To ask the Secretary of State for the Homo Department if the Returns of the Public Carriage Department of the Metropolitan Police afford any information as to the number of accidents last year in hansom cabs; and if, by legislation or otherwise, some improvement can be brought about in the arrangement of the window so as to secure greater safety to the passenger, and bring it, as in Manchester, under the latter's control instead of that of the driver. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Ritchie.) The number of accidents in hansom cabs brought to the notice of the police in the course of last year (1901) was ninety-four. Of this number thirty-nine were caused by collisions; forty-three from the horse falling; and twelve from various causes, such as the breaking of harness, a wheel breaking, etc. In no case reported to the police does it appear that injury was caused by the arrangement of the window; and though the present vehicle is doubtless not perfect, it would hardly appear that any legislation is demanded in the direction suggested in the Question. If any effective substitute for the present window is suggested, the Commissioner of Police would have it brought to the notice of proprietors, as is invariably clone when attention is drawn to desirable improvements. The adoption of these improvements, however, is a matter for the makers and the owners of these convenient and popular vehicles, who would promptly respond to any public demand for alteration. Every care is taken to see that the licensed hansom cabs are fit for use.

To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the scheme for improving the increments, but not the initial salary, of now class assistant clerks (abstractors) of the Civil Service will be shortly communicated to the Department; and whether the benefits will be extended to those clerks who have entered the service since the class was formed seven years ago, by placing them on a salary to which their number of years' service would entitle them under the new rules, and thus place them on a level with those who now enter. (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) (1) The Departments concerned were in formed of the scheme on the 21st ultimo. (2) I can hold out no hope that the retrospective benefits referred to in the Question will be given to assistant clerks appointed before 1st April last.

To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, as tobacco is permitted to be shipped duty free on board vessels of the Deep Sea Missions to Seamen, while the men serving on light ships have to pay duty on the tobacco they consume, the case of these men can be considered with a view to enable them to have tobacco for their own consumption duty free while actually employed on board these ships. (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) The shipment of tobacco, free of duty as ship's stores, is governed by Section 126 of the Customs Consolidation Act, 1876, which restricts the practice to vessels which are not less than forty tons burthen, and which are proceeding to parts beyond the seas. The vessels of the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen are allowed to take tobacco on board, duty free, under this section, for sale to fishermen engaged on the North Sea fishing grounds—the Board of Customs being advised that such vessels can properly be considered as vessels proceeding to parts beyond the seas. Lightships, however, stand on an entirely different footing, since, lying as they do at anchor, they cannot be said to be vessels proceeding to parts beyond the seas. Most of them, in fact, lie within the territorial waters of the United Kingdom, and approach in character to coasting vessels, to which the Board have no power under the law to allow the shipment of tobacco free of duty.

To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, what progress has been made in the erection of the new post office at Castlebar, County Mayo. (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) The Board of Public Works expect to invite tenders for the erection of the new post office at Castlebar very shortly.

To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether any orders have been given out in respect of the armour required for the cruisers authorised under the Estimates of the last financial year. (Answered by Mr. Arnold-Forster.) No armour has yet been ordered for the cruisers referred to, but the tenders have been under consideration and the orders are now about to be placed.

To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that the students in the Royal Naval Engineering College at Keyham have not been granted an extra week's holiday this year in celebration of the Coronation; and, having regard to His Majesty's expressed wish on the subject of all schools, whether an extra week may be granted to them at Michaelmas or Christmas. (Answered by Mr. Arnold-Forster.) It is not intended to grant any extra vacation either to the engineer students or the naval cadets this year in celebration of the Coronation, as it would not be in the interests of those young officers to curtail their period of training. His Majesty's wishes on this subject are understood as having reference to schools, and not to institutions in which officers of the Royal Navy are undergoing instruction.

To ask the Secretary of States for India if he will state why Section 204 of the Cantonment Code, 1899, was extended on 27th. June last to the city of Hyderabad, and to 109 villages in the vicinity of the Hyderabad Cantonment; and will he state the area so affected. (Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.) I have received no information on this subject, but I may point out that Section 204 of the Code cannot operate in the city of Hyderabad and 109 adjoining villages as suggested by the Question. These localities are outside the jurisdiction of the Governor General in Council.

To ask the Secretary of State for India if he can state the result of the communications which he has held with the Treasury with regard to the payment of the expenses of the guests and troops invited from India to the Coronation, and of their entertainment; whether the Government of India have expressed any opinion with regard to the levying of the whole or any part of those charges from the Indian Exchequer; and if he will place upon the Table of the House copies of the correspondence between himself and the Treasury as well as any that may have taken place between the India Office and the Government of India on the subject. (Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.) The communications are still proceeding, but with every prospect of arriving at a satisfactory decision. When the correspondence is concluded I will consider if it should be published.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that a foreign ship that has caused the loss of life to a British sailor by negligent collision cannot be arrested in this country at the suit of the relatives in an action for compensation; and whether he will take steps to amend the law so as to enable in such case proceedings to be taken in rem. (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) I believe the law to be as is stated. I cannot give any promise as to legislation.

To ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that a British subject named John A. Evans, a native of Holyhead, was in March last arrested at Buenos Ayres on a false charge of passing as base coin a Jubilee English sovereign, which he had received in payment of his wages from a firm of English shipowners, and confined for fifteen flays in a prison without proper sanitary arrangements or sleeping accommodation, in the company of prisoners of the lowest class, and ultimately, through the intervention of British merchants, tried and acquitted without having received any assistance from the British Consul, to whom he appealed on his arrest; and whether His Majesty's Government will demand compensation for this young man. (Answered by Lord Cranborne.) A complaint has been received from Mr. Evans of his alleged arrest and imprisonment by the Brazilian authorities at Para, not Buenos Ayres, on a charge of tendering false money. Steps are being taken to verify the facts of the case and to obtain a Report upon it. Until this Report is received it would be impossible to consider the question of compensation.

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether any advance has been made for the sale of the estate of the late Michael Marshall Lloyd Apjohn, in the parish of Grean and county of Limerick, since January last; will he state how matters stand in regard to it, and take measures to ensure an early sale. (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) I am informed that the final notice to tenants is now ready for service and that the rental will be settled in November. The sale might have been completed long since but for the fact that several of the tenants withheld payment of their rents.

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, is he aware that the tenants on the Finlay estate, in County Cavan, made an agreement with the receiver and owners in April, 1898, to purchase their holdings, and that the receiver did not lodge these agreements in court but continued to collect the old rent off the tenants, although the terms were that the tenants were only to pay one half-year's rent to May, 1898, and interest on purchase money after that date; is he aware that the tenants wore obliged to make an application to the Land Commissioner in November, 1901, to stop legal proceedings against them, and to compel the receiver and owners to carry out their agreement of April, 1898; and, seeing that the Land Commissioner made an order to have the agreement of 1898 carried out notwithstanding the opposition of the receiver, and that the receiver on the 24th July, 1902, asked the Land Commissioner to set aside this order, although three-fourths of the tenants had already complied with it, will he direct inquiries to be made as to the reason for the agreements to purchase, which were signed by the tenants, not being lodged in court. (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) In respect to the first paragraph I would refer to my reply to the hon. Member's previous Question of the 14th March last † The Land Commission has no jurisdiction

†See (4) Debates, cv., 48.

such as is suggested in the second paragraph. The Commission has not made and has no power to make such an order, nor was such an order made by the Land Judge in whose court the estate is administered. On the 30th July Mr. Justice Boss issued directions as to the amount of rent each tenant is required to pay, as a condition precedent to the completion of the sales. The provisional agreements made with the tenants were taken into consideration in arriving at these sums. In default of payment, the receiver has been instructed to take proceedings for recovery of the moneys.

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that eviction notices have been served on the Tottenham estate, County Leitrim; can he state the number of such notices; how long has this estate been in the hands of the Land Courts in Ireland; whether the tenants have made applications to purchase; and whether he would endeavour to stay evictions pending a settlement of the estate. (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) Ejectment decrees have been obtained against twenty-seven tenants on this estate. A receiver over the property was appointed two years ago, since when no rent has been paid by the tenants, although he was authorised to take two years rent and give a clear receipt to November, 1900 In view of the attitude of the tenants I understand that the Land Judge will not take any steps with a view to facilitate the sale of the estate, but will direct the receiver to enforce payment of rent. I have no power to intervene in the manner suggested.

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he would, as soon as the Local Government Bill becomes law, at once issue a Return of the Rules and Orders under the Local Government Act (in continuation of Parliamentary Papers, No. 360, of Session 1899, and Nos. 359 and 360, of Session 1900). (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The Return will be issued in the event stated. Its preparation, with an index, must, however, occupy some little time.

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will take the necessary steps to enable the Kerry County Council to effect a saving by consolidating their outstanding loans, and cause the Local Government Board to sanction the proposed arrangement. (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) It is open to a County Council, with the consent of the Local Government Board, to borrow money for consolidating the debts of the county. The Kerry County Council objects to the condition contained in Article 22 (4) of the Schedule to the Local Government (Application of Enactments) Order, 1898, requiring that all money reborrowed shall be repaid within the period fixed for the discharge of the original loan, and has asked the Board to seek powers to alter this provision. The Board has informed the Council that the period for the repayment of loans is fixed in each case on consideration of the probable duration and continuing utility of the works for which the loan is obtained.

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland how many leaseholders have fixed fair rents, and how many tenants have been turned into caretakers under the Land Act of 1887. (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The number of leaseholders in whose cases fair rents have been fixed was 26,812 to the end of June last. The number of notices served under the 7th Section of the Act in the same period was 78,411. There is no information available showing the proportion of tenants included in the latter number who have been restored to the position of present tenants, but there is good reason for believing that redemptions have been of frequent occurrence. The percentage of actual evictions throughout Ireland under Section 7 of the Act, since it became law, on the total number of notices served under the section is only 9 per cent.

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can say why Mr. Thomas Coleman, who entered Drumcondra Training College in 1898 as third class teacher, and passed with special distinction in 1900 into the first division of second class, and who was subsequently appointed principal of Lahain National School, County Cork, District No. 56, Roll 3,548, has since been paid only the salary attached to the lowest division of third grade, notwithstanding that the Commissioners of National Education have promised special consideration to such cases. (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) Prior to Mr. Coleman's admission to the training college in 1898 he had been, merely recognised as monitor. On leaving the college at the end of the course in 1900 he passed the final examination, as stated, with "special distinction." He was appointed teacher for the first time on the 17th September, 1900, and became as regards emoluments subject to the following rule, which is taken from the Code presented to Parliament in July, 1900, viz.:— "Future teachers recognised for the first time will rank on appointment in the third grade only." No promise of "special consideration" was given by the Commissioners that is applicable to his case.

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, is he aware that the Cavan Urban District Council have applied for the sanction of the Local Government Board to borrow the sum of £1,400 to build houses for artisans and labourers, under the Housing of the Working Classes Act; and, seeing that it was proved at the inquiry that twenty-seven families in the town of Cavan had been evicted within the last month owing to the insanitary condition of their houses, that some of these families had to occupy houses condemned by the sanitary authority, and that the opposition to the scheme was confined to one landlord, can he state the reason of the delay of the sanction of the Local Government Board to the application for this loan. (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The local inquiry, which is an essential preliminary to the consideration of the issue of a loan in all such cases, was held at Cavan so recently as the 24th ultimo. A decision will be come to as soon as possible.

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, of Ireland whether he will explain why District Inspector Rogers, of Trim, who resides in the disused military barracks at a rent of £10 a year, receives a lodging allowance of £45 a year; and why he receives an allowance of 15s. per night once a month for inspecting a station in his district twenty-one miles distant to which he drives with his horse, for which he is allowed forage. (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) District Inspector Rogers receives the ordinary lodging allowance payable to all officers of his rank, namely, £40, not.£45 per annum. Officers in receipt of the allowance make their own arrangements for obtaining houses. A subsistence allowance of 15s. is payable to district inspectors for each night necessarily absent from home on duty.

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, have any complaints been made to the Commissioners of National Education as to the difficulty of questions in algebra set to teachers at the July examination; was there any promise or hope that such difficult questions would not be set; and will he advise the Commissioners to moderate this part of their programme next session. (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) Complaints of this character have been received. They are at present being investigated, and the whole matter will be carefully considered by the Commissioners.

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland when the results of the Fifth Year Monitor's Examination, held in April, 1902, under the Commissioners of National Education, will be issued; and what is the cause of the delay of nearly four months in publishing the results. (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) Lists of the successful candidates have been sent to the training colleges. Details of the examination will be issued to the candidates within a few days.

To ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office, having regard to the fact that the 44th Regiment of the Line (now the Essex Regiment) captured a French Eagle at Salamanca in 1812, and in consideration of the services of the regiment in the Peninsular and for the last 100 years, whether it will now be allowed (in common with certain other corps) to bear the badge of the eagle on the blue serge, mess kit, and full dress uniform. (Answered by Lord Stanley.) The Essex Regiment have the eagle on the mess jacket collar and on their regimental colour. Sanction has been given them to wear it on their mess dress buttons and on their full dress uniform.

To ask the Secretary of State for War if he can say what amount has been spent by the Porthcawl Urban Council on Newton Burrows to meet the requirement of the War Office; what land has been acquired by the War Office in the neighbourhood; and when it is proposed to commence the construction of rifle ranges there. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) As regards they amount spent by the Porthcawl Urban District Council I have no information. The area of the land leased by the War Office is about 350 acres. The commencement of the work is delayed at present owing to the action of one of the lessors.

To ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state how many vacancies it is estimated will occur among the Officers, the non-commissioned officers, and men of the regular Army during the next three months; what steps are being taken to retain in the Army those returning from South Africa on the conclusion of their engagement for the war; and will their field service be allowed to count towards pensions. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) I am afraid it is impossible to estimate the possible vacancies at present with any degree of accuracy. I have thought it right, in view of the possible difficulty in obtaining employment when so large a number of men are being discharged, to allow reservists who desire to do so to remain with the colours, and it remains to be seen how large a number may decide to avail themselves of this permission. The last part of the Question is not understood; field service reckons like other service towards pension.

To ask the Secretary of State for War whether Mr. D. J. De Wet is still confined as a prisoner, without trial or charge preferred against him, in the Military camp at Matjesfontein; and. if so, what steps are being taken to have him set at liberty. (Answered by Secretary Brodrick.) I have no information in regard to this particular case, but I have no reason to suppose that he is being detained.

To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is able to give the approximate date when the 3rd Battalion Northamptonshire Regiment will return from South Africa. (Answered by Secretary Brodrick.) I am afraid it is at present impossible to fix the exact date for the departure of this battalion from South Africa. It is one of the last on the Militia roster, but it is expected to leave next month.

To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Canteen Committee has submitted its Report; and, if not can he say when it is likely to do so; and whether the decision arrived at in regard to that Report will be communicated to the House before any important alterations are made in the existing system. (Answered by Secretary Brodrick.) The Committee is still taking evidence, and I am not, therefore, in a position to make any statement in reply to this Question.

To ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the fact that the same amount of batta is paid to all officers, irrespective of their length of service in the field in South Africa; and whether, since batta is intended to compensate officers for loss and wear of their uniforms and equipment due to conditions of war, He will endeavour to make some discrimination proportioned to length of service in the field. (Answered by Secretary Brodrick.) A war gratuity is given and not batta. It would not be practicable to re-adjust the gratuity after the conclusion of the war.

To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is yet in a position to state the result of the reconsideration of the cases of the three servants lately discharged from Sandhurst in connection with the recent incident at that College. (Answered by Secretary Brodrick.) A decision will be given within a few days on these cases.

To ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to Article 20 of the Hague International Convention, which sets forth that after the conclusion of peace the repatriation of prisoners of war shall take place as speedily as possible; and seeing that the possession of sufficient means is being made a condition for the return of Transvaal Republic or Orange Free State prisoners of war, now interned in Lisbon or elsewhere, to South Africa, and in view of the destruction of property in the Transvaal and Free State, will he say whether the imposition of such a test will be persevered with, and, if so, by what persons or tribunals the test will be imposed. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The hon. Member is under a misapprehension. There is no such condition as that mentioned in the question governing the return of prisoners of war.

To ask the Secretary of State for War if he will now reconsider the decision of former Governments and grant a medal to the officers and men who served in the Transvaal War of 1881. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) It is not proposed to reconsider this question.

To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he has any information as to the fate of No. 6,693, Private John James, 3rd South Wales Borderers, who is alleged to have been killed on the 25th February, near Klerksdorp; and whether he is in a position to give an official notification of his death. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) No official notification of the death of this man has been received, but inquiry is being made by telegram.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, with reference to the tax of 10 per cent, on the annual net produce of gold mines in the Transvaal, imposed by the Proclamation of 5th June, 1902, the Government will reconsider the provision whereby, in estimating such net produce, an allowance or deduction is to be made in respect of the exhaustion of the mines; whether the attention of the Government has been called to the difficulty of estimating the life of a gold mine, and to the fact that in most gold mining companies, profits can be, and are. distributed amongst the shareholders without making any provision for the exhaustion of the mines; and whether, assuming that the allowance in respect of the exhaustion of the mines is maintained, he will consider the advisability of such allowance being computed on a 5 per cent, basis, instead of a 3 per cent, basis, as provided by the Proclamation. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Chamberlain.) I am aware that the Proclamation has been criticised on the ground stated, but I am not prepared to reconsider it until experience has shown how far it requires Amendment.

To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the Pontefract Board of Guardians decided on Saturday last to continue paying outdoor relief to John and Bridget Gilmore, who are now residing in Mohill Union, Ireland; and whether, as this aged couple were deported to Mohill Union seven years ago, and have no connection with that union, he will reconsider his refusal to sanction the payment of this relief. (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) I received yesterday a further communication from the Guardians in which the circumstances of the case are more fully explained. Looking to their very exceptional character I propose to sanction the payment.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to several recent cases in which faculties have been granted by the Consistory Court of the Diocese of London for the erection of buildings upon disused burial grounds in London; whether it is the fact that the buildings so permitted by these faculties were not enlargements of a church, but other buildings, in respect of which no exception is made to the general prohibition of the erection of buildings on such burial grounds contained in The Disused Burial Grounds Act, 1884; whether any and what steps can be taken to secure the due observance of the provisions of the last-mentioned Act in order that these open spaces may be reserved for the use of the public; or whether, if the law is defective, he will take any steps to have it amended. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Ritchie.) I have referred to the Chancellor of the Diocese, and am informed by him that in all cases in which he has granted faculties for the erection of buildings upon disused burial grounds he was satisfied that the buildings were enlargements of a place of worship within the meaning of The Disused Burial Grounds Act, 1884. It does not appear, on the facts before me, that an Amendment of the law is required. There is a right of appeal from the Consistory Court to the Court of Arches, and thence to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, besides the procedure by writ of prohibition if the Ecclesiastical Court exceeds its jurisdiction. I may add that I understand that the Chancellor of the Diocese will make it a rule of court that due notice of applications for faculties of this kind shall be given to the London Count Council, who have powers under The Disused Burial Grounds Acts.

To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether it has been decided that the Royal Patriotic Fund should be wound up; and, if so, whether any of the officials are still drawing their salaries. (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlein.) A Bill dealing with this subject has been prepared, but pressure of business has made its introduction this Session impossible. The officials of the Patriotic Fund Commission are still performing their very heavy duties, and are drawing their salaries.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the additional pay promised to the troops serving over eighteen months in South Africa applies to officers; and whether officers whose corps are detained in South Africa will be allowed free passages out and home when on leave.

The War Gratuity, to which the hon. Member apparently alludes, does not apply to officers. As regards passages, it is intended to give indulgence passages, in all cases where it is practicable, to officers returning home on leave.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can state the number of horses purchased for the South African War which have been sold by public auction since the conclusion of the War, together with the average price paid and the average price received.

1,080 horses have been sold in England by public auction. I am not prepared to publish the prices.

Has the right hon. Gentleman heard that some of those horses were sold at Aldridge's at between £5 and £6 apiece?

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can state what number of foreign immigrants have been introduced into Southern Rhodesia for labour in the mines under the Immigration Ordinance, and from what countries such immigrants have been imported; whether he regards the supply of indigenous labour to the mines in Southern Rhodesia to be now satisfactory; and whether any additional provisions, in respect of native labour on the mines in the Transvaal, is contemplated.

(1) I cannot state the numbers of foreign immigrants, and I am not aware that any steps have been taken for introducing foreign labourers since the Act was assented to; (2) I would refer the right hon. Member to the Statement made by Sir M. Clarke and printed on page 129 of Cd. 1200 in regard to the present arrangements, which are provisional—I have no reason to believe that they are not working satisfactorily; (3) No additional provisions have been submitted.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in the arrangements which are to be made for inviting tenders for a fast Atlantic mail service between Great Britain and a Canadian port, in which this country and the dominion may be jointly interested, he will give consideration to Milford Haven and include it in the terms of the tender as an optional port on this side of the Atlantic.

I am not aware that any arrangements are being made for inviting tenders for a fast Atlantic Service, but the hon. Member may feel assured that, so far as the matter rests with His Majesty's Government, the question of the terminal port on this side will receive most careful consideration in settling the terms of any contract to which they may become parties.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether, in view of the powers to erect and maintain pupil teachers' centres, which will be conferred upon the new educational authorities under the Education Bill, he will undertake to sanction, under the Local Authorities (Expenses) Act, 1887, any expenditure of School Boards necessary to complete pupil teachers' centres already in course of erection.

I shall be prepared to entertain favourably any applications which may be made to me to sanction expenditure incurred by School Boards for the purpose referred to in the Question. It must be understood that the sanction will only remove any difficulty on the part of the auditor in allowing the expenditure, and that I could not promise to give any sanction in respect of works undertaken since the recent decision of the court of appeal.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture if he is in a position to state the conditions which he has asked the Argentine Government to comply with in regard to the importation of live stock into Argentina; and whether he will remove the existing prohibition, and now again allow Argentine cattle to be imported into this country for slaughter at the ports of debarkation.

As my hon. friend is aware, I am bound by law to maintain the existing prohibition until I am satisfied that the Argentine laws with regard to the importation of animals are such as to afford reasonable security against the introduction of disease. I am in communication with the Argentine Government on the subject of the issue by them of regulations to provide such security, and when such regulations are enforced I see no reason why the ports should not be opened to Argentine fat cattle.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether his attention has been drawn to the case of J. T. Walker, who for thirty-six years was sub-postmaster at Gedney Drove End, Lincolnshire, and who has been denied a pension or a retiring gratuity; and whether, seeing that although Mr. Walker had a small baking business he devoted his whole time to the work of the Post Office, he will recommend a pension or gratuity in this case.

Mr. Walker's appointment was not such as to require him to give his whole time to the public service, and he is not eligible for any award under the Superannuation Acts.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that a number of persons residing near Leverton, Boston, have deliveries of letters only three times a week; and can he arrange that they shall have a daily delivery.

The Postmaster General will cause inquiry to be made on the subject and will communicate the result to the hon. Member as soon as possible.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether his attention has been drawn to the action of the Holland County Council in closing the existing central classes for teachers; and will he say what steps he proposes to take to ensure such classes being provided.

The Board of Education have no knowledge of the closing of any central classes by the Holland County Council. Under the Act recently passed the County Council is responsible for sanctioning the continuance by School Boards of classes and schools giving instruction other than elementary, and the Board of Education have no power to interfere with their discretion.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education who is the correspondent and who are the other Managers of the Church School at Dorchester, Oxfordshire; whether he is aware that on or about 16th July last fifty or more children were withdrawn from religious instruction under the Conscience Clause; whether since 16th July, the girls and infants so withdrawn have been instructed to join in the Hail Mary at the close of the school and to bow to or towards a crucifix on leaving the school; and will he state what steps he will take in the matter.

The correspondent is Colonel Blunt, of Manor House, Dorchester. The Board of Education do not keep any register of the other Managers. If complaint is made to the Board of Education of such violation of the Conscience Clause as is described in the Question, supported by primâ facie evidence, further inquiries will be made.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the cause of the delay in the sale of the White Estate (near Bantry); and if he can say approximately when it will take place.

The Report of the Land Commission on this estate has been made to the Land Judge, and will be considered by him after the vacation.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will consider the advisability of giving an increase of pay to the attendants in the National Gallery at Merrion Street, Dublin, in view of the fact that there has been recently an increase in their hours of duty.

This is a matter that concerns, not the Irish Government, but the Treasury.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Government will favourably consider the necessity of assisting the Great Southern and Western Railway Company to connect the coal mine of Castlecomer with the main line.

This project has not been brought before me. The necessity of assisting a wealthy company is not apparent.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Government will consider the advisability of appointing a Commission of experts to inquire into and Report upon the best means of carrying out a survey of the mineral resources of Ireland.

The new Department is at present engaged in an investigation of this character. I would refer the hon. Member to my reply of 26th May to the Question of my right hon. friend the Member for South Antrim on the same subject.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state when the arbitrator's award will be made in connection with the scheme for the erection of labourers' cottages in the Bantry Union.

Application has not yet been made to the Local Government Board for the appointment of an arbitrator in the matter of the Provisional Order which became absolute on 10th June, and which is presumably the scheme referred to in the Question.

I beg-to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, is he aware that Ex-Constable Keegan, who was connected with Ex-Sergeant Sheridan in the burning of Mrs. Quinlan's hay in Lough, Hospital, County Limerick, in the end of November, 1897, is now living in Ballinderry, County Roscommon, and that Ex-Sergeant Keegan is now prepared to give evidence as to his connection with the Sheridan business; and will he institute a public inquiry into the case.

This matter was discussed yesterday. I have no further statement to make.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether any class for hand and eye instruction has yet been started in Cookstown; and, if not, can he say when such a class will be opened.

It has not yet been found practicable to open such a class in Cookstown, but one will be opened early next year.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state if the Queen's County portion of the estate of the Fitzmaurices, of Carlow, has yet been sold to the tenants; and whether the tenants on the portion of the estate in Coolnadhoun and Cloheready, County Limerick, may be expected to obtain a purchase within the present year under section 40 of the Land Act of of 1896.

A request for a report on the Queen's County portion of the estate was issued on the 29th July. It cannot, at present, be stated when the report will be made. Pending the result of the sale of this portion of the property, no further proceedings will be taken in the matter of the sale of the County Limerick portion.

I beg-to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, is he aware that when Belturbet was constituted an urban sanitary district in 1894 a sum of £330 10s., due by Belturbet to Cavan Poor Law Union for sanitary works, was not enforced or directed to be paid; and, seeing that the Local Government Board since the passing of the Local Government (Ireland) Act compelled the County Council of County Cavan to bring an action against the Belturbet Urban District Council for this money which action was dismissed by the King's Bench, and that neither the Belturbet Urban I Council nor Cavan County Council was responsible for this litigation, will he direct the Local Government Board to pay the law costs incurred.

The Local Government Board was not responsible for the failure of the Cavan Guardians to recover this money from the Urban Sanitary Authority, nor did the Board compel the County Council to take the legal proceedings referred to. There are no funds at the Board's disposal to defray the law costs incurred by local bodies in endeavouring to secure what they believe to be their rights.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a man named J. H. Danaher has been followed by police in the district of North Kerry; and whether he can give any assurance that this practice will be discontinued.

