurors are only set aside where the Crown solicitor has reason to believe that, if sworn, they would not find a true verdict on the evidence. No such apprehension was entertained in the second mentioned case. The defendant was a complete stranger to the city and county of Cork. Moreover, counsel for the Crown advised the Crown solicitor that the charge against him could not be sustained in law, and by direction of the judge he was acquitted.

Was there any reason to believe that a true verdict would not be returned in Horgan's case?

The Crown solicitor must have had reason to believe that the jurors set aside would not return a true verdict. Other hon. Members rose to put supplementary Questions, but were stopped by the Speaker.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the delay that has occurred in proceedings for the sale of O'Brien and another estate in Comakelly and Corglass, County Longford, he can direct the Land Commission to obtain a request for a sale of these lands to the tenants.

This estate is being administered in the Court of the land judge, where the proceedings have not yet reached the stage at which a request for an inspection under the 40th Section of the Act of 1896 could be issued. The Land Commission has no power to take the initiative in obtaining a request.

Can the right hon. Gentleman say why this stage has not been reached?

No, Sir; it is altogether outside my province.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he proposes to take any steps to have the rules under the Small Dwellings Acquisition (Ireland) Act remodelled, so as to obviate the necessity of the present guarantee in cash being required from the poorer class of tenant purchasers.

The rules referred to were issued in pursuance of the Act and cannot be remodelled in the direction suggested. The Act itself prescribes the limits within which a local authority may advance money for the purchase of houses, and legislation would be necessary to effect any alteration in those limits. I cannot undertake to introduce such legislation.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state if a constable named Redington appeared as a witness in the prosecution of two men, named Finegan and Muldowney, for murder at Craughwell, County Galway, eighteen years ago; whether he can state Redington's present rank and where he is stationed at present?

Sergeant Redington was a witness in this case. He was promoted to the rank of district inspector in September, 1897, and is now stationed at Granard, County Longford.

Was he the district inspector in charge of Sheridan?

Order, order ! That does not arise out of the Question.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a resolution has been passed by the Mohill Board of Guardians praying for the release of a prisoner named Muldowney, convicted of the Craughwell murder eighteen years ago; and whether he will have a further inquiry made with a view to the remission of his life sentence.

It is not my province to act as suggested in this Question. Any representations in favour of a mitigation of sentence should be addressed to the Lord Lieutenant, in whom alone is vested the exercise of the prerogative of mercy.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the receiver on the estate of W. L. Rae, Killorglin, Kerry, sent a telegram directed to Mr. Doyle, to be given to the inspector of the court while valuing the estate, asking him to give certain plots in possession of Leane to Doyle; and will he state what steps will be taken in respect of the receiver's action.

No, Sir. The receiver states that he sent no such telegram.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware of the fact that during the recent elections under the Local Government Act, a meeting was held in Rathfarnham (County Dublin) petty sessions court by the Conservatives, in furtherance of the candidature of Colonel Hercules Rowley, of Marley Grange, Rathfarnham; and will he state what steps, if any, were taken by the authorities to prevent a political meeting of this kind from being held in the court-house.

I am informed that Colonel Rowley was not a candidate at the elections referred to, and that no meeting was held by Conservatives in the court house on the occasion.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman what Votes are to be taken tomorrow, and in what order; also as to Monday and Tuesday.

Tomorrow (Thursday) I propose to take the West Indies Vote for a grant in aid as the first Order, and the Excess Vote as the second Order. We ought to get the latter in the course of the sitting, in order to enable us to close up Supply in due course. To follow these I shall put down the Report of the Army Votes obtained on 17th July. At the evening sitting two Irish Bills will be taken. Friday will be devoted to the Education Bill, and Monday and Tuesday, of course, to Supply.

Will the Report of Supply to be taken include the Vote for the Ben Nevis Observatory? There was, I think, an understanding that we should have an adequate opportunity of discussing that Vote.

I hope I shall be able to find time on Tuesday for a discussion of the Vote for Ben Nevis Observatory on Report of Supply.

May we assume that the Food and Drugs Act Amendment Bill will not be proceeded with?

Cannot the right hon. Gentleman take that Bill tomorrow night?

I am afraid the two Irish Bills will take up the time. I will put it down on Thursday in next week.

With reference to the Excess Vote, and the statement that that must be obtained to-morrow, are we to understand that if the West India Vote occupies all the sitting the Excess Vote will be taken without discussion? This is very important, as it involves an expenditure of nearly £3,000,000 not sanctioned by Parliament.

I will do my best to bring the discussion on the West Indian Vote to a conclusion in time to give opportunity for discussing the Army Excess Vote. With regard to Report of Supply, the Army Votes must come first, as the War Office is very much in need of funds.

Can the Secretary to the Treasury say when the annual explanation of the Public Works Loans Bill will be circulated?

I was under the impression that it had been. I will inquire.

On a Question of Order. There is a discrepancy between the Parliamentary Paper circulated this morning and the White Paper just distributed. Four Amendments which were on the former have disappeared—one was in the name of the hon. Member for Horsham; two in the name of the hon. Member for the Morley Division, and one in the name of the hon. Member for Halifax. By which Paper are we to be guided?

I understand that these Amendments appeared by mistake on the Blue Paper. The reason is this. There was an Amendment on Monday evening in the name of the hon. Member for Halifax, which I ruled out of order. That appeared on the Blue Paper after it had been disposed of, and at the last thing at night the other three Amendments were handed in. We had, however, passed the point at which they could be inserted, and they ought not, therefore, to have appeared on the Blue Paper.

Is it not the fact that the Blue Paper is the effectual Notice Paper, and not the White Paper?

The White Paper is the Paper on which the House works. If the hon. Member had been here during the last twelve sittings he would have seen hon. Members working on the White Paper.

said that when the Prime Minister agreed to report Progress on Monday night it was understood that hon. Members should when Committee was resumed be perfectly free to move Amendments to the second sub-section.

I fear there has been some misunderstanding. On my marked Paper I have struck out the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Stretford, and also that in the name of the hon. Member for Halifax. They dealt with subjects which it had been agreed should be brought up at a later stage.

moved to insert at the commencement of this subsection the words—

"Except in cases where only one school exists within the area of the minor local authority."

The object of that would be manifest to hon. Members.

Before we go on with that, I should like to ask the hon. Member how he proposes to deal with these schools.

I have a subsequent Amendment.

This question has already been considered by the Committee. Has the hon. Member any fresh proposal to make?

Yes, I have a consequential Amendment.

Let me see it, please.

, continuing his speech, said his Amendment raised an exceedingly important issue. A great deal had been heard in the debate of the grievance under which the Nonconformists of this country laboured in 8,000 rural parishes in which there existed only one school. He had been struck from the outset of the debates by the fact that on the other side of the House no man had got up to say that the grievance was not a real and substantial grievance. Two or three days ago, when the question was raised in a totally different manner by the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Monmouth Boroughs, it was felt, even by the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich, that the case was one which required some solution, and he undertook to lay one before the House and the country. The Prime Minister on the contrary admitted the grievance, but declined to propose any solution. In his opinion, as one interested in the preservation of one section of the denominational schools in this country, he felt that a real crisis had now been reached, because if this Bill were forced through the House by the weight of the Government majority, without showing a desire to meet this grievance, the denominational schools were doomed. He ventured to express that opinion on the Second Heading, and on the Amendment of the hon. Member for Monmouth. and what had happened since then? Could any one pretend to ignore what had occurred? They had had an election in North Leeds. The action of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland in crossing over to that side of the House was not less significant. If these signs of the times were not taken notice of and followed by an effort to arrive at an amicable settlement, there would be a reaction, and in the flow of that reaction the denominational schools would be submerged. These were not the only significant signs to be taken into account. Most hon. Members had read that morning in The Times the letter of the Bishop of Hereford, who in this connection was a very important person. He was not only a Liberal, he was also a Liberal Churchman and a wiser supporter of that Church than many hon. Members opposite. No doubt in his letter he expressed the opinion of many members of the Church of England. He called attention again to the proposal for dealing, he says—

"With the 8,000 parishes where, as is commonly asserted, our Church school is the only school available."

and he suggests once more the following solution—

"That in these schools the managers appointed by the Church shall be one-third, of the whole; the local educational authority shall nominate one-third, as proposed in the Bill; and the remaining one-third shall be elected either by the parish council or by parish meeting. The great mass of reasonable Nonconformists,"

he says—

"would accept this. Consequently it would save the country from the threatened religious strife and all its bitterness, as also from the humiliating spectacle of conscientious men refusing to pay their rates and having their goods distrained."

