informed the House that he had received the following letter relating to the imprisonment of a Member:—

What business does the right hon. Gentleman propose to take next week?

I propose during the early part of the week to take the Education Bill at all the Sittings of the House.

ruled the first four or five Amendments on the Paper out of order, including one in the name of the hon. Member for the Rugby Division of Warwickshire, which he held did not constitute a condition of maintenance.

Could that not be dealt with in a separate sub-Section.

Not on this Clause. It should follow Clause 7. As to the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Elland Division of Yorkshire, the first part, that dealing with the use of the school for political meetings, is in order, but the second is not.

said he proposed if it were in order to insert after the word "use" the words "free of charge."

pointed out, in regard to the hon. Gentleman's Amendment, that its object was to safe-guard the managers—a very different point from that decided on the previous day, which dealt with the damage that might be done either by the local authority or by the managers. His hon. friend proposed that the persons who convened the meeting should pay the managers for any damage that might be done.

suggested that it might be more convenient to deal with this point on an Amendment which he had further down on the Paper, empowering the local authority to make regulations.

said he thought he was quite in order in adding the words "free of charge," and that being so, it seemed to him to be a necessary sequence that provisions should be made, as he proposed in the latter part of his Amendment, for payment to the trustees for any damage done, seeing that the use of the room was to be granted free. The most important part of his Amendment, however, was the proposal to allow meetings to be held in the school in connection with political, municipal, or local elections—to enable them to be held as of right in any school not provided by the local education authority. As the law at present stood, under the Local Government Act, 1894, it was provided that if there were no other place in the village, the school-room should be used free of charge, at all reasonable times, and after reasonable notice, for meetings for the promotion of the candidature of any person for membership of the District or Parish Council. He now proposed to extend that provision to meetings in connection with Parliamentary and municipal elections. In most cases, no doubt, managers of schools would be willing to give every reasonable facility for the holding of meetings, but there were a certain number of cases, especially in county divisions, where the managers, no doubt out of rather stupid political motives, used their right to refuse the use of the school to political opponents. He thought everyone would agree that it was in the interests of the proper discussion of national as well as local politics that at all reasonable times the school should be thrown open to all parties to hold their meetings. His Amendment was confined to granting the use of the school while elections were proceeding, and, therefore, it was calculated to cause the minimum of hardship to the managers. Some, no doubt, might be occasionally inconvenienced by having to surrender the school on an evening on which it had been set apart for some festivity or other event. But if the concession were confined to periods when elections were actually in progress he was sure the hardship would not be at all considerable. There was further down on the Paper an Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for South Down which proposed that the school should be open at all times for political meetings. As far as he was concerned, he was quite ready to extend his proposal in that way, and he thought it might be done if the local authority or some superior body were given a supervising power to make regulations, so that no unreasonable demand should be made which would seriously injure the use of the school for educational purposes. But, as it stood, his Amendment only referred to times when a local or national election was taking place, and, in that form, he did not think it would cast any undue burden upon the managers to give this general right to the public.