This man has attended fairs and markets for some time past with the apparent object of boycotting the sale of cattle belonging to the tenant of an evicted farm. His movements on such occasions are now kept under police supervision, and this course will be continued so long as he is believed to be engaged in illegal practices of this nature.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he will explain why an arrangement made in the month of May with the Cork, Bandon, and South Coast Railway Company for the conveyance of mails from Skibbereen to Baltimore by rail was not carried out; and will he give the terms of the arrangement, and take steps for it now to be put into effect with a view to the promotion of the fishing industry.

Before the arrangement with the Cork, Bandon, and South Coast Railway Company for the conveyance of the mails from Skibbereen to Baltimore by rail can be carried out, the Postmaster General finds it necessary to take steps for opening a sub-post office at Creagh, instead of the existing sub-post office at Oldcourt. It has not yet been practicable to carry out this change; but the matter will be proceeded with as quickly as possible.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he has received petitions against the contemplated change of the sub-post office from Old Court to Creagh Railway Station (near Skibbereen); whether he is aware that the approach to the railway station is by level crossings; and, seeing that there is only one man on duty there to act as signals porter and station master, he will arrange that he shall not be appointed as sub-postmaster.

The Postmaster General will cause further enquiry to be made into the questions raised by the hon. Member, and the result shall be communicated to him as soon as possible.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that inconvenience is being caused to the people of the postal district of Ballyduff, North Kerry, by the fact of their not having a Sunday delivery of mails. Whether he is aware that a salmon fishery exists in the district as well as several creameries, the success of which will depend on the delivery of Sunday's mails quoting prices for shipments of fish and butter by first trains on Monday morning. And whether, seeing that all the towns are in receipt of Sunday delivery, the Government will accede to the request of the people of Ballyduff town and district by granting Sunday delivery of mails to them also.

When the question of affording a Sunday post to Ballyduff, North Kerry, was under consideration, about this time last year, the cost of the service six days a week was found to be so high as, compared with the amount of correspondence that the further expense involved in the establishment of a Sunday post, was not warranted. The Postmaster General does not anticipate that the circumstances of the case have since materially changed, but he will have inquiry made, and will communicate further with the hon. Member.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in the adjoining districts where there is a Sunday delivery the mail is no larger than at Ballyduff?

That is possible, and if so, it is a nonpaying service. The Postmaster General is, however, prepared to reconsider this case.

This is the fourth or fifth time the question has been "considered."

Yes, and up to the present the Postmaster General has been unable to see his way to accede to the request. He will now reconsider the case, in the light of the new facts.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that the office of senior postman in Longford is to be given to a man from Athlone, although there are a number of qualified local men to choose from; when this practice of importing men from other districts was resolved upon; and will he direct that this appointment be given to one of the local carriers who are applying for it.

There is no intention of transferring a postman from Athlone to fill the vacancy at Longford. The vacancy should in ordinary course be filled by a soldier candidate, but at present there is none available, and a local rural postman has been selected.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he intends during the Autumn session to take legislative action to amend the Workmen's Compensation Act so as to include within its scope all workers in all employments, without restriction as to place of injury, height of building, or use of scaffolding; and that compensation be payable for injury from date of accident; and whether he has received the resolution adopted by the Irish Trades Congress held at Cork urging such legislation.

There will not be time to deal with this matter in the Autumn session.

As there is a universal desire for England, Scotland, and Ireland to deal with this matter, cannot the right hon. Gentleman bring in a Bill?

Requests, I know, are made for legislation of this kind, but the House takes care that no opportunities shall be afforded for passing it.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he will assure the House of Commons that no binding agreement shall be entered into between the British Government and the Atlantic Shipping Trust without such an agreement being submitted to Parliament for approval.

In answer to this Question of my noble friend, I have to say that I do not think it would be possible to negotiate upon this or any other subject if the proposed terms have to be publicly discussed. Of course, if an agreement involves expenditure of public money it must fall within the cognisance of the House, and in any case we are most anxious to take the House into our confidence as soon as possible.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the grant to the Ben Nevis Observatory will be continued pending the Report of the Committee on the subject.

Yes, Sir, there is on idea of suspending the grant.

I beg, in accordance with private notice, to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether in the event of any change being made he will consider the expediency of appointing a Member of the House of Commons to the office of Secretary for Scotland.

If, and when, a vacancy occurs, I will consider the claims and qualifications of the hon. Gentleman.

I wish to ask the Prime Minister whether the proceedings of the Commission will be open to the public and the Press.

My impression is that the work will largely consist of the examination of affidavits, which is not in the nature of the case a public proceeding in the sense that the examination of witnesses in a Court of law is. Further, I understand it will rest with the Commissioners themselves to decide whether their proceedings shall be public.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been drawn to the resolution of the Dublin Trades Council protesting against the action of the Irish Lights Board in employing unskilled men to do tradesmen's work at lighthouses and other places under their control; is he aware that such work was heretofore contracted for by painting contractors and other employers of labour; will he state whether the employment of these men to do skilled tradesmen's work is in accordance with the Fair Wages Resolution of this House; and whether he will take steps to secure the withdrawal of the Order issued by the Irish Lights Board.

I have received a copy of the resolution of the Dublin Trades Council to which the hon. Member refers. As I explained on a former occasion, the Irish Lights Commissioners state that they only intend to employ light-keepers to do small jobs where travelling expenses incurred by sending tradesmen would be out of proportion to the actual value of the work to be done, and I have since been informed by the Commissioners, that it is very unlikely that any painting will be done under the Order. As previously stated, it does not seem to me that the Fair Wages Resolution of this House was intended to apply to an arrangement of this description.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can inform the House what troops are being employed in the Somaliland operations.

The 6th Battalion of the King's African Rifles 500 strong assisted by local levies 1,500 strong. Recently these troops have been reinforced by 60 Sikhs from the Sikh Contingent in British Central Africa, and in addition 300 men of the 2nd Battalion King's African Rifles are on their way from British Central Africa. In all there will be 2,360 men; two seven-pounder and six nine-pounder R. M. L. guns have also been supplied.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the body of a man named John M'Grath, killed by an accident at the Bold Colliery, Earlestown, Lancashire, has by order of the Coroner been kept for three days on the colliery premises, with the result that the colliers refused to work in the pit; and whether he will inquire into the grounds on which this action has been taken by the Coroner.

I am making inquiries into this matter.

asked if the First Lord of the Treasury would put the Education Bill down pro formâ for the next day, so that for the convenience of the newspapers a report might be circulated showing not only what had been passed but what Amendments still had to be considered.

I think that can be done without putting the Bill down.

The Amendments will be issued on Saturday in ordinary course.

called attention to the abstract of Schedule A and to a discrepancy in the figures.

Yes it is due to a printer's error. The figures have been put in their wrong order, but a correct copy has since been circulated.

Will the Prime Minister issue tomorrow the Amendments he promised the Committee during the discussion of the Question of grouping schools. It would be a great advantage if we could have them before the vacation. I may also ask a Question as to the Employment of Children Bill, which gives effect to the recommendations of an inter-Departmental Committee. Will the right hon. Gentleman try to give that a Second Reading.

I shall be extremely glad to do so if there is general agreement on both sides. It is clearly impossible to take it if it is going to excite discussion.

What business comes first tomorrow—the Appropriation Bill or the Motion for Adjournment?

The Appropriation Bill must come first.

The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my Question as to his grouping Amendments. And may I ask if, supposing he has an assurrance from this side of the House that the Employment of Children Bill will not be opposed, he will give it a Second Reading before the holidays.

But there is a larger number of Members on this side of the House, who take an interest in the Measure and very strong views.

I think not.

With regard to the grouping Amendments, I have already expressed my view, that those on the Paper in the name of my hon. friend behind me, will probably be a fitting solution of the Question.

, as a matter of personal explanation, asked leave to read a telegram he had received from the reporter, alleged to have been assaulted by the police at Frenchpark, County Roscommon, denying the statement made by the Chief Secretary on the previous day, that he forced his way through the police ranks, or that he apologised to the sergeant, and re-asserting he was seriously assaulted by a constable whose name he was unable to obtain.

Order, order! That is not in the nature of a personal explanation.

moved an Amendment the object of which was, he said, to provide that the managers, other than foundation managers in all public elementary schools not provided by the local education authority, should represent the local authority.

next moved an Amendment providing that these managers should not exceed six in number. This Amendment, he said, raised what was one of the great questions of interest in connection with this Bill— the question of whether or not the denominations who owned the fabric of so-called voluntary schools should have the control of the education in the schools or whether the taxpayers and ratepayers, through their representatives, should have that control. It might be thought that as they had already provided for the appointment of four denominationalist managers, the addition of six other managers would result in the creation of a rather cumbrous managing Board in the various rural localities throughout the length and breadth of England and Wales. But he would suggest that by a system of grouping the rural schools it might be possible to secure a body of ten, which would not be too large a number considering the various interests at stake. Three or four villages might well be grouped together. One great complaint with regard to the School Board system had been that the rural areas were not sufficiently large to be controlled by a School Board, and under his scheme it would be possible to get over that difficulty. It was conceivable that the. whole of the ten managers would not always be able to attend the meetings, but still it was most important that the public, who would have to find the money for the maintenance of the schools, should have control in regard to the policy of the schools, and if that were secured he was sure there would be but little friction in regard to the management of education in the future both in the towns and in the rural districts. This public control was more than ever necessary now. Hitherto there had been two great checks operating to the advantage of the public in connection with the management of the voluntary schools. Those who desired to maintain denominational schools had found it necessary from time to time to obtain voluntary subscriptions, and that necessity had induced the vicar or the rector, perhaps unconsciously, to adopt a policy consonant with the views of liberal-minded Churchmen who, to a large extent, had maintained the schools in the past. Then, again, the public know very well that if the clerical party abused the powers they had under trust deeds, it was open to them to insist on the establishment of a School Board and so counteract the sinister influences of clericalism. The fact that that power existed had had its effect on the managers of public schools in the past and had operated very much in keeping the peace in many rural districts. Under this Bill, however, those two checks were absolutely removed. It would be no longer necessary for the parson to collect voluntary contributions, and the public would no longer be in a position to establish the School Board system where the management of voluntary schools caused dissatisfaction. Therefore it became all the more imperative to secure public control over the public funds. Where public money was spent they ought to have public control. That was the real foundation of their standpoint in connection with that matter, and it would be an absolute misnomer, after the passing of the Bill, to call these schools voluntary schools. They would be, in fact, public elementary schools, and as such they ought to be under the direct control of the public through a managing body in the locality. It was well known that many of these schools were in an almost bankrupt condition, and would have been forced to come under public management even if that Bill had not been introduced. They would have had to be either sold or let to the public, and that being so he did not think the Government had made out any case for establishing denominational control over schools which would henceforth be entirely maintained, out of public money. Many individuals who had hitherto supported the schools desired that they should be under public rather than under clerical control. He had always thought the Roman Catholics might have been dealt with in a somewhat different manner, and he felt that the hon. Member for East Mayo met the point very fairly in his Amendment, which he would have been quite content to accept. If the Roman Catholics were prepared to maintain their schools by voluntary subscriptions instead of coming on the rates he thought they should have been allowed to do so. He, for one, very much desired to see the influence of the clergy maintained in the village life of the country. He wanted to see them take an increasing interest in the educational prosperity of the rural districts, for in many of them they had in the past been almost the soul and life of the school. He wished to pay his tribute to the great work that many of the clergy had accomplished in the promotion of education in the villages, but he did riot think that they ought to have an exclusive voice in the management and policy of the schools, although he was in favour of their having a right of access to the fabric of the school and a right to teach their own religious doctrines. The importance of his Amendment could not be overstated, for he believed it would meet with the approval, not only of Nonconformists generally, but of liberal-minded Churchmen, and a large number of those who supported the general policy of the Government. If the Prime Minster would not accede to the number of six, perhaps he would concede the bare majority of five. He wanted to be satisfied that the Education Committee would have absolute control over the education and appointment of teachers, and that the local managers would have control over the education authority. In many cases the clergy had in the past abused their powers—although he was glad to think that these cases were exceptions to the general rule—and now he wanted, by legislation, to provide against similar friction in the future. Even now it would be open to the clergy to abuse the powers which the Prime Minister proposed to give them unless the safeguard he suggested was adopted. They might have to deal with drunken, immoral, and insolent schoolmasters—men who declined to comply with the wishes of the school. In all these matters their conduct ought to be reviewed, not by managers representing the Church, but by managers representing the public. On these grounds he begged to move his Amendment.