Personally, he did not go so far as to say that it would save the country from all bitterness, but it would give every chance for the voice of moderation and compromise to be heard in this great struggle. The words "humiliating spectacle of conscientious men refusing to pay their rates and having their their goods distrained" used as they had been by the Bishop of Hereford, filled him with considerable alarm. It was clear the Bishop contemplated there would be a war of the rates, and although they had been told in the course of the debates that the threats of refusal to pay rates were merely wild words, he looked forward to that prospect as most dangerous and disastrous for denominational schools. On these grounds, and in the spirit of compromise, he appealed to Members opposite to show some conciliatory spirit. The proposition of the Prime Minister was to divide schools into provided and not provided, with distinct management for each class. But it had been made manifest during debate that there should be a third category to meet the case of parishes in which only one school existed, and his proposal was to have the difference between these cases and those where parents had a choice of schools for their children recognised by the application of a different system of management by a body consisting of a third nominated by the trustees, a third by the minor local authority, and a third by the parents of the children on the school books. He was aware that this would not meet the views of Members above the gangway, and that they would not accept it as a settlement of their claims, but he put it forward as a friend of denominational schools, with a desire to preserve them, and the hope that it would draw some of the venomous bitterness that would result from the operation of the section as it stood. If the Amendment were accepted it would, at any rate, leave the way open for consequential Amendments as regarded the composition of the Board of Managers. All he desired to affirm by it was that in the case of one-school districts there should be a greater amount of popular control than in the case where parents had a choice of schools. It would not affect Church schools in populous centres like London, Manchester, and Liverpool, and the Church would have nothing to fear from it in the one-school districts. He could not sec his way to support the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Monmouth Boroughs, because it would have deprived the Church School Trustees of representation on the Board, and he did not think that, in view of the fact that these Trustees provided considerable endowments for the schools, a just proposal. His Amendment would give the Trustees one-third of the seats, and the local authority, which might be more or less under the influence of the Church, another third; while as to the parents, it was quite possible, in a great proportion of the 8,000 parish, the majority of them would be Churchmen also. It was only fair that when the majority were Nonconformists, the parents of the children should have some voice in the management. Two Amendments had been placed on the Paper by representatives of the Church party—who undertook in the recent debate to provide a remedy for this grievance. What was the effect of them? They gave the parents no additional voice in the management of the school, and where the majority of the children in a Church school were Nonconformists, the management of the school would be solely in the hands of Churchmen. The only possible escape from that was that the minor authority might appoint a Nonconformist.

The County Council also might appoint a Nonconformist.

said that was very cold comfort indeed. They had no security that it would be done. Under the proposal of the hon. Member opposite there would be five Churchmen as against one Nonconformist on the managing body. Surely that was not a real attempt to deal with the grievance. Then there was the proposal that ministers of every religion should be at liberty to go into the school and give religious teaching. That he submitted was an unreal proposal, outside the limits of practical politics. The Free Churches as a body had already declared against it, and had asserted that it would make bad worse.

It is not the whole proposal. There is the provision as to outside religious instruction.

As to outside religious instruction, the hon. Member must know that the parent can get as much as he likes.

Not in the time now set apart for religious instruction.

said the hon. Gentleman in the character of a friend of denominational schools—a rather strange character after the speech they had just listened to—had made an appeal to the Government to treat this controversy in a spirit of reason and moderation. So far as he and his colleagues were concerned, they had never had any desire from the very beginning of this educational controversy but to deal with the different questions in a spirit of reason and moderation. Every Amendment not inconsistent with the principle of the Bill, and not detrimental to the cause of education which had been supported by any large body of opinion in the House, they had been glad to accept. Whether hon. Members opposite liked or disliked this measure as a whole, he hoped they would, at all events, recognise that, subject to the limitations he had referred to, the Government had done their best to meet them. The Government were now asked by the hon. Member for East Mayo to go a step further and adopt an Amendment, which, if carried, would manifestly threaten in every case, and destroy in many cases, the denominational character of these single schools, because it would practically hand over all these denominational schools to a majority which in many cases would be undenominational. [Cries of "No, no!"] As long as four was more than half of six his argument would hold good.

pointed out that this applied only in parishes where other denominations were in a majority.

Not necessarily. Ho did not at all deny, if they were to go back to first principles, that there was a great deal to be said for allowing each locality to determine what was to be the denominational teaching in its district. But the Nonconformists would not have that. The hon. Gentleman's new friends would not look at such a scheme. They did not want that freedom of religious teaching which the hon. Member seemed to suppose, and they would not allow denominational teaching to be taught in Board Schools whatever the majority might be. Let them not appeal to that then, as a kind of bed-rock principle of eternal justice. It was not within the limits of practical politics in England. He was aware that the system had worked well enough in Scotland, where the conditions were widely different, but everybody who had discussed the question, including the Nonconformists, had come to the conclusion that this system was not adaptable to this country. Therefore they should not talk as if that was the principle of justice to be followed out, because it was not the principle which would be accepted by hon. Members on the opposite side of the House. The hon. Gentleman said that if something of the nature of his Amendment were not adopted, the voluntary schools were doomed. He had never posed as a prophet, and he did not know what the future of education was going to be. He thought, quite frankly, that there would be a change in many Church and denominational schools in consequence of this Bill. If the voluntary schools did not flourish under it, it would be the fault of the voluntary schools and those who supported them. But what he could not consent to do, and what he would never consent to do, was to take away from those schools by force majeure the denominational character which they now possessed. The hon. Gentleman looked with equanimity upon this, because he thought that the schools of the denomination to which he belonged would not suffer by it. He had seen attempts made in more than one quarter of the Opposition to try and draw a distinction between Roman Catholic schools and other denominational schools, entirely to the advantage of Roman Catholics, so that if those hon. Members had their way there would be two endowed religions in this country. He did not believe that this would be tolerated either in this House or outside of it. The hon. Member opposite might be perfectly ready to sacrifice, with a glad heart, the thirty-one single schools of the Roman Catholic denomination on the altar of the friendship of his new allies, because he knew that they were but a small proportion of the total number of Roman Catholic schools, and that it was worth while to throw them overboard in order to protect the others. But he would not protect the others, for did the hon. Gentleman seriously suppose that, if that House laid down the proposition that, consistently with maintaining the denominational character of the school, only one-third of the managers should belong to the denomination, the principle was going to stop there? Did he or the Bishop of Hereford think that a principle so affirmed by the House was going to be confined to single schools? Not at all. If that proposition were once laid down it was inevitable that it should be extended to practically every one of the denominational schools, whether they were Anglican, wesleyan, or Roman Catholic. But why on earth was the hon. Gentleman's Amendment restricted to schools not provided by the local authority? The hon. Gentleman's sense of justice apparently led him to say that, wherever there was only one school in the district, it must be undenominationalised, and that if the majority happened not to belong to the same denomination as those who had built and provided, and possibly endowed, the school, the school was to be taken away from them and given to the majority. But why was that confined to voluntary schools in single school districts? There were Board schools which were also the only schools to which a child could go. [An HON. MEMBER: There is unsectarian education there.] He perfectly understood the principle of saying that they were not to have religious teaching at all; but why was it in conformity with the eternal and sacred principles of religious liberty that they should teach religion in a manner which evaded the Cowper-Temple Clause, but inconsistent with those external principles that they should teach it in a form that contravened the Cowper - Temple Clause? Was that logic, common sense, or common justice? Whatever principle they chose to adopt in single school districts they, must apply to the board schools as well as to the voluntary schools. The hon. Gentleman said he moved his Motion in the interests of peace, as he was deeply impressed with the amount of bitterness which this struggle had most unhappily aroused in this country. So was he himself; nobody desired peace more than he did, and nobody, he thought, would say that he had used words which, consistently with the principles he held, had tended to aggravate the bitterness of feeling between the different sections. But did the hon. Gentleman and his friends sincerely suppose that if they had their way in this matter peace would be secured? In the case of schools which, from the time they were built had belonged to particular denominations, which had been built by their money—[Opposition cries of "Partly"]—which, had been endowed and managed by them, consequently and naturally managed by them, they took away by this Bill two rights which they now possessed, the whole responsibility and power over secular education. [A LIBERAL MEMBER: Which they do not care about.] He was sorry hon. Gentlemen did not care about it; after all it was not the least important portion of the education given, and secondly, they introduced into their body a third, not appointed under the original trusts, who might be, and in many cases would be, members of a different school of thought, and of a different denomination from those who built and endowed the schools. That was what the Bill did, and yet it was contended that that did not go far enough, and that the whole school must be handed over to those who did not build and endow it, and then, forsooth, a universal calm in religious matters would reign. If the proposal were carried out there would be ten times as much bitterness, there would be a storm of indignation, very natural indignation in his opinion, in all quarters of the kingdom, and the fires of controversy would be heated seven times hotter. He was not going to deal with the unfortunate threats of a rate war. He suspected that quite as many foolish people, if he might say so without disrespect, would be ready to refuse to pay rates if one solution were accepted as there would be if the other were accepted. In the nature of things there could be no arrangement satisfactory to both parties as long as the militant Nonconformists would be content with no solution which did not hand over the denominational schools to them [Cries of "No"]—in many cases to them [Cries of "No"] as long as they put forward these pretensions, which he could not help regarding as extravagant and unjust, so long was it clearly impossible that they should come to terms over this matter. He had hoped that educational interests which this Bill could do, and would do, so much to foster might have caused hon. Gentlemen for one moment to mitigate those bitternesses, but he was afraid this would not be the result. No one regretted it more deeply and bitterly than he did; but in the meanwhile he supposed they had no alternative, but according to their own lights to attempt to do justice in this matter—to attempt, if they could not reconcile every opposing; interest, to do the best they could to carry on this controversy without unnecessary bitterness. He asked whether the hon. Member for East Mayo or anybody else would hand over those schools, to a majority of managers who do not represent those who built and endowed them. [An HON. MEMBER: That endowed them.] In many cases endowed them. Did the hon. Gentleman never hear of endowments given to primary education in this country? [Cries of "Rarely," and "One in a hundred."] So long as that pretension was put forward by any section in this House, so long it seemed to him that merely as a matter of justice and equity, and he would add, merely as a matter of pursuing that course which in the end was most likely to conduce to the interest of education itself, so long would the Government resist the proposal.