said the words "free of charge" had played a most important part in connection with the history of that subject. That history was a most interesting one. He gathered that there was to be some opposition to the Amendment from the other side of the House, but he would like to point out that only a few years ago hon. Gentlemen opposite freely accepted a Government Bill to carry out this very object which was embodied in a Resolution unanimously passed by the House of Commons. Certainly the words "free of charge" were not included in that Resolution, but when the Conservative Government of 1892 brought in their Bill they inserted the words. There had been some suggestion that this subject was outside the scope of Public Elementary Education Acts, but he would like to remind the Committee that the Bill to which he had referred was called the Public Elementary Schools Bill of 1892. Clause 3 of that Bill proposed to do exactly what his hon. friend's Amendment suggested. A good many stipulations were put in, and if any importance were attached to them by hon. Members opposite he thought he might say on behalf of his hon. friend that he would be prepared to accept any which would; safeguard the rights of the managers, if I the Amendment were agreed to. Personally, he thought it would be better to give the educational authority power to make regulations upon this subject. They would thus be able to avoid lengthened debates in the House upon the stipulations, and it certainly seemed to him by far the most satisfactory way of dealing with the subject. The present state of the law in regard to this matter could not be justified at all. If the use of the schools "free of charge" was allowed to one party it certainly should not be refused to another party. As a matter of fact, at present the school-room could be used "free of charge" for all meetings connected with the subject of allotments. It was also open gratuitously for Parish and District Council elections, but there was no right to use it for municipal or Parliamentary elections. How could they possibly justify such a distinction? If stipulations were required they could put in one making use of the word "reasonable," and that would give an appeal to the Board of Education if anything improper were proposed. There were very considerable debates on this subject at the time of the passing of the Local Government Act, and his right hon. friend the Member for East Wolverhampton would remember that at that time there was some disposition on the part of the Church party in that House, represented by the noble Lord who was now the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, to oppose the words "free of charge." But their arguments were destroyed by the precedent set in the Allotments Act of 1890, and the case for this Amendment was even stronger today than it had ever been before, because more assistance was being given out of the rates to voluntary schools than was afforded at the time at which the debates he referred to occurred. Surely it was monstrous that in, say, a mining community, where rooms were not very easily obtainable, men who were standing for election as members of Parish or District Councils should be able to obtain the use of the school-room "free of charge," while if they sought to obtain election to Borough or County Councils, or to Parliament, it was to be refused to them.

said he did not approach this question from the point of view of abstractor theoretical right. Parliament had thought fit, as to voluntary schools as well as to board schools, to say that they should be used free of charge for certain purposes. It was too late in the day to say—if ever it was proper to say it—that that was absolutely inadmissible. The question was really one of procedure and degree. As regarded procedure, he thought it would be pre posterous to make this regulation with regard to voluntary schools, unless it were also made with regard to board schools. This, however, was not the place to make such a regulation with regard to board schools, as the Clause only dealt with non-provided schools. Anything which the House did ought to be done on a general system.

The Act of 1893–94 applied to board schools.

admitted that, but said that if they were going to extend it it must be done in a provision which itself applied to board schools.

The Government Bill of 1892 did not.

said he had not the terms of the Bill with him, but he thought the general principle he had laid down should commend itself to common, sense. As to the question of substance, he pointed out that there had been a change of circumstances since the adoption by Parliament of the policy which it was now asked should be extended. About ten years ago the voluntary schools were made available for certain purposes, but he did not suppose those purposes required much time or took away from the uses to which the managers desired to put the schools, except for an infinitesimal fraction of the year. But if this extension were accorded, was it not manifest that the use of the schools would be largely impinged upon by the demands made upon managers of provided schools in connection with circumstances and events which might constantly repeat themselves? He left it to lawyers to determine how long before an election meetings were connected with an election. It was evident, however, that the scope of the Amendment was very large as regarded time. These extended demands, moreover, would be thrown on managers when the demands upon them for education purposes were augmented. An Amendment had been passed making it obligatory on the managers to give three nights of the week to education, outside the ordinary school hours. He thought, therefore, that to require that, on the demand of the education authority, they should give up their schools to every kind of political purpose would be taking too large a slice of the time at their disposal for their own purposes or for parochial purposes unconnected either with education or politics. In addition, such an arrangement might lead to considerable hardship. Supposing a General Election turned on this Bill, it seemed a little hard that meetings should be held in these schools for the purpose of destroying them. Taking a general survey of these objections, he thought it better not to introduce the Amendment into the Bill.