said the day for appeals to the Government had now gone by. He had worked as hard as a private Member could for a compromise, and had annoyed some of his supporters by the extent to which he had been prepared to go. He did not regret having worked for a compromise, but it was a bitter disappointment that the right hon. Gentleman had not seen his way to come to some arrangement on this question of managers. He and others had sought a compromise because they felt that the organisation of education was not a fit subject to be made the cock-pit for a bitter partisan struggle. If a reasonable compromise had been arrived at, he, for one, would in the future have been a friendly critic, and not an opponent, of this Bill. As he understood it, the aim of the Government was to give the entire control of secular education to the local education authority, and to retain the denominational character of the denominational schools. He sympathised with that aim, but, in all seriousness, would the Bill of the Government effect that object? There were three different classes of opinion with regard to this measure: there were people who opposed the Bill root and branch, and desired a body elected ad hoc to control education; there were others who believed that the plan of the Bill was the only one by which denominational teaching in the schools could be continued; and there were also those who, without in anyway impugning the motives of the Government, were convinced that the measure would work out in clerical control, and that it would create conflict between the local authority and the denominational schools which was bound to end in the denominational schools going to the wall. What chance was there of harmonious working under a Bill by which the local authority was given the power of the purse? It would be to the interest of the local authority to obtain efficiency with the utmost possible economy. The local authority would have the complete control of secular education; what would the managers of the voluntary schools have? Against the five local managers whose interest it would be to get as much money as they could, there would be one representative of the major local authority whose interest would, he hoped, be efficiency, but also, very largely, economy. What chance of peace was there under such a system? It was no use setting up a local authority to take charge of elementary education unless they trusted that authority. In this struggle the local education authority would have the whip-hand all along Having the power of the purse they could insist on their demands being carried out, and as he read the Bill, they could require repairs and alterations of the fabric, by which means they would have an enormous hold over the denominational managers. He did not agree with those who said that no subscription would be needed in the future. If the local authority used its power very large calls might still be made upon private subscribers. There could be no harmony in a system which the local authority was always outvoted, and could be thwarted in details by co-managers not in sympathy with it, and where there was an essential difference on the question of economy between the majority of denominational managers and those appointed by the local authority. Under these circumstances he might reasonably be asked what he would do. He honestly declared that he would increase the representative control. If the local authority was to be master in regard to secular education it would practically be master of the whole, and if it was to be master of the whole it would be better to trust it. He would also provide that the head teacher or some proportion of the teachers should be of the denomination to which the school belonged, and the denominational instruction preserved. That plan had been described by the First Lord as absurd and ridiculous, but in his opinion it would work well enough. He believed the education given in Church schools would be quite as much in accordance with the average views of members of the Church of England as were the religious services in many of the churches. But there was one other possible solution. The question was the more difficult because of the Roman Catholics. The Catholics, by the sacrifices they had made, and by their claim to have a Catholic atmosphere in their institutions, were differentiated by the Church of England, and he would like to see their schools treated separately. That, however, was impossible. The only way in which a majority of representative control could be given, and at the same time, the denominational schools maintained according to the wishes of the bulk of the parents of the children in those schools, was by giving representation to the parents on the management. That would meet the Roman Catholic case, and it would increase the representative as opposed to the denominational element, but it would do it in such a way as to preserve the denominational character of the school whore the bulk of the parents or guardians of the children belonged to the denomination. He would not insist, however, on actual parents being selected. In many groups of schools there would be hardly any parents suitable to serve as managers. For the most part they were comparatively uneducated people. If a modest person, aware of his own deficiencies, were selected, he would hardly ever make his voice heard, or exercise any influence. On the other hand, if the person selected was of the type of the village agitator, then God help the Committee ! But did parents really care about education as a whole. He believed they did not care much, but it was of vital importance to the future of education that they should be brought to care more about it, and there was no way in which that end could be better secured than by giving them a voice in the management of the schools. As to religious education particularly, he believed that Anglicans and Nonconformists cared very much about religious education, but that they did not care very much about the exact dogmatic form that it took. They cared less about the "school with two doors" than they did about plain Biblical instruction such as was given in many of the large towns under the Cowper-Temple Clause. The influence of the parents would be strongly directed against those zealots who drove children to a Mass, no matter whether their parents were Churchmen or Nonconformists. There were in board schools 1,000,000 children belonging to the Church of England. Was there any outcry against the religious teaching given to those children? Wherever a new board school was set up, the complaint was immediately made by the Church schools that their children were taken away and sent to the new school. No one had declared more emphatically than the Vice-President of the Council that the religious difficulty did not exist in the schools—that it was felt only in Parliament and on the platform. There was one practical objection of a serious character to the representation of parents, viz., that there would have to be a register and an election. That difficulty, however, could be got over, and surely those who speak about the "inalienable right" of parents to have: their children brought up in their own religious belief could not object to the trouble involved. As he had said, he would make no more appeals. All they on that side could do now was to fight for their views, and he only hoped that, even at the eleventh hour, the Government would consent to give a larger proportion of representation to the local authorities or the parents.

said an obvious objection to the Amendment was that it implied in every case a Board of Managers, consisting of ten Members, which he contended would be an absolutely unworkable board for a single village school. All who were familiar with the number of persons in country villages who took sufficient interest in the schools to take an active part in the management, or knew th difficulty of securing five members for a village School Board, that ton was an unworkable number.

pointed out that his proposal was that the respective numbers should not exceed four and six. So long as that ratio was maintained his objection would be secured.

said there was no doubt that if the two parties were somewhat antagonistic, they would each appoint the maximum number. The Amendment was intended to raise the vital issue of the relative proportions of the managers of the voluntary schools. It was only one of many efforts on the part of the Opposition to capture the denominational schools in the public interest. Supporters of denominational schools should be careful how they accepted suggestions under the specious plea of a compromise. A compromise involved give and take on both sides, but there had been a disposition on the part of the Opposition unduly to take without considering what they could give in return. Many admirable people—the Bishop of Hereford and others—had proposed compromises, but their proposals had never involved the pure and simple transfer of the majority from the denomination to the public. There had, in each case, been safeguards which, in: the opinion of the proposers, were of a very substantial nature. With much reluctance, however, he had come to the conclusion that the proposed safeguards were either illusory, unworkable, or unacceptable. An integral part of the Bishop of Hereford's scheme was that the teachers of the schools should by statute be confined to members of the denomination to which the school belonged. But if such a proposal were put forward, complaint would at once be made that a new Test Act was being created. Another proposal was that the clergy should be admitted to the schools to give religions instruction, but such a scheme would be bound to provoke the most serious opposition. A further proposal was that the teachers should be appointed by the denominational managers. What then would be the position of the others? The appointment of teachers was one of the few functions left to the managers, and it would be extremely difficult to get suitable persons to act as managers if they were to be deprived of that duty. As to the suggestion that denominational and public managers should be appointed in equal proportions, with a chairman taken from the denomination, it was not a casual majority that was wanted, dependent upon the health or engagements of a particular manager, but a working majority. He thought the hon. Member had somewhat underrated the power of the minority to be appointed by the public body. One man management would be swept away by the Bill, unless it was assumed that all the appointed managers were going to neglect their duties and leave the matter to the clergyman of the parish. Not only that, but in all matters of secular instruction, the regulation of the local education authority would have to prevail, and the minority appointed would have it as one of their duties to see that these regulations were carried out. From that point of view he attached the greatest importance to the presence of one public representative, even on the management of the school. With regard to religious instruction there had been certain abuses which had been quoted in this House. These had arisen in a very small minority of cases, and they would be, he believed, under the new system most effectually exposed. It did not require a majority of managers to protest against and effectually expose abuses in these matters. They had only to appeal to public opinion outside. Public opinion in this country was not in favour of clericalism, and any managers, whether public or foundation managers, who used their position to expose abuses, would find plenty of backing and support in the public opinion around them. The foundation managers would be men, most, of them of common-sense, who would be quite ready to listen to the arguments of outside managers, if those arguments were sound and reasonable in themselves. What he wanted to submit was, that to go further than the Government were at present going in the matter would be to disestablish the denominational schools by a side wind. He thought it would be much fairer to adopt a more drastic system. It would be fairer to have compulsory leasing of the schools subject to a fair rent. That would be a drastic proposal, but it would be an honest one. He did not think it was honest to disestablish them by putting them in a constant minority in the management of their own schools. In time they might have a system somewhat approaching the Scotch system, in which public bodies, free from the restriction of the Cowper-Temple Clause, might be ready to give any denominational system they chose, but he did not think public opinion was ripe in England for that. It would be most unwise and dangerous to legislate against the opinion of the majority in this matter. In conclusion he would ask—were not the denominations, after all, giving the public a fair quid pro quo It was true that they were to be relieved of the financial responsibility for the upkeep of the schools—a financial responsibility from a great part of which they were relieved before this Bill was brought forward—and in return they were to be subject to the local education authority in the far greater matters that came within the field of school management. That authority would have even a veto on the dismissal of their teachers. That authority had the power to inspect their schools. [An HON. MEMBER: No.] The Government assured them that that was going to be put in the Bill. [An HON. MEMBER: No.] At any rate, everybody would admit that their were under very severe control in the matter of secular instruction, and they were obliged to accept as their colleagues persons whose presence might not be always agreeable to them. They were bound to keep up their buildings, and that might involve a burden. The standard of opposition might be raised under the new regime, and the hon. Member for Oldham went so far as to say that the local authority would have the whip hand. It was admitted by Gentlemen on the other side of the House that very heavy obligations were being imposed on the denominational managers in return for the financial aid they received under the Bill. There were only two matters which were not to be interfered with—the control of their religious instruction and the appointment of their teachers. If those matters were taken out of their hands by their being put in a permanent minority he thought they would have a right to complain that this House had imposed on them a very one-sided bargain. It was because he thought further progress in that direction would not be either a just or expedient attitude at the present moment that he would record his Vote against the Amendment.

said the hon. Member opposite had shown such a genuine educational interest in this Bill that they were all well disposed to give their best attention to whatever arguments he urged, but he could not believe that his views with regard to this particular Amendment would meet with general concurrence. He did agree with what the hon. Member said, that more satisfactory and complete control would be that the local authorities who were to pay all the expenditure for the upkeep of the schools should have the power of compulsorily purchasing the buildings, and of treating them as buildings provided by the authority. He believed that would be a much better proposal than the one before the Committee. But the one before the Committee was not one of their own choice. It was not their fault that there was not the power of purchasing or renting the buildings included in the Bill. One of his hon. friends did move such an Amendment, but it was resisted by the Government. He thought they would have to come to that in the end, but in the meantime they had to do the best they could. However, there was a one-sided bargain, and it was to the disadvantage of the ratepayers. He thought they ought to devote some attention this afternoon to a point which had received scant notice in the debates so far, namely, the ratepayers' point of view. There was being raised a new ratepaying question in the country districts by this Bill. In the country districts, or the great majority of them, a rate for education was a new thing. It would not be a popular thing. There would be a certain amount of grudging to pay. There was a tendency no doubt for rates to grow even in spite of the strongest desire on the part of the rating authority to keep them down, and that tendency to grow, he thought, was in exact proportion to the looseness of the control which the rating authority had over the spending of the rate. What was being done by this Clause was to impose on the County Council the obligation to provide for education out of the rates while giving a very remote control over the spending of the money. That was sure to lead to unnecessary expense, a certain amount of waste, and a considerable amount of grumbling. They had all this from the First Lord of the Treasury, on a previous part of the Clause. They had been twitted with making proposals that the County Council was to raise money and the Parish Council to spend it. There was. great force in the objection that the County Council should have to raise the money and have practically no voice in the spending of it. They were told that that was not so. Now they came to the present Clause, which provided that the County Council was to have one-sixth only of the management. They were to raise the rates, and they were to have only one-sixth of the power in the spending of the money. He did not know how the First Lord of the Treasury could reconcile the line he was going to take on this Amendment with the line he took in defending his proposal that the County Council, which raised the rates, would have control over the spending of the money. But the County Council was not to be able to choose the agents through whom the money was to be spent. That was not real control, and there was sure to be grumbling about the increase of the education rate unless they adopted some such Amendment as this. He was convinced that this Bill, from the ratepayers point of view, established a system which would not work without friction, and which would create so much friction that it could not last. Everybody knew that the control of the County Council must be remote, and that the management would be to a great extent in the villages. That management in the villages must be the one visible sign of authority to the people. The County Council would be able to say generally what was the best sort of education to be given in the schools of the country at large. They would be able to send an inspector occasionally to see whether the schools were kept up to the mark, and the way the children were treated. They were told that the people living in the villages would be stupid, that they did not understand that the County Council was the real controlling authority. He doubted that. He thought the stupidity was not on the side of the people in the villages. Was it impossible to preserve the ratepayers' control, and yet preserve the denominational character of the schools? As long as the buildings were left in the possession of private individuals he admitted that the denominational character of the schools must be preserved. What would the position be if representative control amounted to one half or two-thirds of the whole? One-half or one-third would be denominational and appointed by the trustees. There were a few districts where denominational teaching was altogether out of place because the denomination was not represented among the parents. Those districts could only be dealt with by some system of compulsory purchase or renting. The fact was, that if they could only get the real wishes of the parents, the denominational difficulty would disappear. The Cowper-Temple Clause would have to go; but if in every school there was a choice between plain Bible teaching and denominational teaching, he was convinced the vast majority of parents in the country desiring to have religious teaching would be satisfied to have, especially for children of tender years, plain Bible teaching. But as the Bill stood the parents would not have a majority in the denominational school, and they did not have a choice in the other schools, and their wishes therefore did not enter into the question at all. The hon. Member for London University had placed an Amendment on the Paper which gave ample security for the preservation of the denominational character of the schools, while giving popular control. "Would that not be satisfactory as a permanent settlement? At any rate, it would be a great improvement on the present state of things. It entirely met the argument from the Government side, that it was impossible to give more popular control without destroying the denominational character of the schools. He really thought that the First Lord of the Treasury, when he so often said that the Scottish system was not suited to England, might sometimes put it to himself how far the system of England would be likely to suit the Scottish people. It was most difficult to explain to a Scotsman what the English system of education was, and when it was explained, he did not believe the explanation. He thought one was making fun of him, and said it was impossible that his English neighbours should submit to anything of the kind. The system, even as improved under the Bill, was one which he did not believe the Scottish people would put up with for a moment. The hon. Member who had just sat down asked whether the denominational managers were not giving a fair return for the large amount of control which they would continue to have over the voluntary schools. He said that this scheme was increasing the amount of public money to the voluntary schools, but, after all, they had had so much money already. But that was just the point The scheme of his hon. friend was that, having put up with a one-sided system for long, that was to have an accumulative effect. It was true that more public control was given under this Bill than before; but they did not start fair before, otherwise they might have been more reasonably asked to put up with one-third of representative control as a return for the public money; but when they were told they ought to be pleased with the public control offered, it ought to be remembered that there was more public money being given, especially from the rates, in regard to which the public was most anxious to maintain a proper proportion between public expenditure and public control. He thought that, from the ratepayers' point of view alone, the Government were establishing a system which could not last. He was sure that when the pressure of the rate was felt there would be an increasing demand, which no Government would be able to resist, for representative popular management. The rates would be unpopular and the County Council would be criticised for having increased a burden already heavy. What would be the answer of the County Council? "We cannot help it; we must see to the interests of education." But he would be very much surprised if the County Councils did not do as the County Council of Essex had done in advance— begin to guard and protect themselves by saying "We must have a larger voice in the management of the schools." The rejection of proposals in the nature of a compromise was really sapping the foundation of the denominational system. An hon. Member, the other day, proposed a compromise for an exception to be made for parishes where there was only one school. But there were many parishes where there were two or three schools all belonging to the same denomination and which were as badly off as the parishes with only one school. Although the First Lord of the Treasury evidently did not see this, unless something in the nature of a compromise was accepted, the voluntary position would be undermined. Another compromise had been proposed by the hon. Member for London University, but that, apparently, was not to be accepted by the Government. If the Government adhered to the Clause as it stood, without accepting any Amendment now, an Amendment would be forced upon them from the outside. It was no good attributing the opposition to party agitation. The danger to the denominational schools would spring out of the pressure of administration of the Bill in the country. The Government, by not being aware of the great difference between rural districts and the borough districts, had been led to draw up a Bill which could not last. Whatever Government might be in power a few years hence would have to revise and overhaul the system freely and in the direction contended for by the Opposition.