said the right hon. Gentleman, in describing what the Bill proposed to do, had omitted one very important, novelty which it contained, namely the imposition on the ratepayers of the country of the duty of maintaining and paying the entire cost of the education carried on in these schools. That seemed to him one of the elements in the controversy which was too often forgotten. It was not a question exclusively between church and chapel, there was a third party to the controversy, the taxpayer and the ratepayer, and what was really the bed-rock principle of the greater part of the opposition to the Bill was that it was a vital constitutional element in our national system that wherever public money was paid, public control should, accompany it. He wished the right hon. Gentleman to understand this before he slammed the door against all compromise, which he thought would be a most lamentable event. He wished him to understand the grounds on which the Opposition and the Liberal Party throughout the-country based their hostility to the scheme. The Nonconformists had two separate grievances of their own in connection with this Bill, first in connection with religious teaching, and secondly with the exclusion of Nonconformist children, from the profession of teaching. He would not dwell now on the latter point, as to which the right hon. Gentleman had intimated his intention of meeting them, but he ventured to say that there could be no compromise on the point that public money should not be handed over without control to private management. The right hon. Gentleman said that that meant undenominationalizing the denominational schools, but that was not the proposal of what had been called militant Nonconformity. The great bulk of the Nonconformists, he was sure, recognized that they could not wipe out this part of the education question. They had arrived at a most anomalous state of things in this country, but they must deal with facts as they were. There were 3,000,000 children in voluntary schools, schools which in the main had been built out of private funds for the purpose of maintaining and teaching certain religious principles, and he felt that neither Parliament nor the country would deprive the owners and trustees of those schools without adequate compensation. What they had to deal with was the question of the management of those schools when the cost was to be provided out of the public purse. The right hon. Gentleman had said that these schools were going to be handed over, but that was not so. The owners of the schools would retain them absolutely and exclusively on Sundays, and Sunday schools played a not unimportant part in the education of this country. At present upwards of 6,000,000 children were on the registers of our Sunday schools. Nobody wanted to interfere with the Sunday schools, whether they were Church of England or Nonconformist. And in Sunday Schools religious instruction was given without either a Conscience Clause or the Cowper-Temple Clause. Then the buildings would be left in the hands of the owners for secular purposes, local business meetings, and so forth. Under Mr. Forster's scheme in 1870 one-third of the cost of the voluntary schools was to be paid by the denomination, one-third was to be paid by the parents, and the other third, out of the public purse, subject, of course, to the limitations of the Cowper-Temple Clause. But that state of things had been altered. The parents no longer paid fees, and now the hon. Gentleman came with this Bill and said that the one-third formerly paid by the denomination should be defrayed out of the local rates. He knew that the right hon. Gentleman would say that there was control by the local authority. That was in a sense true; but they were now dealing with the mode or instrumentality through which the local authority would act, and though the managers would no doubt be responsible to the local authority, they should be in touch with the people by whom the rate was paid. It was a sound principle that where they had money raised for local expenditure they must have local control to secure local efficiency and economy, and he could fancy few more extravagant modes of expenditure of public money than to dissociate it from all control by the local ratepayers. The right hon. Gentleman said that it meant undenominationalizing unless they left a majority of the denomination on the management of the school. But what did he want the management of the school for? It could not be for secular education; that was admittedly put under the control of the local authority. He defied them to divide the control and management of a school into two separate compartments and say that one belonged to religion and the other to secular matters. The body which controlled the one must inevitably control the other. As to the objection that the denominational schools would be deprived of their denominational character, he did not think that any parish would be found in all England where the majority of the parishioners would take away from a church the religious teaching which its school was built specially to promote. He knew something, at any rate, about Nonconformists, and he was satisfied that they would never attempt to deprive the school of another denomination of the religious teaching which was on the lines of that denomination. These schools were all held in trust. He would ask the Prime Minister why there should not be a school with two-thirds of the managers elected and yet bound to preserve the religious teaching of the denomination to which the school belonged. But he wished to put it to the right hon. Gentleman that this question was not now ripe for compromise. He would appeal to him to let this part of the Bill stand over, and give them time. He was satisfied, having some knowledge of the facts, that a compromise was at all events within the range of possibility, and that they could secure on the one hand the legitimate control of public money by the public authority without trenching upon the rights of the denomination to which the schools belonged. He was not going to extemporise a scheme now. It would require a great deal of consultation and consideration They must bring the public feeling of the country to bearuponit, and he thought the public feeling of the country was now getting pretty well aroused upon this subject. He thought they had heard the chapel bell rung, and it was in the interests of peace that he appealed to the right hon. Gentleman. If he would make no concession, of course he might carry his Bill through by the force of his majority, but it would have no shred of public opinion behind it. It would be a mere temporary victory of this Parliament and this session, but it would be a victory which the next Parliament would be bound to, and, he believed, would, undo. It would be the beginning of a fresh war. He therefore appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to take the Clause as it stood—that the managers should be appointed as "hereinafter provided," so that the composition of the Boards should stand over till October, and then he thought the moderate, sensible, and statesmanlike opinion of the country would insist on public men in that House coming to some reasonable settlement. He agreed that it could not be applied to one class of schools and not to all. He had seen the difficulty of making one scheme applicable to large schools, where there were efficient voluntary schools, and where there was a choice of schools, and rural villages where there was only one school. He could not quite follow his hon. friend the Member for Mayo in the suggestion he made, but he recognised that he had struck upon one of the real difficulties in this problem, and it was something that an hon. Member who was outside the controversy between the Church and the Nonconformists should make a suggestion with a view to attempting a com- promise. If the right hon. Gentleman thought that the case was to be fought out there, that would be lamentable. If the right hon. Gentleman would let this session end in comparative peace, and postpone the definition of the authorities by which these schools were to be managed until the country, the Government, and the Opposition, and the contending parties in the Churches, had had time to consider the position, he believed a peaceable and workable solution was within measurable reach. He did not think that the right hon. Gentleman was influenced by his party, or even a large minority of his party, but by a minority of extremists. He believed it was beyond the power of any man to conciliate what he called the minority of twenty-nine, but he believed that nine out of ten of the Churchmen on the other side of the House, and the laymen of the Church of England, were willing to do what was just and fair to the Non-conformists in this matter.

said he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury would listen to the weighty appeal addressed to him by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton. The hon. Member for East Mayo had revealed to the House what the real object of the Bill and of this particular Clause was. Up to the present time the representatives of the Church had argued that it was the recognised right of the parent to give to his child the religious teaching he desired. An opportunity was given by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Mayo to test the honesty of the contention. If it was simply a question of giving the child the religious teaching the parent desired, why not give to the parents the deciding voice in the election of the Board of Management? That was the compromise suggested by the hon. Member for East Mayo. He quite agreed that there would be no Cowper-Temple Clause in these particular schools. The right hon. Gentleman would see that in these cases they could not abolish the Cowper-Temple Clause, but there was no Cowper-Temple Clause to abolish. He did not say that the compromise proposed would settle the whole of the Nonconformist grievance, but it would remove the most crying part of the grievance. What was the position? The right hon. Gentleman said that if the Amendment were carried it would simply deprive the Church in those parishes of the schools they had built and endowed for the purpose of teaching their denominational doctrine. But it would not deprive the Church of a single school. The fabric of the school would still belong to them, and if they were not prepared to concede their own position that the parent had the right to decide the kind of teaching his child was to receive, the result would be that they would not place their school at their disposal and the Board of Management would have to find another fabric. His hon. friend's Amendment would not deprive them of the fabric of the school, it was simply that no Government grant should be given unless they were prepared to introduce the element of parental representation. The only basis on which the Government could support their Bill was the right of the parent to have his own doctrines taught to his child. That was not the right of the Church, for it was the right of the parent. Why should a parent not be allowed to dictate what doctrine he wished his child to be taught? There were 3,000,000 children in the denominational schools, and over 2,000,000 of those were in the 8,000 parishes with only one school. What right had the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich to speak on behalf of the parents of these million children and say,—"This is the particular doctrine these parents want to bo taught?" The noble Lord placed himself in loco parentis in regard to these children, and they were not his children. Why would he not allow the parents of these children to say—"This is the doctrine we want taught to our children? In a parish where they had a Ritualistic elergyman doctrines which the parents repudiated might be forced upon the children. How would the majority be elected? Not by the laity of the Church of England, but by the subscribers. Who were they? Just such men as the elergymen cared to pick out. Very large subscriptions would not be needed, and all the elergymen had to do was to get a half-a-dozen men to subscribe and they would be placed upon the Board of Managers. They would not be representative of the laity of the Church. This debate showed that the Prime Minister did not believe in his own case. The case of the Government was that there was a great demand in the country for the teaching of dogmas in the schools. If that was so why did they not leave it to the parents of the children who attended those schools? What right had the Prime Minister to enforce dogmatic teaching upon the people who repudiated it? The North Leeds election was an expression of the antipathy of the body of the people to the clerical control of education. The Prime Minister asked—Was it common justice to enforce Cowper-Temple teaching upon a parish? The Cowper-Temple teaching was simply that teaching which the majority of the religious men in a particular community agreed to, without I teaching the creed of any particular denomination. In one Welsh parish they had agreed upon a syllabus of religious instruction drafted by the rector of a parish, and agreed to by all the Nonconformist ministers in that parish. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman what injustice was it to Church children to give them a religious instruction in accordance with a syllabus which their own clergyman had drafted? In the Colony of Victoria the ministers of all denominations agreed upon the religious instruction to be given and the only denomination which could not agree was the Roman Catholics. All the Protestant denominations in Victoria agreed upon the religious instruction and what injustice was it to any Protestant to be taught a religious instruction which all their leading ministers agreed upon. The right hon. Gentleman said that no solution satisfactory to both parties could be conceived. Why not? There had been a solution found in every other country but England, and in every part of the British Empire but this country. The other day he instanced a number of colonies, and the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich talked in a sneering fashion about those colonies. The colonies were all right when they were backed up by the Government, but the moment they got the Colonies solving a question of this kind they were mixed up with China and Peru. Surely it was worth while for the noble Lord to postpone Clause 7, in order to study the way in which the religious difficulty had been solved in the Colonies, for there was not a singles olution in any of those Colonies which was not better than the one suggested by the Prime Minister. The right hon. Gentleman asked—"What is your plan? They had suggested a variety of plans, every one of which they could quote a precedent for. Why did the right hon. Gentleman not examine those plans? Why did he not point out why those schemes which had worked so well, and had put down religious bigotry, could not be applied in this country? He thought the right hon. Gentleman was making a great mistake. He seemed to think that this suggestion about the ministers of different denominations coming in was going to settle it. They practically said—"Our religion is to be taught at the expense of the State, but we give certain indulgences to other religions." That was not equality. The Prime Minister said that Churchmen under this Amendment would feel a natural indignation which would result probably in the refusal to pay rates. The Amendment was a proposal simply providing that the parents should say what teaching they wanted their children to receive, and if such a proposal was viewed by Churchmen with natural and justifiable indignation, what did the Prime Minister think of the indignation of 2,000,000 Nonconformist parents in this country, whose children would be taught doctrines which they repudiated, and who would be excluded from teacherships in those schools? What kind of language would the right hon. Gentleman use for indignation of that character? When he ventured to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the other day that he thought the Committee should be made cognisant of facts which affected the working of this measure, and when he suggested that the indignation of Nonconformists was so great that they would not stop short of anything honourable to break up a system which perpetrated such an injustice, he said he did not believe it. What about the natural indignation of Churchmen? Had Nonconformists no feelings or consciences which might be outraged? Let the right hon. Gentleman put himself in the position for a moment of the Nonconformist parent whose child was excluded from teacherships and promotion in those schools. It was perfectly clear from the discussions what was wanted. It was patronage that the Government were fighting for—patronage for their own sect and for their own people, clerical patronage and exclusion of Nonconformists except upon terms which would enable the Church and the clergy to proselytise them. That was the crux of the whole business. It was absurd to say that religion had anything to do with it. Religion above all other things was just and equitable, but where was the justice of a proposal of this kind? This proposal had never been placed before the country; and to utilise a majority got for another purpose, to utilise Nonconformist votes obtained for a totally different purpose, to utilise the votes of men who from motives of patriotism subordinated all their grievances—if this had not been done in the name of religion every man of honour in this House would have revolted against such a proceeding.