said he quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that they could not make this power applicable to one class of schools only. But he submitted that the words used in the Act of 1893–94, which provided for the use of the school-rooms receiving a grant out of moneys voted by Parliament was intended to impose the liability upon all schools alike. The right hon. Gentleman had put forward objections, one of time and one of substance. As to the first, when the Corrupt Practices; Act was passed the extraordinary words "before, during, or after" were introduced, and some hon. Members asked "Will that cover both time and eternity?" Practically he believed it was accepted that the Act referred to came into force as soon as the writ was issued for the election of a Member of Parliament, and he did not think that any gentleman who this year or next incurred expenses in holding public meetings on behalf of his candidature for the next General Election would be required to include those expenses in his election, return. It could not be suggested, therefore, that that particular objection put forward by the right hon. Gentleman was a very strong one. Then there was the objection of substance, the suggestion that, too much time would be taken out of the period left to managers when the school could be used for parochial and other purposes. Already three nights of the week were set apart for education, outside the ordinary school hours, and the right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that the present Amendment would take too great a slice out of the remaining period. But was he prepared to say that no political meetings in connection with Parliamentary elections should be held in the school at all? They had heard a good deal said about the exercise of common sense by managers, but in the past the common sense exhibited had been to allow the use of the schools for these meetings to one political party and to refuse it to the other. In passing he might remark that in the Amendment there was a misprint and that the word "Parliamentary" should be substituted for "political." Was it proper, was it just, or was it right that on Monday evening there should be a political meeting held in support of Mr. A., who was to have the advantage of the room for the shelter of his auditors, while on the following evening, if Mr. B. desired to address his supporters, he was to be compelled to do so in the open, however inclement the weather might be. With regard to the suggestion that the adoption of the Amendment might cause interference with the educational work of the school he would suggest that that could be met by the insertion of some stipulations, but at any rate it must be made clear that if the use of the room was allowed to one side the other side should have an equal right to it.

regretted that the Prime Minister had taken a rather illiberal view of the Amendment. On the question of procedure, his objection could easily be met by providing that the rule applicable to voluntary schools should be equally applicable to board schools, for he quite agreed that if the managers of voluntary schools were to be compelled by the Bill to throw open their school rooms for political meetings, board school rooms should be equally granted for the purpose; the same indulgence must be extended all round. It was perfectly true that his hon. friend might bring in his Amendment in the form of a new Clause at the end of the Bill; but they did not know what was going to happen, and they were bound to take the discussion when and where they could. It must be remembered that the situation had changed since 1893, that the demands for the use of the voluntary schools were greater than then, though it should also be remembered that the public subsidies to these schools were at present greater. He knew that an Amendment had been adopted the previous evening which gave the county authority the use of the schools for three nights a week for evening schools. His hon. friend the Member for North Camberwell had, however, shown that that was no great boon, for in less than 2,000 out of the 14,000 voluntary schools in the country were evening schools carried on. In fact in 12,000 schools no meeting was held in any one night of the week except, perhaps, on Sunday, His other point was that the use of the school was only to be given in connection with a candidature. He agreed with the Prime Minister that the moment a man became a candidate, although no election was imminent, the Corrupt Practices Act came into operation. But the Prime Minister talked as if political meetings were held by both sides twice a week. Why, a circus came round to these rural districts much oftener, and the result was that the agricultural labourers ran to these political meetings. He asked hon. Gentlemen opposite how often they went down to address their constituents. A Member of Parliament who went down once a week [laughter]—he meant once a year—regarded himself as a martyr. The Prime Minister talked as if these political meetings were to be held once a week, and that hon. Members became quite exhausted at the end of the vacation and took their holidays in the House of Commons. These political meetings were very rarely held, and he put it that there was really an educational purpose in them after all. [Laughter.] He did not mean merely Liberal meetings—that went without saying. But the conflict of meetings of men on both sides elucidating political questions—he would not object even to his friends of the Liberal League addressing the meetings so long as they discussed anything connected with the Government of the country)—would serve as a good sound political purpose. From that point of view, therefore, the Prime Minister ought to encourage such meetings. The right hon. Gentleman had said that it would be carrying the thing too far if they were to lend Church schools, built by Church money, for the purpose of advocating the destruction of those schools. But if it was Church money that had built the schools, it would now be Nonconformist furniture that was in the schools. In his own constituency four-fifths of the ratepayers were Nonconformists, and in the event of a row it would be their furniture that would suffer, and not the schools. The Prime Minister said it was going too far to say that a voluntary school should ring with the doctrines of Nonconformists, but it was much worse that the Nonconformist desk should be pounded by an Anglican orator in denunciation of Nonconformist heretics. Of course it was only fair that a rent should be paid for the use of the schools. The proposition of the Amendment was not so alarming, and he trusted that the Prime Minister would reconsider his decision and permit meetings to be held in the schools subject to regulations approved of by the Secretary to the Education Department, who would see that everything that was fair to the Church would be done.