said the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down said the scheme of the Government in addition to its many other defects, had the fundamental defect that it would not last, and would not effect the object for which it was framed, and that if it were passed in its present form the fate of the voluntary schools was sealed. If that were so, he could not understand why the Bill was so violently opposed by those with whom that result was the cherished wish of their hearts. They desired the very consummation which, according to the right hon. Baronet, this Clause was fated to bring about. He did not know what proportion of the right hon. Gentleman's friends did desire the destruction of the denominational schools, because there had been no fair and square issue on that point; but if Gentlemen outside the House, who were keeping this agitation alive, shared the view of the right hon. Gentleman, they would neither threaten the nonpayment of rates or the rapid extinction of the Unionist Party, or any other of the dreadful consequences which they had so freely foreshadowed. They would welcome the Bill as a short cut to the realisation of their aspirations. They ought to say that by the defeat of the Bill the voluntary schools could only be squeezed to death and slowly starved out, but by the passing of this measure with this Clause in it their object would be rapidly attained. They should say, "Let us hail this scheme with acclamation, let us embroider Clause 7 on our banners, and welcome it as a harbinger of the happy era when denominational schools shall be no more." He himself abstained from prophecy as to the ultimate future of the English system of education. Of his countrymen he had been told by the right hon. Gentleman that they could not be made to understand that system. They could be made to understand it if the historical genius of the system, if the evolution of history by which it had come about, were properly explained to them. They would not then think that it was other than illogical or wanting in I that happy simplicity which characterised the other side of the Tweed, but they would know too much of their neighbours to expect logic from them or any ignoring of the historical tradition by which English institutions, dear to the pride of the English people, had so often, but so illogically grown up. It was extremely foolish to indulge in prophecy. If public feeling really went against those schools, it might be that public sentiment would take hold of the undoubted illogicality which attached to these schools, and use it as an engine to destroy them. If it went in the other direction, they might equally seize on that not less obvious illogicality which attached to our absurd device—he said it with all respect—for limiting religious education by the Cowper-Temple Clause, and their whole object might be to destroy that Clause and make religious education free in the rate-aided schools. One of these two things might possibly happen. What the Committee could do now was to make the best of the system as they found it, and make it a workable educational system under which the people of this country might have, as they had never had before, a really organised system of primary and secondary education. So much for those who frankly desired to destroy the denominational character of the schools. The right hon. Gentleman did not, as he understood him, belong to that class. Whatever wishes he might entertain in his secret heart, he was perfectly prepared, as a practical statesman, to endeavour to preserve the denominational character of the schools. During the debates he had constantly heard the admission from hon. Members opposite that the denominational character of the schools must be and ought to be maintained. That did not represent the view of all the hon. Gentlemen opposite, for among them there was some disagreement on this as well as on other topics; but it represented the view of a great many, as well as of the right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken, and of the hon. Member for Oldham, who had made an interesting and moderate speech. But they saw grave objection to the method by which the Government sought to maintain the denominational character of the schools.

said he put it in this way. Denominational education must be preserved, unless they gave power to the authority to buy the buildings.

wished to recall to the Committee in logical sequence why it was that, sharing with the hon. Member for Oldham the view that the denominational character of these schools should be preserved, and sharing with the right hon. Baronet the qualified opinion he had expressed in the same direction, the Government thought this could not really be done except by the method they proposed. There were, so far as he could discover, but two methods of proceeding. The one was that proposed by his hon. friend the Member for the University of London, which had received a good deal of support in the public Press and for which he would not deny there was somewhat to be said. That was a plan by which statutory provisions should lay clown that the head teacher and others should belong to the denomination to which the school belonged and that the teaching should be of the denominational character to which the owners of the school desired. That was the main idea of the plan, and he could not believe that such a plan would work. He had been accused by the hon. Member for Oldham of having referred to it as an absurd or foolish plan. He was not aware that he had let slip those disparaging epithets, but if he had done so, he would not re-employ them. The problem was so enormously difficult that any serious attempt to solve it demanded respectful treatment, and if he had failed to accord the plan that treatment he would not refuse it on the present occasion. Let the Committee consider what would be the result of this legislative 'denominationalism, if he might use that expression—denominationalism not by choice or of the character imposed by the denomination owning the school, but denominationalism laid down by Act of Parliament and regulated by Act of Parliament alone, and administered by those who, by hypothesis, might not belong to the denomination at all. Consider what the scheme rested upon. In the first place you elect the body who select the teachers, but the maintenance of the religious teaching would be in the hands of a minority of the body of management. The teacher would be appointed by a minority of those who would control him day by day, so that he would not only be the servant of the managers and of the local authority, but servant of two sets of managers—for it was to be presumed that the "foundation managers," to use the phraseology of the Bill, would have a right to dismiss him should he fail to carry out their instructions, and it must be supposed the managers as a whole would have a right to dismiss him in a secular capacity, and the local authority would have similar power. So not only would this unfortunate man be serving three masters, but he would be appointed by the minority of the board of management, with whom he would be brought into daily relationship, and with whom he might possibly differ on some of his important responsibilities. It would be a difficult, embarrassing, unworkable position for that teacher. That was the first difficulty, and the second was no less strong. He agreed that the denominational character of the school would be maintained in legislative orthodoxy by statute, but he thought it would be preserved too rigidly, too closely. What was one of the objections constantly heard, not only from the other side of the House, but from friends of the Bill in the country, from its supporters among; moderate men on either side of politics, anxious to see a large and national scheme of education established? What: was one objection to the existing system? That in too many cases the whole management of education, religious and secular, was entirely in the hands of one man, the vicar or the rector of the parish, who chose the schoolmaster as well as everything else connected with education. Some abuses had been mentioned as resulting. He did not know how far the blood-curdling stories they had heard were true, though he was sure they could only have rarely occurred, but he was not prepared to deny that cases of abuse might occur and had occurred. They would occur under a system of statutory denominationalism, because you deliberately exclude all the new elements of management he desired to introduce, and by the Bill were introduced, into the general scheme of school management. In the interest of breadth and tolerance, largely attained by the influence of the lay element in the selection of the schoolmaster, he should greatly regret the restriction by statute to the managers who represented the denomination, and to them alone. If the denominationalism of schools was not to be preserved by the statutory method, was there any other method that could be suggested that did not depend on a majority? He had listened for suggestions, and had made drafts on his own ingenuity, but had found no such method. If there was no such method, then what should the majority be? Whatever objection there might be to four to two could be equally alleged against three to two with some disadvantages, including an element of uncertainty not desirable to introduce into legislation. One result might seem possible to ardent enemies of denominational schools—that one of the denominational managers might happen to be ill or away, and in his absence the management might fall into the control of the undenominational minority, who might have the opportunity of selecting a schoolmaster hostile to the general view of the denomination to whom the school belonged. That certainly would introduce the greatest dissatisfaction. He could not see that it would do more to satisfy the desire of hon. Members to see secular education really in the control of a popularly elected body. Did not the scheme of the Government, although it gave a majority to the denomination, secure the control of secular education to a public body? He asserted it did so; and, if it could be shown it did not, then Amendments in Clause 8 could be introduced to carry out that intention. It had been made the cardinal pivot of their educational policy that the educational authority providing the funds should control the secular education. That being so, what did the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down say in reference to the machinery by which this, policy was attempted to be carried out? The right hon. Gentleman, and he thought also the hon. Member for Oldham, took the view that, because there was only one representative of the local educational authority out of two, friction would be produced and control not secured. But why should this produce friction? It was not a new plan, the representation on a relatively large board of the controlling authority through a single member, the Welsh intermediate education system offered an example, the central authority subscribing to the educational institution and having representation in proportion; but there had been no difficulty from I friction in the past, nor did he believe there would be in the future in the work of management. He would come now to the crucial, critical, and more important question of control. The right hon. Gentleman said that one of the difficulties to be faced in the future would be the unpopularity that would result from the increase in rates from the imperfect control of the educational authority over expenditure and consequent waste. He thought the right hon. Gentleman had not sufficiently considered the character of that expenditure. So far as that expenditure was upon structural alterations and the buildings, it would, of course, not fall on the ratepayers at all, but upon the denominational managers, who would I have every motive for economy. So far as it was not for structural alteration, the great element of expenditure was the number and salaries of teachers, and both these sources of expenditure would be as effectually under the control of an educational authority twenty miles away as if that authority lived in the village a hundred yards away from the school. The right hon. Gentleman said the village folk would never recognise the distant authority, and would regard the managers, before their eyes as responsible for the control. He did not think that would happen, because the control would be demonstrated to them day by day, and they would know from their absolute relations with the managers that the persons who ultimately controlled all these great secular educational interests were not the people who met once a week or once a month in the schoolhouse, but that central authority to which they, like all the other ratepayers of the county, contributed their share of electoral energy. He thought they might dismiss the idea that the villagers of England would never know who was managing their education. It had been asked, what was the machinery by which the central authority would impose its will on the managers? The machinery was the most effective that had ever been discovered, the power of the purse; and if they told him that that power, by its very excess, must fail, that the remedy was too violent, that the central authority would not dare to apply it, and that, consequently, the remedy, however effective on paper, would prove ineffectual in practice, his reply was that this was the very machinery, the very instrument, by which Whitehall had controlled the education for all the voluntary schools in the country during all these years. ["Hear, hear!" and a LIBERAL MEMBER: Failed to control.] He did not think so. If the hon. Gentleman meant that the Board of Education had constantly dealt leniently with voluntary schools for educational reasons which were perfectly well understood, that did not say that they had not got the means of control in their hands. That instrument of control had been found perfectly effective in the past, and it was found effective in almost all spheres of human government and human activity, and there was no satisfactory reason why it should not be found perfectly effective in the case of the central education authority. It had been suggested that the central authority would not know what was going on. But all that the managers did must be known to the representative of the central authority, and, being known, he could bring to bear that overpowering instrument of coercion which the central authority had at their disposal. That was the plan of the Bill. That plan he believed to be effective, but he did not think it would pass the wit of man, if any largo body of men thought it was ineffective, to strengthen it when they came to the provisions of Clause 8. He had attempted to show why it was that the alternative plans were ineffective or otherwise open to objection for preserving the denominational character of the schools, and why the Government plan for carrying out that object was the best for its purpose, and how it was that, while it was the best for that purpose, it did not imperil that other, and in some respects, from the educational point of view, that greater purpose of giving absolute control of all the secular education to those great county and urban authorities on whom, he thought, they ought more and more to concentrate the great responsibility of local self-government.

said what they wanted was a good educational system for this country, and they could not welcome any scheme which would not last. The right hon. Gentleman had claimed for his scheme that it would provide a workable system. The whole point and argument of the Opposition was that it was not a workable system. The right hon. Gentleman had claimed that the one representative of the central authority, with a Clause in the Bill, would have complete control over the secular education in the schools. Let him present the right hon. Gentleman with a solution of this question based on his own principle and argument. Let there be four men to deal with secular education, and let there be one man, with a Clause in the Bill, to say that that one man should have the whole control of the denominational education. It was perfectly idle to suppose that they were giving the education authority, through this one representative, any power really to control these schools. What would be the position of this one gentleman? He would find himself, not perhaps upon great questions, but in the constant everyday questions that arose in the management of the schools, in a perpetual minority. If they could conceive that such a man was a Nonconformist, one man out of six, what attention did they think he would receive, what control would he have over the daily or weekly management of the school? He would be in perpetual conflict with the body of managers, and his position would be intolerable. Nobody could say this was a workable scheme. Suppose the local education authority wanted something done and the managers did not do it, what had the delegate of the local authority to do? He had to report them to the authority, and the authority had to report them to the Board of Education in London.

Not at all.

Have you read your 8th Clause, which says that if any difference of opinion arises it is to be determined by the Education Board in London.

No, not at all. You have got it all wrong.

(reading—

"If any question arises under this section between the local education authority and the managers of a school, that question shall be determined by the Board of Education."

Now, was not I right? The hon. Gentleman does not know his own Bill.