said that in his opinion the Amendment under consideration would be far more advantageous to the Church school than the Clause as it now stood. It would be so, because it removed or mitigated a very vast and gigantic grievance, and that grievance could not be inflicted by the Church on so large a portion of the country without weakening its authority and creating a great deal of hostility. He maintained that this grievance could be removed, and at the same time special and definite denominational teaching could be properly and fully safeguarded. He should find a difficulty in supporting this Amendment if that was not his belief. There were 8,000, or thereabouts, of these Church schools to which Nonconformist parents were compelled to send their children, and this was called a grievance. Of course it was a grievance—it was an outrage, it was a gross outrage. It was nothing less than a gross outrage and humiliation, considering the present social condition of England. Dissenters felt as strongly about their form of Christianity, about their religious views, as Church people, and the outrage of the present state of things on Dissenters was to be measured by the depths of the religious conviction which was nobly shown by the Church Party. This outrage on Dissenters was an artificial outrage, created by legislation, and it was the bounden duty of the House to mitigate, and if possible entirely remove it by legislation. What were Church-people afraid of? He was a member of the Church of England. He would safeguard its form of religious teaching absolutely in the schools; and he thought the doing of that was perfectly compatible with the acceptance of the Amendment. He would also try to make that religious teaching deeper, more serious, and more full of meaning. After all, the House could only safeguard the human element in religious teaching; and that element had been safeguarded, for one had only to talk to any criminal to find that he spoke it like a parrot, and that it influenced his life as much as a parrot's. He asked was it any advantage to pass the Bill in its present form? It would give the local authorities a grievance against the Church, and if a dispute arose it was the Church that would get the worst of it.

said if the Government ever had any doubt that this matter was to be fought out to the end, the debate which had taken place should have entirely disabused their minds. The opposition to the proposals of the Government was not inspired by a desire to undenominalize the schools. It was a compromise they sought. The spirit of compromise was abroad, as was shown in the letter of the Bishop of Hereford in The Times today, and it was because that compromise was rejected by the Government that their proposals were being so strenuously fought. He quite agreed that they had to take the educational system as they found it, and it was because of the position in which they found it that they had to make some agreement with the denominational schools that in those particular buildings the denominational teaching which this Bill was to establish should be safeguarded. But was that to carry with it also the whole management of the schools, so that the public should be in a minority for ever? The hon. Member for North Birmingham had described the system existing in the parishes with only one school as an outrage. Outrage was a, strong expression, but he had felt for years that it exactly described the present system; and the Bill was going to make matters worse, for while an increased amount of money was to be given to these denominational schools there was to be no real and effective local management. He proposed to deal with those schools which were affected by the Amendment, because they being the only schools in the parish were the schools which the children must, attend. Hon. Members opposite were being deluded by phrases in this matter. It was assumed, for instance, that, if denominational schools existed it was because parents desired them. These, schools were certainly not the choice of parents in parishes where only one school existed. The existence of such schools was due to the fact that an individual, or a group of individuals, desiring to secure a particular denominational teaching in a particular district built a school in that district; and in schools so provided a particular form of religious teaching was given, not in accordance with, but irrespective of, the wishes of the parents. It was said that as few children were withdrawn under the operation of the Conscience Clause in these schools the system could not be repugnant to the parents. But that was not by any means-a fair test, because the parents had no free choice in the matter. He believed that the vast and overwhelming body of parents desired some form of religious teaching for their children; and in these 8,000 parishes where only one school existed their choice was between denominational religious teaching and no religious teaching at all, and the fact that parents did not withdraw their children was no proof whatever that denominational religious teaching was their real selection. The original justification was that private individuals had given a considerable proportion of money to provide education, and the denominational view of the matter was that these individuals were the owners, of the school, that the building was theirs or entrusted to them, and they considered as owners of the school building they had a right to manage the school. He knew an instance in which a parish council refused to act upon the request of the vicar to appoint a representative to join with him in the management of the parish school, because they felt that in the case of a dispute their representative would have no power, that if friction arose the vicar would have power to dismiss him, and therefore they refused to send anybody because they were afraid friction might arise. Under this Bill the minority of representative managers would find themselves placed in an inferior position. An hon. Member had spoken of these feelings as "stage thunder," and declared that those who refused to pay their rates ought to go to prison. This was not a matter for light talk of that description. If anybody did go to prison, it would be the Members on the other side who would be most anxious to get them out. The First Lord did not seem to realise how natural this feeling was. He had said that he did not understand why this feeling should have now boiled up—that for many years these schools had been in the main supported out of public money, and that, as so much money had already been given to these schools, he could not understand why the fact of public money being added in the form of rates should give this excessive edge to the feeling. He (the right hon. Baronet) agreed that it was not logical to have put up with the old system so quietly, and now to express such tremendous indignation at the proposals of the Government. But the secret of it was that this feeling had been cumulative. His surprise was not that so much indignation was now shown, but that so little had been exhibited in the past. Personally, he thought the best way out of the difficulty, where there was only one school in a parish, would be to give the local authority compulsory power to purchase or erect buildings That, however, was not the Amendment before the Committee. The proposal of the hon. Member for East Mayo, though it fell far short of what he had suggested, was infinitely better than that contained in the Bill. They must not allow the trust deeds to stand in the way. Did anybody suppose if there had been a case in which trust deeds of this kind applied hot to a school but to a prison, they would have been allowed to stand in the way of public control? They would have been swept away long ago. Yet when it was a question of schools, which were a far more vital part of the life of a district, they were told that these trust deeds gave a right to monopolise public rights. That could not be. The trust deeds must be modified, or disappear altogether if need be, when they were opposed to public policy. What the Government would do by their Bill if they resisted all Amendments of this kind was to set in more distinct antagonism than ever before the Church and the public. It was true the Church was not getting exceptional treatment, but in the vast majority of these one-school parishes it was the Church of England, or somebody on her behalf, who owned and managed the schools, and that was why in this case the Church and the public would be set in opposition. Everybody who had had anything to do with rural districts, knew that this feeling had been simmering for a long time, and only the fear of a rate had prevented it coming to a head. That was not a very laudable motive, and he had always regretted that there was not public spirit enough to set that somewhat mean and sordid consideration on one side. But the Government were now setting it on one side, and the feeling was bound to come to a head. In each of these villages two-thirds of the visible authority, as far as concerned the school to which every child in the parish was compelled to go, would be in the hands of non-representative men. As the school in the vast majority of cases would be a Church school, that fact was sure to bring the Church into conflict with public opinion. He agreed with the hon. Member for East Mayo that if the antagonism was allowed to exist, the result was bound to be that public rights would carry the day, and the denominational system of control ultimately disappear.