said he hoped his right hon. friend the Member for Wolverhampton would pardon him for saying that it was not fair to the managers of the voluntary schools to allege they refused the use of their schools to one political party and gave it to another. His connection with voluntary schools extended over a considerable part of Yorkshire and Lancashire, and he maintained that any manager, or group of managers, would be denounced by the whole community if they did so. He believed that the cases where the use of the schools had been refused wore exceedingly rare, if they existed at all. His next point was that after the grant of the use of the schools for evening schools for three days in the week, scant time would be afforded to the managers for using the schools for the purpose to which they had been dedicated. Even in his own parish, without this restriction, there was difficulty in obtaining the use of the schools for any additional purpose; and if further restrictions were imposed the working of the trust-deeds under which these schools were conducted would be seriously hampered and prejudiced. In the Act of 1893–94 it was laid down that there was not to be any interference with the school hours of the voluntary schools, or of any evening school, but he found no reference to that in the Amendment of his right hon. friend.

said that hon. Members on both sides were prepared to accept an Amendment to the Amendment in the sense of the Act of 1893–94.

said that in the Act of 1893–94 there were some provisions which would tend to mitigate the severity of the application of the rule in the proposed Amendment. Speaking for himself, on behalf of the voluntary schools he could not accept the Amendment as it stood.

was rather astonished at the statement of the hon. Baronet that the voluntary schools were so much in use in the evenings. Even after granting them for the purposes of evening schools three days a week, that only amounted to 150 days in the year. A Parliamentary election came, on the average, only once in five years, and that meant two meetings. Municipal elections were held once in three years, and that meant one meeting, or at most two. He thought that under these circumstances the contention of the hon. Gentleman opposite must fall to the ground.

said that when a proposition of this sort had been brought before the House he had always supported it. He thought that the use of the school should not be given to one party and refused to the other. But regard must be had to the fact that so many nights in the week were now to be given for the evening schools; and the rights of the voluntary school managers in the remaining nights ought to be safe-guarded. He thought that the words "in connection with" were much too vague, and that the right to use the schools should be confined to cases where no other room was obtainable.

submitted that there was a general agreement that something should be done in the direction proposed by the Amendment, if not at this point in another part of the Bill. He entirely agreed with the Prime Minister as to the undesirability of running the risk of using the school buildings for other than educational purposes, and he, for one, would insist that regulations to that effect should be framed. But that duty should be left to the local education authority, as it would be somewhat invidious to place it on the managers. In the interests of compromise he thought the right hon. Gentleman should consent to grant that advantage to political candidates. He thought no real harm would be done by that. Would it not be hard lines on the local authority if their views could not be advocated in the schools for which they paid? In the villages, at all events, these political meetings were really educational. They occurred rarely, and the people were really interested in them, as they afforded the only chance to the villagers of hearing political arguments. He thought they should not look upon the school buildings as still retaining their private character. Whatever that might be under the trust deeds, they must now come into existence for public purposes, and where the schools were the only premises available, it was only right and fair that they should be available for public purposes. He himself admitted that he had never had any difficulty in holding meetings in his constituency; but an incident did occur at one of his elections which made him think that he owed the free use of the voluntary schools in his constituency to his political opponent. On that occasion the use of a schoolroom u as refused to him., but the school was afterwards made available for him through the representations of his political opponent; and the spirit which his opponent had then infused had governed the matter ever since. He made an appeal to the First Lord of the Treasury whether there was not an almost general agreement which would justify him in accepting the Amendment.