That is all wrong.

said he had no doubt the Bill was all wrong; that he knew. But for the moment he was right as to Clause 8. He recommended the right hon. Gentleman in the course of the vacation to study Clause 8, Sub-section 2. As the right hon. Gentleman thought it all wrong, he hoped he would accept the Amendment on the Paper to strike out Sub-section 2, and get rid of the reference to the Board of Education. His object was to make the education authority the absolute master of the school, so that it would not be necessary for it to go to some other authority and enter upon a red-tape correspondence in reference to every detail of management by means of which these four gentlemen could set it at defiance, knowing that nothing could happen for twelve months or two years. The Government said that their plan gave absolute control of the school to the education authority. It did nothing of the kind. It placed that body in a subordinate position altogether, and made the plan absolutely unworkable. These denominational managers would practically have the sole control of the school. It must be so, because, as the hon. Member for East Somersetshire had said, they were the working majority, and the working majority in any body, whether Parliament or a board of directors, had the control of the concern. But if the local authority had not the control of the school, then denominational education became everything and secular education became a subordinate object in the school. What was the reason? It was the old cry that the Church was in danger, in the name of which terror so much injustice had been done in the past, injustice which the persistent resistance of the people had done much to redress, as this injustice would be redressed if it were carried into law. What was the attitude of the Church and its representatives on this question? They said, "Oh, unless you give us an overwhelming majority to overpower the lay element and outvote the education authority—" [Ministerial cries of "No!"].

said that the denominational members of the board of managers were, in many instances, laymen themselves.

Yes, but they are what you call ecclesiastical laymen.

Excuse me. I did not speak of laymen in this House. I spoke of managers of ordinary elementary schools in the country, and I say that the great majority of them are laymen, and not at all ecclesiastical laymen, as any one who knows the state of matters in the country parishes will bear me witness.

said he was very glad to receive the assurances of the right hon. Gentleman that ecclesiastically-minded laymen did not flourish in the country. If that was so, the country was happier than he had believed it to be. But he rather thought that these co-opted laymen would have, at all events, what he would call an ecclesiastical flavour. But why was it that the Church was in such a state of terror at this infusion of popular control? Was this great Church, with all the resources of the Establishment, with its Wealth, with its social influence, in danger of being destroyed unless it could have a majority of four to one against the education authority? What a view that was to present to the country of the Church of which Members like the right hon. Gentleman were the representatives. Was it the case that if they left the managers of these schools to popular election they would necessarily be hostile to the Church? Hon. Members representing the views of Convocation in the House said:—"Oh, for heaven's sake do not let us have popular control. If the breath of popular control comes upon us wo shall be undone." He confessed that if he were a member of Convocation, which he was not, if he were even a delegate to Convocation, he would be averse to presenting the Church in such an attitude as that. Why did they assume that every elected member, whether it were of the Town Council or of the Parish Council, would be hostile to them on the Board of managers? Had they no friends on the Parish Council? Were the clergy so little loved? Had they no friends on the County Councils of this country? Was it so absolutely certain that the gentlemen selected by the County Council would not join with the four denominational members, but would always vote against them? If not, why should it be assumed that the Church would have no share of the popular control? Could they not appeal with any confidence at all to the goodwill of the people of the country, and especially in the rural districts? Why, everybody knew that the Church, and the classes which supported the Church, had the predominant influence in most of the counties, and, therefore, in many counties the Church would have not four members but the whole six on its side. Therefore it seemed to him to be not merely ungenerous, but to show distrust of their own sect and of the position of the Established Church, to produce so selfish a Bill, which took for its basis a statutory power to overrule popular control and popular election. But he was happy to say that there were Churchmen who took a different view of the position of the Church. He read two or three days ago a letter from a gentleman whose name was well known in connection with the management of schools—Mr. Digby, a fervent denominationalist—which said—

"As to the religion's character of the education, it is entirely a gratuitous assumption that the representatives of the education authority will be antagonistic to the religions spirit in which the elementary schools have hitherto beer, conducted. Men do not change their religions convictions because they chance to be representatives of the ratepayers."

The supporters of the Bill thought the ratepayers would necessarily be enemies of the Church. He did not know why that view was adopted, and he believed it to be not well-founded. He believed there were ratepayers who were friends of the Church. He wished he could persuade the representatives of the Universities to believe that. The writer of the letter which he had quoted went on to say—

"And it would not be possible in practice for any local education authority to choose as their representatives persons of no religions convictions whatever."

He would ask those who were interested to attend to the next sentence—

"The best friends of the Church of England in particular are those who are not jealous of public authority and are not afraid to trust their cause to a people the great majority of whom they believe to be wholly friendly to their principles and organisation."

If the authors of the Bill had believed that the people of this country were friendly to their religion and their organisation they would not have proposed such a Measure as this. They would never have thought it necessary to secure to themselves a private monopoly against public control. If they could not believe that, in the event of their giving voice to the people in this great question of the education of the people, the people would support them, it was because they had no confidence in the attachment of the nation to their cause. A Bill of this character was really a monstrous injustice in itself, because it proposed to give a majority to a particular denomination, and did not trust the voice of the people in controlling national education.

said a good many hon. Members were sincerely anxious that an Education Bill, brought in after a long series of more or less unsuccessful efforts to deal with this problem, should be carried to a successful issue, and do something really effective in the direction of improving the education of this country. He was glad to recognise in the speech of the hon. Member for Oldham that he belonged to this class and if he was disappointed that certain hon. Members did not come up to the views and pretensions which they had put forward in conference upstairs, he could assure him that that disappointment was not confined to his side of the House, but it was inevitable that on both sides such disappointments should occur. When they came to discuss the details of legislative proposals it was inevitable that some differences of opinion would show themselves. He sympathised with the hon. Member in the view that in this Bill they were bound to make adequate provision for the maintenance of denominational teaching in those schools where it was now carried on, but he differed from him as to the means by which that object could be best secured. He threw in his opinion unreservedly with the Government, and he contended that the plan which they had laid before the House was the proper one for achieving that object. He would ask the Committee to believe that he was actuated by a desire to promote the best interests of education in the village schools of which they had heard so much. At the present time there was not an atom or a vestige of popular representation in any of those schools, and the trust deeds, where they existed, determined the appointment of the members. They had absolute control of the education in their schools and of their management and administration subject to such authority as was exercised by the Board of Education. The portion of the funds which the denomination subscribed might be put at about one-eighth because on the average it cost £2 6s. per head to carry on education in voluntary schools, and something like £2 of that came from the public purse. Whatever drawbacks there might be to that system it had in the past worked successfully without any serious complaint, and that system was working in some 7,000 or 8,000 parishes in the country. What the Government said was that, in the interests of the efficiency; of education and of the children who attended schools in those parishes, they were obliged to change the existing system. The demand for increased efficiency could not be resisted, and in the interests of educational efficiency they wore going to remodel the system. But it must be done with some regard to the fact that, at the present time, these denominational managers were in possession; and, secondly, it must be remembered that they were the holders and trustees of a large endowment in the shape of school buildings which they could not be expected to relinquish except for some pecuniary consideration, or else for the continuance of a certain amount of control in order that the denominational teaching which they thought was of the utmost importance might be properly maintained and safeguarded. As he had said before, the denominational managers were practically free in the management of these schools at the present time. This Bill wholly transformed, absolutely and entirely, that state of things. The control of secular education was taken from them and given to the local authority which was elected by the ratepayers; and, although they contributed only one-eighth towards maintaining those schools, the ratepayers got in exchange the entire control of the secular part of the education, and also a very considerable representation on the managing Board. So far from suggesting that this arrangement was not adequate, he thought it was the very least that could be done; and when hon. Members talked about compromise and said there had been no disposition to compromise matters they should remember that the proposals of the Government were the very least that could be done for the voluntary schools consistently with justice and with securing the denominational character of their schools. This control of the denominational features of education was to be preserved, and he thought they were all agreed upon that. The method and plan put forward by the Government is a natural, obvious, legitimate, and reasonable method, and they could hardly expect the Government to depart from that plan without alienating a great quantity of support on their own side, and imperilling the provisional settlement of a question which was admitted to be extremely difficult to deal with. What was it these managers had to do? Their first and most important duty was the appointment of teachers. Hitherto there had been no outside control in this matter. Now if they appointed a teacher who was unfit, the appointment could be cancelled by the local education authority. The managers now had control of the subjects of instruction and had to decide what proportion of time should be allocated to each subject. They would, under this Bill, retain that power, but they would be liable to interference from the local authority, and, therefore, in that respect their powers would be seriously abridged. There were many other details of management over which voluntary schools had hitherto had undisputed powers, and which, under this Bill, they would no longer be able to exercise in the future. Although he agreed that a certain amount of power would remain with the people actually on the spot, yet it was evident that their position was quite different to that which they enjoyed before this Bill came into operation. Considering this matter from a purely practical point of view, and leaving out the denominational aspect, and considering it from the point of view of endeavouring to get together a competent body of people to manage these schools, he asked the Committee did they seriously think that the best way to obtain such a body was to ask the Parish Council to appoint them. Apart from all theories and notions about taxation and representation going together, and apart from all prejudices, if they wanted to get in a small place a competent body of men and women qualified to conduct the schools, did they really think it would be the best plan to ask the Parish Councils or the education authority to nominate them?. He thought they ought to get them from the population of the district: in which they were to serve. They had, in the House of Commons at least, three hon. Members who had had much actual experience of the working of these schools, and they knew perfectly well how the system worked in many parts of the country. He would ask any of these hon. Members which would be the best method of getting together a good local body—the method by popular election or the method which would ensure that, at all events, a certain proportion of the persons sitting on the board of management were persons of some education, who had a strong feeling as to the value of education, and of the way in which it should be conducted? In the education debates in this House it had always been said by the Vice-President, and also by the gentlemen he had named, that they thought the one-man school, the clergyman's, was a much better place for education than the school managed by a small village School Board. Even on the practical ground of bringing together the body of men best qualified to conduct, or, at all events, to control, so far as they could control, secular education in small districts and villages, the plan proposed by the Bill would be better than the plan which hon. Members opposite appeared to favour. They must recollect how they stood. They could not do exactly as they liked in this matter. They had not that "clean slate" which was so much desired by some hon. Gentlemen opposite. They had to deal with ingrained habit, and with the development of an old and complicated system, and they must make some allowance for custom and tradition, and, if they liked, even for prejudice in this matter. In order to come to a settlement which would be satisfactory to a large majority of the people of this country, they might have to give way on this or that point, and to sacrifice their own convictions in the interest of education and of peace. It was in that spirit he appealed to the Committee to bring to a close, as soon as they conveniently could, this protracted and sometimes acrimonious discussion, because he thought they must be aware that it was impossible for the Government to do otherwise than to secure in those schools a preponderance of the denomination. Nothing short of that would satisfy their friends on this side of the House. It was impossible for the Government to make any further concession on that point. He did not think that in the actual operation of the Bill they would find any of those chimeras and gorgons which the fertile imagination of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire had prophesied. The Bill would bring an infusion of that popular element into the management of the schools to which hon. Members opposite attached so much importance, and he thought they should have more regard than they had hitherto shown for the natural feelings of those who desired that the piety and benevolence of their forefathers and contemporaries should not be altogether thrown away, and that the teaching which prompted them should still be continued in the schools they, at much sacrifice to themselves, had founded. He appealed to the good sense and good feeling of hon. Members opposite, and asked them to recognise the necessities of the case and the position the Government were compelled to take up.

said that the hon. Member for East Nottingham had expressed a wish to curtail this debate. He did not know how very much the hon. Member had helped that by a very long speech. He would not follow his example in that way, but he wished to point to a remark of the Prime Minister with regard to the Welsh scheme. He said the subscriptions there helped materially to get the management. That was not the case. It did not depend upon subscriptions at all. Both the authority elected by the County Council and other, wise, and the local management were "broad-based upon the people's will." One-fifth were elected by the County Council, the rest were elected by the minor local bodies. So the success of the Welsh system was dependent on the fact that it had thoroughly representative management and a thoroughly representative local authority. In addition to that, the right hon. Gentleman had continually maintained that the power of the purse under his scheme was a strong one, but the hon. Member was perfectly certain that the veto that went along with this power of purse might be a strong one too. It did not, however, go far enough to meet them on that question. The Prime Minister had dealt with the fact that, owing to the power of the purse, there would be absolute control over the secular part of the education. It baffled him altogether to understand how two out of six, as against four, could possibly have absolute control over the secular education of the schools, and he would tell the right hon. Gentleman why one of the main factors in connection with secular education was the teacher. In fact, the school was only a body without a teacher. The teachers in these schools were the souls of the schools. How was it possible for these two, granted that they had the veto of the authority at their back, to be strong enough to overpower the four in the election of all teachers? He believed that the right hon. Gentleman had dropped a hint more than once that he intended, when they discussed Clause 8, to show them that these four would not only elect the teachers, but that there would be more elasticity to meet the grievances of Nonconformists. It was absolutely impossible for the Nonconformist pupil teacher to have a chance of being elected as a teacher. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman, either that night or before the adjournment for the holidays, would let the House have the benefit of the scheme that was in his mind, so as to facilitate the progress of the debate. But in connection with the four against two, hon. Members opposite had had their four since last Friday, and the Opposition were now endeavouring to increase the two, so as to have some sort of juxtaposition in co-relation with the power of the majority in regard to the four. One of the two, if not the two, would surely be denominational. Take the county of Suffolk. He believed the County Council of Suffolk contained fifty-six Churchmen, as against six Nonconformists. What chance had the Nonconformists, or the secular body, of being represented, either on the education authority or the Board of Management, when they had got such a majority of Churchmen as that? The Churchmen would possibly have the two, and if they had the whole six, what chance was there of the appointment of any teacher outside the denominational body? He asked the Prime Minister to see whether he could not broaden the popular element in order that this Bill might work smoothly. There was a great deal of good in the Bill. He had always maintained for the sake of the education of this country that they could not get any efficiency without the co-ordination of the educational system. It was not the theoretical idea that worked, but the practical system, working through personality, through men and women, with a bias and a prejudice, and there were places where, through bias and prejudice, the vast majority of the managers would be denominational, and they and the schools would be worked mainly in the interests of denominationalism. He asked, therefore, for the sake of the education efficiency and the work of teaching under this scheme, that the representative element should be made-more elastic.

said it seemed that he was considered a dangerous person, because he was described as a representative of the ecclesiastically-minded layman.