felt compelled to offer an uncompromising opposition to the Amendment. He had been somewhat surprised at certain statements in the course of the debate. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolver-hampton had spoken of the novelty of the question, and the great desirability of having time to think over the matter in order that some compromise acceptable to both sides might be arrived at. Probably the right hon. Gentleman, in his exalted position on the Front Opposition Bench, was not aware that Members of the House on both sides had long been trying to come to some conclusion which should be satisfactory to all parties. His own Parliamentary life had not been a long one, but during the greater part of it communications had been passing between Members on both sides who were honestly desirous of coming to a satisfactory conclusion, but so far as his experience went it seemed that the only conclusion satisfactory to hon. Members opposite would be one practically giving them an absolute majority on the Board of Managers. ["No."] It might very well be that there was no present or conscious wish to undenominationalize the schools, but there would always be the power to do so. In the event of differences of opinion arising as to the appointment of teachers, or any other matter, the majority on the Board would be able to exercise the power conferred by Clause 23 of the Act of 1870, and the denominational character of the school would be gone. The Opposition would not be content except with public control in that full sense, by which the entire management of the school was put into their hands, and that was a concession which, in the interests of the denominational character of the school, he, for one, was not prepared to make. The hon. Member for East Mayo had put before the Committee very forcibly the great danger to the denominational schools generally if some concession were not made. But the hon. Member apparently desired to make the best of both worlds. The concessions were all to be made by a denomination to which he did not belong, Roman Catholic schools were principally in the large towns, and would therefore be unaffected by the concession. Why should concessions be made by only one denomination? The Church of England years ago made a large concession when it accepted the Cowper-Temple Clause. That clause had one great merit; it put out of question the power of local authorities to discuss what denominational teaching, if any, should be given in the schools under their control. But when one considered the persons and the denominations subject to the Cowper-Temple Clause one would see that it imposed a kind of religious tyranny. There was no power to give any teaching satisfactory to denominations who desired something more than teaching without formularies. It was idle to say that that ought to satisfy everybody, because as a matter of fact, it did not. That being so, why should not all denominations be met on the lines suggested by the Prime Minister last week, viz, that all alike should have access to the schools? That was said to be impracticable. What then was the ultimate solution of the difficulty? For his own part, he would be very sorry to see religion divorced from education. If, however, State and public control were confined to the secular side, and all denominations had access to the schools, everybody would be able to obtain the religious teaching he desired. But that was not acceptable to hon. Members on the other side; they cared not for the religious teaching of their children. ["Oh, oh."] At any rate, they did not care for the religious teaching of the children of any denomination other than those who were satisfied with the Cowper-Temple Clause. That was where the religious tyranny came in. They said — "You shall have 'Cowper-Temple' religion and no other." The supporters of the Bill simply asked that the children of their denomination should have the religious teaching of that denomination, and that, he thought, was not an unreasonable demand. Then there was the demand for greater public control. For what reason was public control demanded? Was it merely to secure that the education should be worth the money expended upon it? The denomination principally affected had provided schools, and in time past had competently managed them. They were now to hand over these schools, with the entire control of secular education, to the local authority, and in return they asked that on the Board of Managers they should have power to secure that the character of the religious education was satisfactory. Were the conditions offered by the Government not satisfactory as regarded secular instruction? When the local authority had this entire control, and had the money in its hands, and when its representatives on the Board could see that proper secular instruction was given, could there be any ground for saying that more was wanted? He could not help thinking that the demand for a larger measure of representation on the board of management was not in order to secure adequate secular instruction, but to control the appointment of teachers, and affect the denominational character of the school. That really was the sole ground upon which he desired to oppose this Amendment. If there was an honest desire not to undenomination-alise the schools, let them take every precaution they pleased for secular instruction, but at any rate, leave the management of this school in such a condition that its denominational character will not be interfered with. If this or any other Amendment on the Paper were adopted which would shift the balance of representation, no one could doubt, and few would deny, that the denominational character of the school would be in danger, and it was on that ground that on this side of the House they must hold to the terms put forward by the Government.

hoped the First Lord of the Treasury understood that they were not irreconcilable, nor did they despair of some arrangement being come to by which both sides of the House would be fairly satisfied before this Bill passed into law. He took it that one great desire was that educational efficiency first of all should be secured, whatever else might go to the wall. It was because he believed that greater educational efficiency would be secured by the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for East Mayo that he trusted it would be carried or, at least, that the right hon. Gentleman would make some concession. The majority might give the tone and character to the education of the school. No one desired that in taking over denominational schools the denominational teaching now carried on in those schools should be sacrificed, for that was the actual purpose for which they were built. They desired that denominational teaching should be maintained under conditions which would not interfere with the efficient secular training. He asked the right hon. Gentleman how it was possible to secure the most efficient secular instruction in any of those denominational schools, large or small, if they appointed a majority of the managers who, in future, would hold a far more important position than they had hitherto held in regard to both board schools and voluntary schools. [Cries of "No, no!] He would remind hon. Members that these were the trust managers who would be appointed by the body to which the denominational school belonged, and they were to form two-thirds of the managing body. They would, therefore, control both religious and secular education.

The local educational authority will control.

said the right hon. Gentleman thought the local authority would control the education, but that was an absolute impossibility, because they were going to displace some 2,000 School Boards, each elected definitely for conducting education in board school areas, and these capable men were being displaced simply by instituting one great central Board, consisting probably of fifteen or twenty members. It was impossible for the influence of the Board to permeate every part of the country hitherto managed by those 2,000 School Boards. The right hon. Gentleman proposed to institute managers and no doubt he thought these powers would enable them to carry out the duties at present performed by the School Boards. With denominational schools it was impossible for the managers to exercise the same enlightened control of secular education in the same sense and degree in which the School Boards did. How would the managers be appointed? They would be appointed by the denomination, and no ratepayers would know anything about them until they were appointed. The claim of the right hon. Gentleman was that he desired to safeguard denominational instruction in the schools taken over by the Government or by the local authority in the future. Why could the right hon. Gentleman not come to a decision upon this point which would reconcile his two contentions? The First Lord of the Treasury had contended that there must be more efficient education than they had had before, on the one hand, and on the other hand he said they were pledged to take over denominational schools in which some 3,000,000 children were being educated and for whom they could not afford the necessary capital for erecting new schools. He admitted that they had no right to debar the owners of voluntary schools from teaching their exclusive doctrines, within prescribed limits, provided secular instruction was not thereby interfered with. But secular instruction must be interfered with if the managers were to be nominated only by a denomination. What could be simpler than to adopt the plan of satisfying both sides? Secular instruction, provided for by public money, must be under the public authority. If they did not place them under public authority they violated every principle upon which the freedom of this country had been built. He thought that position was both logical and just. Only a body of managers appointed in the public interest could satisfy public justice, and they were entitled to claim that efficient education should be continued in those schools upon the same lines and of the same quality as that which had hitherto been given in the board schools. He wished the Committee to understand that the management Committee after all, under the ordinary condition of things, would exercise pretty much the same rights as School Boards. The paramount authority could not possibly know what was going on throughout the length and breadth of the connty. He believed many hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House would concede that while on the one hand they were bound to give popular control of the education in these schools when the public found the money for them, on the other hand, since they did not build the denominational schools but took them over from the Church to which they belonged and paid no rent, they were bound to allow that Church to teach the dogma which was taught before. Was it not the simplest thing in the world to satisfy the reasonable aspirations of both sides and secure efficient education by adopting a compromise of the kind indicated by the Bishop of Hereford? It was not for the Committee to discuss now the form in which it should be done. Was there any difficulty in securing denominational teaching in the denominational schools which were taken over in such a manner as would not violate the principles of the parents of the children, whether Nonconformists or otherwise, provided that the secular instruction was conducted at a time when all would get the benefit? He believed a plan could be devised by which that could be done while at the same time satisfying the national claim that where public money was spent in maintaining an institution, that institution must be chiefly controlled by persons responsible to the ratepayers.

Who will appoint the teachers?

said the teachers must come under the control of the managers of the schools who would appoint or dismiss them. The suggestion of the Bishop of Hereford was, that two-thirds of the managers should represent popular control. He believed that a plan could be devised which, while doing ample justice to the owners of denominational schools with regard to-religious teaching would also preserve the constitutional principle, which they held to be sacred, that taxation and representation should go together.

said the Committee had been invited from both sides to try to come to some fair compromise. No one was more anxious than himself to settle this question on fair lines, and there were hon. Members opposite who knew that he had done his best to get rid of this religious difficulty, so that the Bill might deal solely with the schools from the educational standpoint of making them as efficient as possible. But the difficulty they were met with was this. Whenever a proposal, however just and fair, was put forward on this side of the House, it was rejected by the other side, or, if accepted, it was merely made a vantage ground to demand other things which could not possibly be granted while safeguarding the principle of the Bill. He fully admitted the undoubted grievance which existed in places where there was only one school. But he would not dwell on it too much, for two reasons. In the first place, it was originally due to the fact that the Church of England had built schools in nearly every place, while the other denominations had not done so. He was aware of their poverty and of the efforts many of them had made. The other reason why he did not dwell upon it was that this grievance, undoubted as it was in theory, did not exist in practice to half the extent that people would think judging from the speeches of hon. Members opposite. There was a great deal about it in the House, but he had been a member of a board of managers for some years and he had never come across that feeling. He had never found that the children of Nonconformists were taught things contrary to the views of their parents. He had never found the slightest difficulty in working the school which was a Church of England school, and therefore denominational. In conjunction with the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich he had put an Amendment on the Paper which he thought met the grievance. It gave facilities in the school for the teaching of every kind of religion by trained teachers; and, secondly, it allowed, in cases where it might be impossible to do so in the school, that such facilities might be provided outside. In other words, the children might be withdrawn from the school during the hour set apart for religious instruction in order to obtain religious instruction, of a separate kind outside. This proposal was almost scoffed at by the hon. Member for East Mayo.