said he desired to oppose the Amendment very strongly. It would very much interfere with the work of the schools at the very period of the year when time was most needed. Municipal elections were generally held in the autumn, and if the schools were to be used for election purposes, the whole winter session of classes organised by the managers might be interfered with. He opposed the Amendment also on a broader ground. He saw in it the thin end of the wedge. Hon. Members opposite were trying to make elections cheaper at other people's expense. They advocated that returning officers' fees should he paid by the public; and he regarded the Amendment as an attempt to enable candidates to hold their meetings at the expense of other people. That was a very dangerous tendency. If gentlemen sought a seat in this House, they ought to be willing to bear the expense attaching to it.

said he regretted that the First Lord of the Treasury could not see his way to comply with what was a general request on both sides of the House. He thought that he would not overstate the case when he said, there were 8,000 parishes in the country where hon. Members could hold meetings only on sufferance. They had to go, cap in hand, to ask the managers whether they would be good enough to allow them to express their political views in the schools, although the schools were paid for by the ratepayers' money. The first objection of the Prime Minister was that the proposal did not extend to board schools. He would have been very glad if the proposal were extended to board as well as to voluntary schools, so that these schools would have been open for legitimate discussion to responsible persons such as candidates at the County Council, municipal or Parliamentary elections. The second objection of the Prime Minister was that the meetings would take up too much time, but he could assure the right hon. Gentleman that in the country meetings did not take much time. He lived in a constituency which was represented by an hon. Member opposite who, with the exception of a meeting he addressed last summer, had not held a meeting in the constituency for four or five years. It was an anomaly that the schools should not be allowed to be used for local purposes, and that a certain number of hon. Members, most of them sitting on one side of the House, should be debarred from discussing matters involving great national interests. The schools themselves would have a most direct interest in the County Council elections, and what could be more fitting than that the County Council candidates who, when elected, would form the local education authority, should have free use of the schools, It was quite right that a code of regulations I should be inserted to prevent the right being abused. The hon. Member for the Brightside Division of Sheffield said the schools would be used at the very time they would be most wanted for educational purposes. He did not think that would be so, as ordinary elections in the country took place in March. If the Amendment were accepted, it would make matters fair all round. If not, the use of the schools should be prohibited to both parties. That would remove part of the grievance of which they complained.

said he was quite prepared to admit that in the speech he made half an hour ago, he might have laid too much stress on the actual number of hours that would be employed in election meetings. He might have exaggerated that aspect of the case, though he was sure he did not exaggerate the fear which an Amendment of that kind would excite in the bosoms of the managers of voluntary schools, who had just had three evenings a week cut off the time in which they could use the schools. He did not rise to express his views in a modified form, but to appeal to the Committee as to whether it would be wise to introduce, in a Bill of this kind, a topic which, as the right hon. Gentleman himself observed, had formed a great part of a Bill introduced ad hoc 1892. He had looked at the Bill and could assure the Committee that the Clause which dealt with the question was the principal Clause in the Bill, and extended over more than a page of the inconvenient size on which they printed their Bills. He did not think they could really include a topic like that in a Bill which, whether it was a good or a bad Bill, did not deal with the question at all, except merely parenthetically. Even if they embarked upon it, they could not take the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman as their point of departure. If for no other reason, he objected to the Amendment on the ground—and he thought the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton agreed with him—that it was confined to the voluntary schools; and in the place in which it appeared, it must necessarily be confined to the voluntary schools. Any treatment of the subject should be general; and all the I safeguards to be introduced should be considered by this House in a manner in which they could not be considered on that occasion. He imagined it would be in order to introduce a new Clause, practically repeating the Clause in his right hon. friend's Bill of 1892; and if the House had ample time to consider it, they might knock it into some shape; which would not make it unjust to the voluntary schools. But in the present condition of the discussion of the Bill, it would be folly to make a promise that he would ask the Committee to find time for discussing a parenthesis, which was altogether outside the real topic dealt with in the Bill. He was not saying that a provision of the kind proposed, made universal, could not he so safeguarded as to make it a reasonable and proper addition to the Statute-hook: hut he ventured to suggest that it should be introduced as a separate Bill, and at a time when the House would have an opportunity of discussing it.