I did not address myself to the right hon. Gentleman. I spoke of a class with which we are acquainted.

said he did not think it was a great reproach to be an ecclesiastically-minded layman, if one believed in the Church to which one belonged. He did not think it was at all reasonable to suppose that the managers would be necessarily divided. His experience of rural life led him to think that when men met together on a Board, their first impulse was to try to work together, and to range themselves as they did in this House, into parties. In the County Councils they had no religions controversies—at least, he could say that in regard to the County Council for Kent, to which he belonged. He had not the slightest conception as to the number of Nonconformists or Churchmen there were in that County Council. They were simply a public body trying to carry out their public functions in the best way that commended itself to their judgment. To suppose that the numerous educational authorities would begin by arranging themselves into hostile camps, seemed to him one of those chimeras which would fade away like the morning mist when the Bill came into actual operation. Another fallacy of these debates was the frequent assumption that there was only one representative of the popular authority. Why was the one who represented the minor local authority not to be regarded as a popular representative? But the leading fallacy which pervaded almost all that had been said in regard to this Clause seemed to him to be that they were starting out from an entirely fresh point of view, or, as the right hon. Gentlemen opposite would say, that they were starting with "a clean slate." Those hon. Members forgot that they were the inheritors of a double system—the system of the School Boards, and the system of the schools managed by Committees—the denominational schools. Surely it was a very odd thing to suppose that they were to keep those latter schools in existence at all, they were to keep them on a principle to which their founders were absolutely opposed. In passing, he must say that these Church of England schools were founded at a time when hon. Gentlemen opposite had not developed their present zeal for education. [Opposition cries of "No, no."]

Oh, no! Lancaster and Bell came before you.

said that at the time he was speaking of, fifty years ago, the great bulk of the elementary educational supply of the country was furnished by the Church of England. It would be a monstrous injustice, and a perversion of the regular progress of events by which in this country we were accustomed to govern our public life, to re-arrange the school system without regard to those foundation principles. The right hon. Gentleman assumed that all denominational schools were schools of the Church of England, but there were other denominational schools, such as the Roman Catholic Schools, whose principle—the reason for their existence—was that they were founded for the maintenance of a particular religious creed; and to tell supporters of such schools that they were suddenly to give up to a chance majority the maintenance of that religious faith for which they were founded was, he thought, an insult they would be the first to resent. They would say, "If you are to treat us in that way, sweep us away boldly once for all, and give us secular education tempered by facilities for religious education all round." They must do the one thing or the other—they must maintain the denominational schools, or denominational principles, or got rid of them altogether. Another fallacy underlies the constant demand for a compromise. The Bill itself was a compromise on this question of management. As his hon. friend (Mr. Bond) had just said, that was so obvious that it hardly needed repeating; but hon. Gentlemen opposite did not seem to understand it, although he would not for a moment suggest that they had any lack of apprehension. They did not seem to be able to comprehend his position and that of those who agreed with him. This Bill, he maintained, was an attempt to reconcile two existing forces in the country — the force of undenomiuationalism, so very strongly represented by the hitherto board schools, now called provided schools; and the force of education based on definite religious instruction, which was represented by the denominational schools. The Government had tried their best to produce a measure which would make a compromise between the two. Did hon. Gentlemen opposite imagine that this was a Bill to which the adherents of the Church of England gave their hearty, their enthusiastic support? Things were very different indeed outside. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouth went down to Hampshire he would advise him to ask his Church friends there—he supposed the right hon. Gentleman bad some still—whether they ardently, keenly, enthusiastically supported the proposals of the Government? He thought the right hon. Gentleman would find that these friends of his would say: "Well, we will take them as the best we can get." They were told that this Bill was a creation of the Church party. What a compliment to the Church party! How enormously strong they must be in the House and in the country when they could frame and carry a Bill of this kind! It might be a consolation to the right hon. Gentleman, who felt so very strongly on this point—at least, he expressed himself strongly—to know that this Bill only went a very little way in the direction in which the most ardent and uncompromising churchmen would desire to go. They believed and hoped that the Bill would work well, but they felt that they were taking upon themselves a very serious burden in undertaking the maintenance of the fabric of the schools. The right hon. Gentleman smiled at that; he might go even further, and say that it was ridiculous; but did the right hon. Gentleman think that that was going to be done for nothing? He had heard it said that the greatest difficulty would be to raise the funds for the maintenance of the schools; and he was quite sure that when they came to London that would be found to be an excessive burden. He had endeavoured during the Second Reading, and throughout these debates, to approach this subject from an educational point of view. He knew he was supposed to represent the irreconcilable side of the ecclesiasticism, but he earnestly desired to approach this question from a purely educational point of view. This was a very serious and important effort on the part of the Government to re-model the educational system of the country, and that could only be done by a recognition of the facts of the case; and it was because he believed that the facts of the case had been taken into consideration in the preparation of the Bill that he gave it his hearty support.

said he was very glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University say that, in his opinion, the managers of the voluntary schools would work together in amity; but if that were so, he could not understand why the hon. Gentleman should be so anxious not to let them, as representatives of the ratepayers, have the control. It was only fair if the ratepayers were going to find the money that they should have the control. He spoke feelingly, because he happened to be a member of the Technical Instruction Committee of the Cheshire County Council, and he tried to look at this matter from a neutral point of view. He was perfectly sure that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House had no conception of what the feeling of the country was as to this Clause and on the question of the control of the schools. He was not talking merely of the Liberal but of the Conservative party also. He felt certain, from what he knew of the counties of Lancashire and Cheshire, and also of Bedfordshire which he represented, that when hon. Members opposite went down to their constituencies, they would find a feeling among the people of which they had no notion, sitting hero in London. It was not that the people objected to the Bill because it maintained the voluntary schools. There were men on both sides of the House who wore anxious to see the maintenance of the voluntary schools, but they did not believe that justice was done to the ratepayers, if these were to find the money for the support of the schools, and that the parson was to have control of them. The people would not stand clerical control of the schools. This was not a new point. It had already come before many of the County Councils. The County Council of Cheshire had had the whole of this, matter thrashed out at a special meeting. Now, that county was by no means a liberal county; its tone was thoroughly Conservative. Well, that County Council passed a resolution that, if the ratepayers of the county were to find the money for those schools, they should have the control and management of them. The same kind of resolution had been passed by the County Council of Durham, and even also in the agricultural County of Essex; and the great County boroughs like Manchester were making claims of the same description. As the owner of a voluntary school, he would be glad to have the money of the ratepayers and still remain the owner of the schools. The owner of voluntary schools had a great deal to do with the expenditure of the money spent on the voluntary schools. The County Councils would not spend a penny of the money without the consent of the managers, who would have a great deal of control. He had always, in the past, felt it was a great injustice that a man like himself should have the entire control in the expenditure on these voluntary schools, and yet until now seven-eighths of the cost had been found by the ratepayers. He felt it was a crying shame, and if that was so in the past the shame was much greater now when the voluntary school owners would not find a penny of the money, yet all the control would remain in their hands. The control of the County Councils, the representatives of those who found the whole of the money, was one manager out of six. The absence of popular control was going to have very serious effect upon the education of the country. The only places where any real interest was taken in elementary education had been those places where the pupils had been educated by the board schools and the parents themselves had control of education. In one town with which he was familiar, where they had nothing but voluntary schools, the people took no interest whatever in the matter, whereas in the town he had the honour to represent they had the best schools, and the people took the greatest interest in education. This Bill would freeze out all popular interest in education throughout the country, and upon that ground alone he condemned the Bill as a bad bill, because it would take away from the people all that interest in education that had been growing for the last thirty years. If parents were to be represented on the management of the schools, their representative, he thought, should be elected by themselves. The suggestion that the local authority should elect a parent was a proposal without much force behind it, for the reason that, if the local authority did not intend to remedy grievances of which the parents complained, they were not likely to elect a parent who did not agree with their views on the matter. The franchise was the great difficulty with regard to election by the parents, and he was of the opinion that the district should elect a person to represent them, without insisting that he should, be a parent, who would take an interest in the schools; the people who were so keen to have control of the voluntary schools were the clerically minded, more especially the parsons, and he did not believe there were a large number of parents who cared for sectarian education for their children. His schools were absolutely undenominational, taking church and chapel children alike, and there never had been any complaint from the parents of any child because the education was not of a sectarian character. A friend of his who owned an undenominational voluntary school half-a-mile from the church schools had told him that to talk of sectarian education was all nonsense, the kind of reason that parents took their children away from a school was because they had quarrelled with the master; the desire of parents for sectarian education had been very much exaggerated by the clerical-minded party and the Church party. The fact was the parson naturally desired to keep control over the school because he regarded it as a seed-bed for his church. That was the real secret why the parsons were so desirous to maintain the voluntary school system, but that was no reason why they should give the money of the ratepayers and the taxpayer to assist the parson in his desire. With regard to the management of the schools and the control of the ratepayers, he hoped before the Autumn the right hon. Gentleman might in the country see, that he had made a mistake and that there would remain, if this Bill went through in its present form, a feeling of great bitterness, and a sense of great injustice in the minds of the people. Many clergymen of the Church of England were in favour of popular control of the schools. They were the longheaded men who were wise in their generation, because if this Bill went through in its present form, and it was felt to be an act of injustice that a parson should rule the school which the ratepayers found the money for, the person was bound to become unpopular. He could only hope some compromise might be arranged in the autumn which would give the ratepayers their rights in the control and the management of these schools.

thought it incumbent upon him to say a word in favour of this Amendment, though he sat on the Unionist side of the House. He regretted very much that no compromise had been effected, although reasonable compromises had been suggested, notably by the hon. Member for the University of London. He thought Englishmen outside the House regretted this, and he was sure that many of the supporters of the First Lord of the Treasury would deeply regret it. Eighty supporters of the Government had applied to the right hon. Gentleman to effect a compromise. It was only a small section who wanted to fight it out to the bitter end, or would not admit any of the claims of the State, and the State was somebody after all. As to the share of the State in the matter, the arrangement was, in his opinion, a preposterous one. The local authority, which was to pay for and control those schools, was, by the plan of the Government, put in a minority. That was not the way Englishmen generally managed their affairs, and it was not treatment they would mete out to anyone but the State. He held that the local authority was entitled to absolute financial control, and also to a majority of the management. But there he must part company with hon. Members opposite, for he thought the Church was entitled to have its denominational teaching safeguarded. The Clause as it stood would be detrimental to the Church, for it would give the local authority and dissenters a grievance, and multiply the enemies of the Church. It would emphasise the division between Church and State, and lead to an agitation and attack upon the Church. The withdrawal of the option had completely altered the situation as regarded Clause 7. He did not think it ought to have been withdrawn if they were going to maintain Clause 7. If the local authority could have rejected or adopted the Bill as they thought proper this Clause would have lost all its sting. Now it appeared to him they were forcing it on the local authority in a most offensive way, derogatory to its authority, and, he thought, hostile to the State.

said that if he thought the effect of this Clause would be to increase clerical control he should have opposed the whole Bill, but he believed that it was calculated to very materially reduce clerical control. One of the objections he had to the Bill, as it originally stood, was that it was possible, under it, for three men to constitute the local managers and form a sort of hole-and corner business; but now that the Prime Minister had adopted the Amendment, which he (Mr. Randles) had also put down—that there should be a Committee of six and not three—he felt that they were getting more local management. He also felt that where they had half a dozen Englishmen sitting round a table in the interests of education, though the parson might be there, and though he might be reinforced by his curate, yet they had four men who were not clerical—men who had no interest in particular in maintaining any of those doctrines which the Member for Halifax referred to as relating to damnation and the rest of it—they had men who absolutely disapproved of every variation of that kind which might be introduced into the school teaching, and thus they would have a certain amount of safety. But, after all, the real control was the purse. Those who had the power of the purse would be the effective controllers of the management of the schools in the towns and villages. If they were beginning de novo it would be very easy to establish a system which all might approve, but it was foolish not to recognise established facts. There was the plant and the machinery in the hands of men who had spent their money on it, and they could not take it away from them now. It must be recognised that they had a certain position in respect of religious education, and this Clause maintained what was their right and privilege. Hon. Members on the other side refused to accept what he thought was a fair compromise.

said that both the hon. Member who had just sat down and the Prime Minister assumed that it was desirable or inevitable that, in rural districts where there was only the Church school, denominational teaching should be forced upon the people, though the people themselves did not wish it.