No.

At all events, he called it no concession, and there was a meeting the other day of a body called the Educational Union, which is composed largely of men who are opposing this Bill, and they rejected this particular proposal. He felt sure that the majority of Churchmen were anxious to meet the Nonconformists on this matter, but they did feel that every effort they made was simply thrown away, because when it came before the House it was rejected without being considered at all.

The Educational Union is an educational and not a Nonconformist body.

said he was judging only from the attitude of those who were present at the meeting. They were gentlemen who had figured prominently in these debates and in the country in opposing the Bill. At all events there was evidence that the proposal contained in his Amendment, which was a fair proposal, meeting the whole difficulty from the point of view of the parents, had not had a good reception so far, and they were asked by the hon. Member for East Mayo to do something totally different. He was anxious for a fair compromise, but the reason why they could not accept the proposal of the hon. Member for East Mayo, was that it would really give away the whole case of the-voluntary schools. It meant that only a third of the managers would consist of members of the denomination which had founded the school. Had the hon. Member considered the case of Wales? He knew a good deal about Wales, and he was sure that in most cases the one-third who represented the parents would be Nonconformists, the one-third who represented the education authority would also be Nonconformists, and only one - third would be Churchmen. What he felt was that if the Amendment were accepted, not only would the voluntary schools be undenominationalized, but that they might actually set up the teaching of a denominational religion other than that for which the school was founded to teach. Was that a position which the people who founded these schools could possibly accept? They were told that a plan might be devised to give a larger part of the control to popularly chosen bodies, and yet reserve the control of the religious character of the religious teaching to the denomination interested. But they could only give a religious character to the teaching if they knew the religion of the teacher, and what guarantee would they have that the teacher would belong to the denomination to which the school belonged? It was perfectly clear that the only way to guarantee the religious teaching in the schools was to take steps to guarantee the religious character of the teacher. He could not accept the Amendment, which would have the result of making it possible to undenominationalize every school which came under this measure. The hon. Member opposite drew a distinction between the single schools and other schools. He should like to ask how they could have one system in regard to single schools, and another system in regard to schools which were in absolutely similar circumstances, although there happened to be other schools in the neighbourhood. If the Amendment were carried it would mean the closing of the voluntary schools. The hon. Member for Carnarvon said that the fabric of the school would remain the property of the founders. Of course, the structure of the school would not be taken away, but it could not be used for its present purposes, and the only result of the Amendment would be to destroy the denominational schools in 8,000 parishes. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton once again raised the cry that public aid must involve public, control. That was an excellent sentiment, to which he entirely subscribed. But the public aid would come from the county ratepayers and the borough ratepayers, and the county and borough ratepayers would have full control, because the managers would be subordinate to the local education authority which represented them. Even in the appointment of the teachers the local authority had a veto on educational grounds. If the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton would only read Clause 8 he would see it laid down in black and white that the controlling authority was the local education authority and not the managers. In fact the managers were told that they must carry out the directions of the local authority so far as secular education was concerned. This question of popular aid involving popular control was a redherring drawn across the track. He and those who agreed to him wished to settle this religious question as far as possible, but they found that a large proportion of the people of the country demanded and desired to have for their children a denominational education. Let them try to make all these schools abolutely efficient from a secular standpoint and at the same time to keep their denominational character, and they could only do so by leaving to the trust managers the controlling voice in the appointment of the teachers.

said he had been surprised at the opposition with which this Amendment had been met, and equally surprised at the support it had received in some quarters. He wished to put it to the Prime Minister that they were desirous of maintaining the voluntary system, and that the right hon. Gentleman was doing something to destroy it, and the right hon. Gentleman should give them credit for their intentions. He had listened with some amazement to the speech of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. He did not, in the least, question the absolute sincerity of the hon. Gentleman, but he was entirely unable to reconcile his intention with his argument. The hon. Gentleman began by admitting the grievance of the Nonconformists and then went on to attenuate it. There was nobody in the House who did not admit that there was a grievance which affected the religious consciences of one half of the nation, and yet the Government folded their hands and gave the bland reply that there was no remedy for it.

Not more for the Board schools than for the voluntary schools.

Yes, but did anybody believe that there was any resemblance between the grievance in the case of the 8,000 parishes, in nearly every one of which there was a church school, and the places where there was a Board school? Everybody knew that in the case of the single schools the grievance could be easily remedied. Was it fair to make a distinction between these 8,000 single-school districts and the other districts? He was surprised that so clear-minded a man as the hon. Member for Oxford University should have used the argument he did. The Irish Catholic Members were perfectly consistent in supporting the Amendment. The hon. Gentleman opposite said he was in favour of a compromise; but a compromise was something in which a surrender was made on either side. But the hon. Gentleman wanted the whole management to be placed in the hands of the Church managers; and he drew a picture of the result of the carrying of the Amendment which would, he said, threaten the existence of 8,000 voluntary schools. The proposal was that there was to be a permanent authority pledged to the schools, and in addition, six members belonging to the Church Party. If the public authority consisted of a majority of churchmen, it was quite possible that they would elect two churchmen, so that, under the Amendment, all the seats would be held by the Church Party. That ought to be a sufficient safeguard for obtaining a denominational educational character in the schools. He could not imagine anything more intolerable than that the children of Nonconformists should be compelled to attend schools, where was taught a religion in which the parents of those children did not believe. They were told that this was a system by which they were to defer to the majority. He utterly denied that. He could not think that a majority would assent to the imposition on any minority, however small, of a tax which would involve taxation essentially unjust.

said the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Mayo was presumably intended to remove a grievance, but it seemed to him that there was no connection between the grievance and the method by which the hon. Gentleman endeavoured to remove it. The grievance alleged was that the members of the denominations to which the schools were not attached, were injured in their consciences by their children having to attend the schools. The suggestion of the hon. Member for East Mayo was that this grievance could be got rid of, by allowing the managing body of the schools to be composed of persons partly elected by the parents, and partly by the local authority, but that would not remove the grievance. All that it would do would be to substitute a worse grievance than that which it was sought to remove. A great deal had been said which he had been unable to connect with the Amendment, and it was difficult to believe that the grievance had any tangible existence. In his opinion, the House should be very careful that, in attempting to remove one grievance, they did not substitute one for it.

said the practical grievance which the Amendment proposed to remedy was, that in the 8,000 parishes in which there was only one school under clerical management, the children of Nonconformist parents, compelled by law to go to such school, were obliged either to sacrifice all religious instruction or to take such religious instruction as the clerical manager approved. But this was not solely a Nonconformist grievance. It was a grievance from which members of the Church of England also often suffered. That grievance was aggravated by the Bill, which proposed to place the whole expense of the school as a charge upon rates, because it would remove one of the safeguards against managerial abuse—namely, the necessity of the manager to go to the people, many of them Nonconformists, for subscriptions for the school. In future all the manager would have to do was to make his demand on the local authority for the money needed for the school. Again, in many of the rural parishes where there was only one school, the protection of the conscience clause was utterly inadequate.

No.

That has never been denied.

I deny it absolutely.

said the denial had often been refuted. He did not say that the grievance prevailed in the bulk of the rural parishes; but many instances had been given that it was a real practical grievance. Another grievance was that the school in those parishes, was, in ecclesiastical language, the peculiar of the clergyman. It was not, as it ought to be, the school of the people. How did the right hon. Gentleman propose to meet this case? He had held out no hope for those 8,000 parishes. The only answer given to the grievance was that if the management of those schools were properly elected, the denominational instruction which those schools were founded to afford would be endangered. The question of the representation of the different interests on the managing body would arise on subsequent Amendments, and therefore he need not discuss it now.

said that if the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Mayo, now before the Committee, were rejected, the consequential Amendment, dealing with the proportions of the representation on the managing body, would be cut out.

said the words of the Amendment were "except in cases where only one school exists within the area of a minor local authority." That was an Amendment upon which they were entitled to divide, and what they desired to know was whether they would be allowed to distinguish between the schools of the areas. He submitted that having raised and established a case, it was open to any one to discuss it.

said he did not think that was so. It was, of course, open to hon. Members to amend the Amendment.

suggested that cases frequently arose where the difficulty was got rid of by inserting such words as "as hereinafter provided."

said he thought much trouble had arisen from the fact that the Committee were discussing the first part of an Amendment not on the Paper because it was not handed in till after two o'clock. He was finally understood to rule that the negativing of the present Amendment would preclude the consideration of its corollary, but would not exclude amendments modifying the proposals as to management in other respects.

said he gathered that it would be in order to discuss what the rights of the managers of denominational schools were, and that being so he would confine his remarks, for the present, to the question of exceptional treatment. No argument, he said, had been addressed to the Committee in support of the contention of the First Lord of the Treasury that denominational instruction in these schools would be endangered by the acceptance of popular control. There had been no comment from the Ministerial side on the proposal of the Bishop of Hereford—a proposal made in the interests of peace and opening up, as he believed, a way of peace. It provided for safeguarding denominational instruction by putting it under statutory protection. Surely those who were concerned for the maintenance of denominational instruction might have given their opinion as to how far they could accept that compromise. When he expressed the opinion in a previous debate that statutory safeguards for denominational instruction could be devised, the First Lord made no reply, but simply expressed the opinion that it was an absurd proposal. It was not right to ignore the fact that this Amendment was proposed and recommended to the Committee, by the hon. member for East Mayo, in the interests of denominational schools. It would be easy to empower or require the local authority or the Board of Education to see that nothing was done by the managers which would interfere in any way with denominational instruction. The Cowper Temple clause, vague and flexible as it was in language, worked well in practice because, based on the protection of statute and the authority of the Board of Education, questions had arisen and had been decided by the Board of Education, the decisions always being acquiesced in, and there had been no difficulty with regard to it, although it was more susceptible to different interpretations and more likely to cause interminable trouble than the proposal now made. To direct that religious education should follow the doctrine of the Church of England as given in the Prayer Book, where desired by the people interested—which he understood to be the proposal of the Bishop of Hereford—would be far simpler than the enforcement of the Cowper-Temple Clause, and he could not understand why that proposal, which appeared to offer complete security for the denominational instruction so much valued on the other side of the House, should be dismissed so unceremoniously. The wishes and intentions of the Opposition in this matter had been greatly misunderstood. In supporting this Amendment they had no desire to interfere with the denominational teaching given in these schools. That question was not raised by this Clause, and there would be subsequent opportunities for expressing their opinion as to the value of denominational teaching. What they desired was popular control of the schools. All these difficulties would, they believed, disappear under the Cowper-Temple Clause. The Vice President had said there was no religious difficulty where things were left to themselves. That was true. There was no religious difficulty where things were placed under popular control, where things were done publicly and in such a way that any grievance could be heard and redressed. The First Lord had adverted to the case of his own country where he admitted things went well. But the right hon. Gentleman did not propose the Scottish system.