said he thought he was right in saying that the right hon. Gentleman had practically admitted that the queston was one which ought to be dealt with. The right hon. Gentleman's contention was that it should be dealt with in a separate Bill. Twenty-two years ago that might have been a reasonable argument; but, nowadays, when a private Member's Bill which was opposed had really no chance of passing, the right hon. Gentleman might just as well have given a blank refusal as to tell them to bring in a private Member's Bill on the subject. Why did not the right hon. Gentleman himself bring in a Bill?

said he did not exclude the possibility of the Government dealing with the subject; and he carefully abstained from giving or withholding any pledge. What he said was that it was quite clear that it could not wisely or possibly be introduced at that stage into the present Bill.

said he thought he was right in saying that the House passed a unanimous Resolution in favour of the proposal in the Amendment.

said the Government of which he was a member went out of office in 1892.

said that that side of the House was in office for less than three years, whereas the Government were in office for more than eight years; and if there was any desire on the part of the Government to redeem their promise, they had more than twice the opportunity the Opposition had had. The right hon. Gentleman must feel that he could not relegate to the dim, distant, and uncertain future a matter which could be so properly dealt with in the present Bill, and for this reason. The Bill made these schools the property of the ratepayers for educational purposes; it gave them a full right to use the schools for educational purposes. It changed the character of these schools by giving them assistance out of the rates, and made them public in a way in which they were not public previously. Surely, then, it was only right that the public should be allowed to meet in them and discuss public matters. It was not a grievance which affected municipalities so much as villages, because in the towns the Board school-rooms were invariably larger, but it was a very great grievance in the villages of this country, for the reason that the village school very often was the only place in which a meeting could be held. He could not, help, even at this late stage, making one last appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to agree now to a modified form of this Amendment and settle the question.

said the importance of the question had been shown by the arguments used against it. Years after the passing of the original Act, the House of Commons had to pass a special Act to rectify an omission in that Act, and that was a reason surely for not perpetuating the omission in this Act. The grievance, though not perhaps so apparent, was very real. Most hon. Members had felt the difficulty at election times of getting the use of a school-room for election purposes on a particular evening. He had experienced the difficulty both of giving and obtaining the use of a schoolroom for political meetings. In most cases, it was true, the managers let the schools to both sides, but not often for the same sum, and it was, he submitted, not fair, for the managers ought not to be allowed to charge one side more than the other. The Committee would be willing to accept a modified Clause in the Act. Let the Government put four lines in the Act, and leave it to the Education Department to make any recommendation they liked. The Department surely could put in a condition that would prevent any injury being done to the schools.

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

The rest of the Amendments on pages 14, 15, and 16 are not in order.

agreed that the first part of his Amendment on page 14 was out of order, but ho submitted that he might be in order in moving the insertion of the words—

"At any meeting the presence of at least three shall be required to form a quorum."

The question as to the number of the managers has already been dealt with in Clause 7. The next Amendment which is in order is that of the hon. and learned Member for Dundee.

I do not move now, because I

claimed to move, "That the Question' That the word "If," in line 25, stand part of the Clause' be now put:"—