They can establish another school.

said that position was felt to be intolerable. As a result of some of the speeches that had been made he was almost driven to the conclusion that it was the minority that ruled, and that it was really a great mistake to be in a majority. What he found was that, when the representatives of the people were to be the minority, the power of the minority was extraordinary, but when it was suggested that if the representatives of the denomination were in a minority they would also have some power, they wore told at once that that minority would have no power whatever. The power of the purse possessed by the local education authority, with a board of managers, two-thirds of whom were nominated by the denominationalists, would be practically nil the managers did not regard the instructions of the Board of Education, they would lose money, and they would have to meet the deficiency out of their own pockets or the pockets of their friends But under this Bill, if they did not obey the local education authority, they would not lose a single farthing. Supposing the local education authority declined to pay the money to the school, what power had they to continue that refusal? They would have to meet their obligation. Supposing the managers still disobeyed, there was an appeal to the Education Department, which was supreme over the local authority, but after their experience of that Department in the past, they would not have much faith in that appeal. The Prime Minister had suggested that they might refuse to pay, and close the school or build another school. They could not build another school without the sanction of the Education Department, so there again the control was limited by the authority in Whitehall. It was the authority in Whitehall that would have the power; but the authority there did not pay the money direct to the school, and therefore the direct connection and control which existed between the authority in Whitehall and the school would cease, because the money would be paid by the County Council. If they were to build another school, it meant an increased rate, and that was another influence in favour of the denominational schools. If the denominational managers defied the local education authority, they first of all had the appeal to the Education Department, and then they had the very powerful lever in their hands that, if the local education authority dealt with them stringently, a local rate would have to be levied. The fact was, these managers would do very much as they liked. In the West Riding of Yorkshire, where his constituency was, there were 700 voluntary schools. How in the world could the local education authority exercise any adequate authority over these schools outside county boroughs? The control must be entirely in the hands of the local managers, and two-thirds of them were to be denominational. It was a serious objection that in many thousands of the schools where the education was to be given out of public rates the head teacher was to belong to one denomination, and Nonconformists were to be debarred from a public career that ought to be open to everyone. They had been told that the Nonconformists wished to have control of these schools. That was nonsense. What they wanted was not that the Nonconformists should have the control, but that the public should. The hon. Member went on to give an example of the little petty fogging things that happened in denominational schools. The wife of the vicar went to the school one Monday morning and asked the children who had gone to chapel on Sunday to stand up. She then told them to sit down again. She then asked those who went to church to stand, and she gave a packet of sweets to each child that had been to church. That was a contemptible sort of thing, which could not be got rid of by a Conscience Clause, and that was what they called the Church "atmosphere." If the denominationalists of this country had confidence in the belief that the people desired this religious education they would leave it to the people. They had one-third of the body nominated by themselves, and they dared not risk their share of the other two-thirds to the elective process.

Would the hon. Gentleman allow the School Board to give denominational instruction in every district where the Church can carry a majority?

There is all the difference in the world.

Then do not talk about trusting the people.

I was referring to your talk about trusting the people. Hon. Members opposite said that the people wanted this denominational teaching; he said they did not want it. But if the Amendment were carried, the practical result would be that such teaching would be given in a very large proportion of the villages, because a majority of sectarian managers would be elected. The fact of the matter was that these schools were built to make Churchmen, and the supporters of the Bill desired to drive people into them to continue to make Churchmen. He admitted that if they used the Church buildings without payment they placed themselves in a false position; and they ought to pay a rent for them or buy them. He also recognised that there was some difficulty in the position where there was only one school of the denomination in the district. The elected authority ought to have the control of that school and pay a rent for it, and the denomination should make their own arrangements for giving their religious education. This Bill would not settle the question. It would re-open the difficulties and intensify the grievance. He was satisfied the Government had no idea of the strength of the feeling in the country, and whatever they did in the House, they would find before long that this settlement would have to be revised and very considerably altered.

said that in the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University this was an ideal Bill. He was certain that the Prime Minister never said so. ["Hear, hear!" from Mr. A. J. BALFOUR.] His right hon. friend, he was sure, was doing the best in existing circumstances with a system which was not logical. There were many features of our institutions which were not logical. The British Constitution itself was not logical; neither were the Houses of Parliament. The one House was selected by Providence, and the other House by the people. One half of our legislative wisdom we owed to the choice of chance, and the other half to the chance of choice. The right hon. Gentleman had framed a Bill in which the Church was in a position of seeing itself in possession of denominational schools, and he wished to give them every advantage. The proposals had been put forward as the maximum for denominational schools, and no one had asked for more on the Ministerial side of the House.

I have asked for a great deal more.

said the noble Lord now stated that he had asked for a great deal more, but he was not aware of it. But the question was as to the proportion of representation on the Board of Management. A great many Members on the Government side had signed a memorial asking that the popular representation should be at least one half. He was one of those who signed the memorial, and he had been told that nearly 100 Members had signed it. Where were those 100 Members now? What were their views on the subject? They were not doing good service to the Prime Minister or to the cause of education by concealing their opinions, or by altering their opinions without good reason. The Prime Minister described as "a venerable maxim" the political doctrine that representation should follow taxation. Personally, he venerated that maxim, and, as hon. Members as a body venerated it, he thought that it was a logical and just claim that popular representation in the present instance should be given, and it ought to be more than two out of six. With regard to the Amendment, he thought it would be more satisfactory to the High Church party to have three out of seven members than two out of six, because in country districts where there was a strong feeling prevalent the Nonconformists who desired to have control of the schools would, if relegated to two, appoint the most rabid Radicals they could find, whereas, if they had three, it was practically certain that they would appoint more moderate men. The hon. Member for Tunbridge said that this question of popular control was only a red herring accross the path. It was useful for the Committee to remember what it was talking about at the present time. It was the question of religion in elementary schools, in which small, young children of the people were educated. To tell him, in this the twentieth century, that there was such a vast difference between Nonconformist Christians and Church of England Christians that they could not agree to give religious teaching in schools to children up to the age of fifteen, was perfectly astounding. The right hon. Gentleman said that there was only one way to get over the difficulty—statutory denominational teaching. Was that impossible now? During the next two months it could surely be possible for the heads of the different Churches to meet and draw up such a code of religious instruction for daily use as would satisfy all parties. He appealed to the Prime Minister to satisfy hon. Members on his own side of the House, who felt strongly that they were giving a control to denominations which they ought not to have. These denominations possessed the buildings, but not the funds to maintain them, and the right hon. Gentleman should offer some compromise before going to a division. The Government should tell the Committee that they were willing, without doing away with the denominational element, to give that amount of increased popular control which he thought was justly demanded. It was urged that this might destroy the denominational schools, but he maintained that it was no argument to refuse a man justice because he was going to ask for something that was unjust. Hon. Members on the Ministerial side often said that it was no use making any compromise, because Nonconformists would not be satisfied, for what they wanted was really to destroy denominational schools. All he could say was that if they gave the Nonconformists justice now, they would put voluntary schools in a much stronger position, and they would be able to maintain them by the respect and support they would gain by having acted justly.

hoped the Prime Minister and those who were responsible for this Bill would take into their careful consideration the very significant speech which had just fallen from the hon. Member for Durham, and also two or three other speeches which had been made from the same side. He thought some of the suggestions made by the hon. Member were exceedingly valuable, and he was very much surprised to hear the laughter which greeted the hon. Member's suggestion that the heads of the various Protestant denominations should meet and agree upon some syllabus of religious instruction which would commend itself to them all. He agreed that children under fifteen years of age were not likely to understand much about the various dogmas which divided one sect from the other. In the colony of Victoria that suggestion was put into practical operation, for there the heads of the various Churches met together and agreed, with the exception of the Roman Catholics and the Jews, to a particular form of religious instruction. In every other British colony the Protestant denominations had been able to agree upon a course of religious instruction, and this was the only part of the British Empire where the Anglican Church declined to associate itself with other Protestant denominations in arranging for religious teaching to be given in the schools. The hon. Member who had just spoken was a Churchman, while the hon. Member who preceded him was a Nonconformist. The hon. Member for Durham, who was a Churchman, was prepared to meet the Nonconformists in a spirit of tolerance. The hon. Member who preceded him, who was a Nonconformist, thought the treatment meted out by the Government was quite good enough for his fellow Nonconformists. The hon. Member opposite said this was a Clause which limited the clerical control which now obtained. He wished to ask for an explanation of one curious phenomenon. This Clause, which was supposed to limit clerical control, had been supported by every Diocesan Association throughout the country. Wherever two or three clergymen were gathered together, there a resolution had been passed in favour of this Bill, which limited their control. Perhaps the hon. Member opposite would be able to explain this outburst of unselfishness on the part of the clergy of this country. The Prime Minister had stated that really the ratepayers had got control over these schools.

Yes, over secular education.

said the right hon. Gentleman stated that they would have control over the finances. Was that so? Let him put a case to the Committee that happened. How was it that they wore able to work voluntary schools so economically at present? It was owing to what the Prime Minister called tenderness for voluntary schools. This Clause was the outward and visible sign of that tenderness. An inspector from the Board of Education came down to a voluntary school, and said "Your staff is bad, your apparatus intolerable, and your building is insufferable." Probably the clergyman took him home after the examination, told him that the school was hard up, and appealed to the inspector not to lie too hard upon them, probably remarking that if he pressed them too much the school would have to be closed. Naturally, the inspector would be sympathetic, because as a rule inspectors were men who had been in that position themselves, and were consequently able to appreciate the argument. In the words of the Prime Minister, he dealt tenderly with them. That was economical administration. How would it work when the Bill came into operation? The inspector would pay a visit, and the clergyman would take him home. The clergyman would say, "We are understaffed, and the apparatus is bad. We ought to have another assistant teacher. The school is really badly equipped." In the adjoining parish the teachers would be all certificated, and the clergyman would impress this on the inspector. Then the Board of Education would come down and say, "You must improve your staff, and instead of two uncertificated teachers you must have three certificated, because the local authority will pay in future and not the clergyman and his managers." The Prime Minister would say that the decision was now in the hands of the local authority. Not at all, the Board of Education came and said they must do these things otherwise the grant would be withheld. After all was there not an inducement to the clergyman to increase the staff? He would come down to the school like a roaring lion seeking what little Nonconformist he could devour at the expense of the ratepayer. He would say, "There is a boy who has a very good voice; he would make a very nice tenor for the choir, and the ratepayers will pay. There is another boy, if he cannot play he can blow the organ, and the State will pay." There was every inducement on the part of the managers to increase the staff and the expenditure, and the inspector would not be less sympathetic now than before. He would deal tenderly in the future as in the past. What control was that? There was no control there. Since the expenditure came out of the pockets of the State, they were entitled that the State should have control. The hon. Member opposite advanced as a simile the taking over an old concern with the plant. He said they could not change the plant all at once. Did the hon. Member know a single case where, in taking over the old concern, there was an undertaking that the new proprietors should spend the whole of the money out of their own pockets, but that the appointment of the foreman, the managers, and the whole staff of the concern should be left in the hands of the old directors? They could not run the concern very long in that way. The proposal of the Government meant the giving of power and privilege to one church and one section of the community. No special favour was wanted for the Nonconformists. All they wanted was that every one should be treated on equality without any inquisition as to creed. They could not trust Nonconformists in matters of education. A Nonconformist might be put on the Bench, he might be made a Lord Justice of Appeal, but he was not a fit and proper person to be entrusted with the management of a little village school. There was equality on the Bench, equality in the dock, but once the idea was suggested of equality in the school, Greenwich forbade. It was to be noted that places where the undenominational system prevailed — places like New Zealand and Ontario — produced the purest patriotism, while Ireland and Malta produced pro-Boerism. They did not turn out patriots by any system of sectarian education. There was really no desire at the bottom of all this for religious instruction. The real desire was for power and patronage. Education was the weapon with which we were going to hold our position among the nations. We talked of improving our education in order to get abreast of Switzerland, Germany, and the United States. A great country like this should talk, not of getting abreast, but of going ahead, of other countries. For the sake of teaching dogmas to children who could not understand them, we, in the midst of our difficulties and the rocks that surrounded us, proposed to put the chaplain on the bridge. It was a mad proposal. Let us, in a business-like spirit, clear the parsons out of the way, or, if they wanted to help to save the ship, let them take off their coats and work at the pumps like any ordinary seaman on board.

suggested that the Committee might now bring this part of the discussion to a close.

said he was a Churchman and a large subscriber to voluntary schools, but he felt sure this Bill would have a very different effect, if passed in its present form, from that anticipated by hon. Gentlemen opposite. He believed that, if the whole cost of maintaining these schools was paid from the national Exchequer, private subscriptions would not be continued; and he failed to see that the maintenance of the fabric of the schools justified the Government in giving the majority of the management to the owners of the schools. Supposing the founders had two representatives on the management, the parents two, and the local authorities two, or one-third of the total whatever it might be, a large proportion of those nominated by the local authorities and the parents would be supporters of denominational education. He thought that the danger which hon. Gentlemen opposite feared of having the managers popularly elected was very much over-estimated. They had some schools in the North of England, the board of management of which consisted of seven members—four of which were elected by the parents of the children attending the schools. Notwithstanding the fear of clerical control, when the change was made, and that they would be unable to carry on the school satisfactorily, the clergyman, being a sensible man, was elected chairman and the whole thing had worked fairly well. If the Government had only the courage of their convictions, and gave the control to the public in the way suggested, he felt sure that the result would be much more satisfactory to the Church and the cause of education than the Clause proposed in the Bill. He had never been a strong opponent of denominational schools; but he was; bound to say, from his own experience, that the largest amount of the support of the denominational schools had not been given by people in favour of denominational teaching, but to avoid the creation of a School Board, and the rating which a School Board naturally brought with it. He felt sure, as sure as possible, that when the different counties had to be rated in order to maintain the voluntary schools, the laymen, who had broader minds than the majority of clerics, would be greatly dissatisfied if they had not some controlling power in the management of the schools. He appealed to the Government to be courageous in this matter, and throw overboard, for once, the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich. That would be an advantage not only to the denominational system, but to the Church, which that denominational system was supposed to support. Personally, he wished that some means should be devised for separating religious from secular education; but he could not help-recognising that a large amount of money had been given by the State for secular education only; and some means ought to be devised to enable parents to have a choice to give religious education according to their own doctrines. There would then be no religious difficulty. He recognised that if they were to have an Education Bill at all, they should have some sort of compromise. There were extremists on either side who refused a compromise, just as in the case of temperance legislation, whose action had delayed the reform of the licensing law for fifty years. And extreme religionists, taking the same line, would find themselves in the same position. Before sitting down, he wished to say that, while being a strong supporter of the national Church, and while being strongly in favour of religious education, and believing that a purely secular system of education would not be advantageous to this country—he was one of those who believed that the children ought to have sound religious teaching—he still thought that it would

said that he had reason to believe that something which he had said had been misunderstood by the Committee. He quite recognised that the debate on the Amendment was precisely the same as they would have later on the Clause. What he would venture to suggest was that they should get rid of this Amendment and of the few remaining matters, and begin at nine o'clock the discussion on the Clause itself.