I said that very hon. Member on that side of the House would refuse to have it.

asked the right hon. Gentleman to try them. Without pretending to speak positively, he thought that on that side they would welcome the system with universal School Boards.

said every hon. Member on the other side would refuse the Scottish system.

said it had not been offered.

said when he spoke of the Scottish system, he alluded to the power every Scottish educational authority had to have denominational education. ["Every School Board."] His opinion was that that part of the Scottish system giving the educational authority that power had never received the smallest favour opposite.

asked whether the right hon. Gentleman thought that the Scottish people would have the part he asked if they did not have the part they liked.

said he referred to one part of the Scottish system. Surely he could do so. He did not understand these strange limitations in debate. He referred to one part of the system. He was not aware that the Scottish people were particularly wedded to their form of popular control over education. No doubt they would like to have more control than they had.

asked whether the right hon. Gentleman believed that Scottish opinion would acquiesce in a system which permitted the giving of religious teaching everywhere at the public expense, unless under the control of a popularly elected body?

said Scottish opinion certainly would not accept that any more than they would accept the limitation imposed on English School Boards refusing to allow denominational teaching.

said his opinion differed from that of the right hon. Gentleman on that point, but it was not at present at issue. Would the right hon. Gentleman, if it were desired, give both parts of the Scottish system?

Of course, the one with the other.

said he would leave the subject, satisfied with the result of the catechism. Why was the Scottish system successful? Why had it worked peacefully? Why were the Scottish people content with it, although it might not attain to the theoretical perfection that some desired? Because it was based on the control of the people, and all was done in the light of day. That was what the Opposition asked for in the present case; and he believed that denominational instruction could be absolutely preserved under the scheme of the Bishop of Hereford. The Committee seemed disposed to underrate the immense preponderance of weight which, in any case, the Church of England would have in all these rural districts. In such parishes, nearly all the people of weight, importance, and influence, belonged to the Church of England. His impression was that if a majority was appointed by the County Council and the local people, nearly all of them would be members of the Church of England, because that Church had all the social forces at her command. But even with that, he was confident that, under the sense of justice of the English laity, the denominational teaching would be safe. Then, according to the First Lord, the majority of the parents were members of the Church of England, and were hungering and thirsting for dogmatic instruction. For that reason they were to have this method of management. If that was the case, why not trust the locality and the parents? But lot the Committee imagine a case in which Church of England parents were in a minority, and the bulk of the children were Dissenters who did not want Church of England instruction. Would it be said that, in such a case, the school was, nevertheless, to be controlled entirely in the interests of the Church of England by a majority of clerical managers? Surely to state the proposition in that way was to condemn it. All would agree with the right hon. Gentleman in his belief that the Bill would introduce a change, but whether the change would be in the direction anticipated by the First Lord was doubtful. There would certainly be a change In the direction of the creation of more irritation, strife, and conflict in every part of the country, and he believed it was because the hon. Member for East Mayo feared it might ultimately prejudice the denominational schools, that he had brought forward this Amendment. He would never speak of this as a question between members of the Church of England, and Dissenters. It was a question between the advocates of popular control and the upholders of one-man management. If the right hon. Gentleman, wished to know the opinions of members of the Church of England, he should study the results of recent elections. It was not the Nonconformists alone who had made the difference. If he even then doubted, he might wait until he had ascertained the views of his own supporters who belonged to the Church of England. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman spoke in all sincerity when he said he was bound to carry out the wishes of those who returned him to power. But at the general election of 1900 the question of clerical control was not uppermost in the minds of the electors, If the right hon. Gentleman really believed that the great bulk of the Conservative Party—not the small group, respectable and influential, no doubt, but not representative of the Church of England, who had obtained possession of the ear of the right hon. Gentleman—were in, favour of the course he was pursuing, let him wait a couple of months and take what method he pleased to ascertain the general sentiments of the Party and of the Church of England. The County Councils of Essex and Cheshire wanted popular control; the County Councils Association wanted popular control; but in addition to these he might appeal to a large number of moderate and rational members of the Church of England—temperate men, who had been managers of schools and had never abused their position, and who declared they had no fear of popular management. The clergyman was deservedly powerful in his parish; he was frequently the only cultivated and highly educated resident; in the majority of cases he had shown zeal and interest in the cause of education; and he would always have his place on the Board of Managers, and in the conduct of education in the parish. Why could not the Government trust to these natural forces, and allow that principle, which was recognised everywhere else in our Government, to be recognised here, viz., that the people should have the control of their schools?

thought it was only respectful that a reply should be made to the speeches which had been delivered since he addressed the Committee three hours ago. In the first place, as to the magnitude of the proposition. As a mere formula, there was no particular objection to the number of 8,000 schools, though it was worth while pointing out that it was absolutely inaccurate. There were 8,000 parishes, it appeared, in which there was only one public elementary school, but a great many of those parishes had schools quite within the reach of a certain number of the parishioners elsewhere. In the next place, there were not 8,000 but 7,470, or they might call it, in round numbers, 7,500. Of those about 5,600 were National schools, which, he supposed, might be taken to represent Church of England schools: -448 were voluntary schools which were not denominational; 62 were British schools, 37 Wesleyan, and 35 Roman Catholic; and there were 1,326 Board schools. He wanted to know why, if they were to have exceptional treatment for the Church of England schools, they were not going to have similar exceptional treatment of the Board schools? [Opposition cheers.] The hon. Gentleman opposite, who was a Scotchman like himself, cheered that, but he assured him that it would not be acceptable to hon. Gentlemen who sat in his part of the House. He did not believe it would be found that they wished to abolish the Cowper-Temple clause in Board schools—certainly not in the 1,300 who served single school districts; and he repeated, only with more emphasis, what he said three hours ago, that it was grossly unfair to apply any provision of this kind simply to denominational schools. It ought to be an all-round arrangement, if made at all, and it ought to be left absolutely open to the local authority, irrespective of the Cowper-Temple Clause, or anything else, to have what denominational teaching they liked in the 1,300 board schools, which were in a similar position to the 5,000 national schools of which so much had been said this afternoon. Let him take up the challenge thrown out with extraordinary courage, he thought, by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who said—

"I have more than once, and the Bishop of Hereford in a letter to The Times, and other eminent persons have, thrown out the suggestion that it would be adequate, protection for the denominational character of denominational schools, if, instead of giving them a majority on the Board of management, you were to say in your Act of Parliament that denominational religion was to be taught there."

And, apparently, that question was to be settled by an appeal to the Board of Education. The right hon. Gentleman complained that he had called his scheme absurd. He did not know whether he had used that uncomplimentary epithet before, but, on thinking it over, he did think it extraordinarily absurd. He did not think he had ever used that epithet before when it was more extraordinarily appropriate. It seemed to be one of the most absurd schemes he had ever heard. In the first place, what would it do to deal with the grievance? The grievance was that Nonconformist children have got to go to a Church school, and they got over that grievance by making that Church school teach denominational religion by statute! A more amazing method of meeting the grievance, he could not conceive. But that did not nearly exhaust the absurdities, as be thought, of the proposition. Who was to determine whether the religion was denominational? It appeared to be the Board of Education. It was one thing to say, as the Board of Education might have to do with regard to the Gowper-Temple Clause, such and such a thing might not be taught because it was in contravention of the Cowper-Temple Clause—and even that result seemed to him to be rather open to theological criticism. He believed the Board had said that it was not a contravention of the Cowper-Temple Clause to ask "Who is your godfather and godmother?" and that it was not a contravention of the Cowper-Temple Clause, to make the teaching of the Apostle's Creed part of the religious instruction of the schools.

Always subject to the conscience clause. Public control is needed to secure the due application of the conscience clause.

That was not at all what the right hon. Gentleman said, though it might be what he meant. But it was irrelevant. He was explaining to the Committee that it was all very well to give power to the Board of Education to say that something should not be taught because it was contrary to the Cowper-Temple Clause, but even then the result seemed to be rather a theological difficulty. Just let them imagine what it would be if they were to leave the Board of Education to decide, with regard to every denominational school, what kind of religious teaching was to be given, so as to make it truly denominational. The thing was exquisitely grotesque.

The right hon. Gentleman has entirely misrepresented me, and also what the Bishop of Hereford suggested.

I am only concerned with the right hon. Gentleman, to whose speech, to the best of my ability, I am replying. I shall be very glad to be corrected, but I understood him distinctly to lay down that the denominational character of these schools could be preserved to whatever religion the managers might belong.

Nothing of the kind.

That is what I understood you to say.

I said that denominational instruction could be safeguarded by putting it under statutory protection, not the protection of managers.

assured the right hon. Gentleman that he was only anxious to get at his point. Let him make it clear. He understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that they could perfectly safely give popular control, although popular control might produce a majority of Nonconformists on the Board of management, if only they put into their Act provisions which required that in that school denominational teaching characteristic of the persons who built the school, and to whom it belonged, should be given. And the Board of Education were actually to say—

"You are teaching the first few sentences of the Catechism; that makes denominational teaching, of which the Church of England can have nothing to complain."

Was that to be allowed, or were they to teach the Thirty-nine Articles? How could they ask the Board of Education to lay down what was the proper positive denominational teaching characteristic, not merely of the Church of England, but of the Wesleyans and the Roman Catholics? The scheme was so extraordinarily extravagant that he could hardly understand it to be seriously proposed. Imagine the position of a Board of Baptists, who were bound by statute to see that in a school which they managed the true orthodox doctrines of the Roman Catholic religion were taught, with an appeal to that great theological authority—the Board of Education. He did not know whether that was the plan of the Bishop of Hereford, but—perhaps he had better not go further. The right hon. Gentleman said, at the end of his speech, that what the House and the country wanted, what everybody but a small and obscurantist minority in this House wanted, was publicity in the first place, and popular control in the second place. As regarded popular control, the County Council Education Authority had absolute control over these schools, so far as secular education was concerned. They were masters, and they could make their mastership felt; and, therefore, it was really absurd to say that the control was given up to a small local body. Then, again, under this Bill everything would be done in public. He would not raise the question of taxation and control. He thought it was the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Berwick who said that it was contrary to our constitutional principles that taxation and representation should not go together. How did the right hon. Gentleman want taxation and representation to go together? He wanted the County Council to raise the money and the parish to spend it. That was not what was meant by taxation and representation going together. It was directly contrary to that venerable maxim. What the Government had done was consistent with that venerable maxim. Those who raised the money, spent the money. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] Those who raised the money directed how it should be spent, and saw that it was spent in the manner they desired. That was the proper method of associating representation and taxation, whereas this local management with the wider area of taxation which was proposed, was really inconsistent with those principles. He knew the evils of the present system. It was said that the reason why the Scotch loved their educational system was that everything was done in public. Well, under this Bill, everything would be done in public. There might be one-man management now in an objectionable form. If that were so, and in so far as it was so, it was absolutely put an end to by this Bill. Nothing henceforth could be done in secret, nothing could be done except in the full light of day and in the blaze of publicity. Might he say that, as regarded this Nonconformist grievance, great injustice had been done to Clause 9 of the Bill? It would be improper for him to discuss that Clause now, or to do more than allude to what the right hon. Baronet opposite said with regard to it. The right hon. Baronet said that Clause 9 might afford a partial remedy for the Nonconformist wrongs, but it would do so at the cost of education. It would not do so in the extreme case of which they had heard so much, in the case where the Church minority formed an insignificant fraction of the population, and where the great mass was Nonconformist. It was not only a great alleviation in every case, but a complete remedy in this extreme case. He did not think that justice had been done by the right hon. Baronet, or by the House at large, to the alleviation given to the Nonconformist grievance by that Clause. He had stated his objection to the plan, which would have the effect of depriving denominationalists practically of the use of schools which they had built and endowed. He asked the Committee to consider the result of such a remedy as this on the local politics of every district in the country. Wherever there was a nearly balanced population between Church and Nonconformist, or Church and Roman Catholic, there would be a fight under the plan of the hon. Member as to who was to get a majority on the Board. The people who had the majority would capture the schools. [Opposition cries of "No."] They would appoint the teachers; they would settle the denominational religious teaching of the schools, and would transfer the schools to the local authority; they could destroy them for all time as denominational schools. Now, this meant that it would be worth while in every parish where there was anything like a balance between parties to have an active political canvas and a keen fight in every case, in order to get this majority of the Board, which would have the effect of transferring the school from the denomination owning it to another body. He could not imagine anything more unjust to the denomination, or more unjust to local peace and harmony and the easy working of the social institutions of the country. It appeared to him that it would be an intolerable burden. It would turn every Churchman and Nonconformist minister who took a keen interest in education into perpetual canvassers and political agitators. The clergyman would be fighting to retain his school; the Nonconformist minister would be fighting to grasp it from him; and there would be a state of continual unrest. He would rather see a clean-cut plan of spoliation by which every denomination was to be deprived, by a stroke of the legislative pen, of schools which, often at so much personal sacrifice, they had built, endowed, and conducted.

said he would ask whether, after all had been said and done in this matter, the right hon. Gentleman was not aware that the Bill would produce exactly the results which he had just deprecated. Would it bring peace into the locality? If the right hon. Gentleman did not know that on Monday afternoon, he must know it now. That the Leader of the House, the author of this Bill, should get up and denounce the Opposition, and say that he preferred spoliation to the conflicts that would arise from the adoption of the Amendment, was the most astounding thing he had ever heard in this House. The right hon. Gentleman had brought in a Bill which was worse than any spoliation, because the conflict that would be raised would be worse than anything which the Amendment could possibly produce. He did not wish to speak at any length, but he wanted the House to measure what was the exact position of the Government at this moment with reference to the Bill. It was the interest of the right hon. Gentleman to deprecate the prolongation of the debate; but he said with all respect that the House did not reflect the opinion of the country on this question. There were many hon. Members opposite who knew that just as well as he did; and the time would come when the right hon. Gentleman would also learn that. A proposal had been made by the right hon. Member for East Wolverhampton, to the effect that the Government, in the interest of peace, would do well to grant an armistice in order that they might learn the real opinion of the country on this subject. He ventured to say that whatever party discipline might effect, there was no hon. Member who would deny that if there was a dissolution tomorrow this Bill could not pass. That was not the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman. His principle was unconditional surrender. Well, the right hon. Gentleman would not get unconditional surrender. Let him be assured of that. What was asked was that the Government should offer some reasonable arrangement with reference to a grievance which he did not deny existed, but the right hon. Gentleman had made no such proposal. The hon. Member for East Mayo had suggested an arrangement; and although the right hon. Gentleman was the author of the Bill, he would venture to say with great respect that the right hon. Gentleman was not the master of the measure. The masters of the Bill sat behind him. As soon as this proposal was made for time to consider this critical question, up rose the Member for Oxford University saying that he would listen to no terms; there was unconditional refusal on his part of all compromise. It was the clerical party who were the masters of this Bill and really the en mies of all settlement; but he believed that there was a majority of hon. Members opposite who would gladly see some accommodation arrived at on the subject. The Amendment asserted that there was a class of schools in which a special grievance existed, and that there ought to be exceptional provision made for them. This was the point upon which the Committee was going to divide, and he should like to know who the hon. Members were who were going to vote against the proposal that there should be a provision of some kind to remove a grievance, admitted by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and even by the hon. Member for Oxford University. The Government could not disregard the opinion of an important portion of the country, such as that which declared itself at Leeds the previous day. It was perfectly obvious, that there were many hundreds of voters who, at the last election, gave their support to the Government, but who had now withdrawn that support. In his opinion, the reason was that they condemned the Bill, and, in condemning the Bill, they condemned its author, he believed that this was a more accurate representation of the opinion of the country with reference to these proposals than any which was represented on the Bench opposite. Why had there been that change in the public vote? He believed that the votes of hundreds at Leeds represented thousands and tens of thousands of people in the country who, having supported the Government hitherto, were not prepared to support them in this Bill and in the policy represented by it. They looked upon this measure of the Government, not as one for national education, but as one to strengthen the power and the authority of a dominant sect. The flimsy pretence that the almost insignificant contribution of this particular denomination to national education ought to govern the case was one which the common-sense of the country repudiated. They maintained the principle which seemed absolutely to be repudiated by the right hon. Gentleman—the principle of popular control. Popular control was expressed by a majority, and when you put private persons into a statutory majority, and the public into a statutory minority, that was not popular control. It was the negation of popular control, and therefore this Bill, quite apart from any question of religious or denominational difficulty, was a violation of every principle of sound finance, local or Imperial. Perhaps the Government thought that the Opposition had unreasonably opposed this Bill. He was sorry if they thought so, because the Liberal party would continue to oppose it to the best of their ability as long as they could, and when their efforts failed, those efforts would be equally persistent in the country to destroy this Bill. It was a Bill founded on injustice; it rested on unsound principles, and, in his opinion, as it was their duty here to offer to it every resistance and as protracted a resistance as they could, so it would he their duty in the country to represent those opinions, and in doing so he fully believed they had the opinion of the country at their back. The Government had committed a fatal error. They were called upon to produce a comprehensive measure which should have included in its embrace people of all conditions and religions, and what had they done? What was this scheme which masqueraded under the name of a scheme for national education. It was a scheme which inflicted injustice— which the Government did not deny—upon certain of the most respected and powerful classes of the community. The nation did not love clericalism. It did not love clericalism of any description, but he ventured to say that ritualistic Anglicanism, as it was called, was least loved of all. The Government were doing incalculable injury to the cause of education. They were enlisting, not popular sympathy, but popular distrust and dislike. This Bill was ushered into this House, signed and scaled with the

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."