( who was indistinctly heard ): I beg to move, "That the Bill be recommitted."

This is a very large and complicated Bill. I will not be expected to indicate my position with regard to it at this stage beyond making out, as I am bound to do, a case for reconsideration, and therefore my task is a very easy one. The effect of this Bill upon trade has been forgotten, and the conflicting business arrangements between masters and men have been ignored, and the consequence is that we have a series of ill-digested propositions which do not fit in either with our educational system on the one hand or with our business arrangements and industrial conditions on the other. I am most anxious at this stage not to go into details, but what happened in the Committee enables me to establish my first point. The second point I must establish is that this afternoon on Report stage the task is quite beyond the power of the House to rectify what the Committee has done. I shall try to establish, therefore, that the Committee has not satisfied the House; and, secondly, I think it is quite easy to show that in an afternoon like this in a limited number of hours, it is not possible to properly amend this Bill, and to consider in detail this most intricate problem. In regard to my first point, I will ask Members to look at the Report of the Committee. The Committee sat a certain number of days. I find that time after time there was a difficulty about a quorum and there were actually two Education Committees sitting at the same time, one of them discussing the Government Bill and the other this Bill. In the case of any industry—take, for example, the glass-bottle industry—how can masters and men be satisfied that they are getting fair treatment? I notice that the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Peto) brought the case up on behalf of my Constituency, and I expressed my obligation to him for doing so. He seemed to be frequently in a minority of one, but by his action he has considerably advanced in my estimation. I would ask anyone who represents a constituency where the employment of labour is of some importance, how can they read that record and be satisfied that justice has been done? When this House interferes in an industry, it ought to do so very carefully and cautiously. I dare say from time to time it is necessary for us to assert the powers of this House to induce people to take a step they dislike for the common good, but if we want to do that with success, let us at least assure those affected that we have carefully counted the cost and considered their difficulties and that we are meeting those difficulties in the best possible way. But to go into industry after industry in the way this Committee has done, shows clearly that it is impossible for the administration of this Bill to be a success. I say quite frankly that I think my hon. Friend who introduced this Bill into Committee was perfectly sincere and well-intentioned. What I wish to say about this measure in Committee is that there appeared to be too much anxiety to get Clauses passed and to get Sections through, piling on word after word and sentence after sentence, and getting something done. The anxiety of the hon. Member seemed to be to have on the roll of fame a Bill to his credit. I rather think that when a legislator is in that mood he is inclined to forget a great deal of the difficulties of the administrators.

The Committee seem to have overlooked those public administrators who would have to battle with all the difficulties which this Bill would produce, and I only wish the hon. Member who introduced this measure would think a little more of those administrators and their difficulties. A Bill like this put before the Committee in such a careful way I should have thought would have been improved by Amendment after Amendment being accepted by the promoters in order that it might work easier, and in order that the people who have to battle with the difficulties we are manufacturing in this House should have some consideration and some prospect of enabling them to do their work smoothly. But where are those Amendments and those considerations? They do not appear to have been considered at all. Take, for example, the enactment concerning street trading. I am not going into the merits of that question, but I challenge anyone to say that there was one champion of the flower girls on the Committee, and I think they are deserving of some consideration. I know on this point hon. Members of this House have suggested all sorts of things against me on this point, but I am only anxious to let the House know that there are two sides to the question, and they were not properly put before the Committee. It may be that the House will decide to sweep away from the streets of London all the flower girls except those who sell flowers on Rose Day, and then the little mites will be allowed on our streets again. Provided it is for a charity, you can have little girls running all over the streets any time, with the school attendance officers—

Is the hon. Member in order on a Motion to recommit this Bill in discussing school attendance officers?

I was pointing out that the school attendance officers would be looking for those children—

By not intervening I did not mean to encourage the hon. Member, but what he is dealing with is; not in order.

To return to what is perhaps in order, but very much more dull, namely, the proceedings of the Committee, I wish to point out that in regard to the questions I have raised the facts were not put before the Committee. It may be that we shall decide to sweep away all these street-sellers, but surely their case should have been amply considered by the Committee! I do not hesitate to say that had I been on the Committee—I cast no reflection upon it because I requested that I should not be put upon the Committee—I should have given a good deal of attention to this question. I have put upon the Notice Paper the terms of my next Resolution, which will be to divide the Bill into three Bills. The case I have made out in connection with street trading should appeal with equally more force to the representatives of Lancashire with regard to half-timers. I am not going to indicate my views on that subject, which have been gained by bitter experience, because I have worked as a half-timer myself, and I employ half-timers, and I am probably the only Member of this House in this position. If any hon. Members want these to be properly considered, they should put them into separate Bills. I am a member of the Committee considering procedure, and I intend to report strongly in favour of further facilities being given to private Members, but at present they are very few. They are very few this Session, and, if the hon. Member had confined his Bill to one of these points, I think that it would have been better considered in Committee and he would have been able to get it through the House this afternoon. He might have been defeated in a Division on some point, but I think that the general sense and justice of hon. Members would have seen that the hon. Member had had fair treatment in Committee and even generous treatment, which he would have required, in this House. I only want to indicate the magnitude of that question. It may be that hon. Members, speaking in the Debate, will bring it more home to the promoters of the Bill than I care to do at this moment. We now come to the general provisions of the Bill, the educational provisions, and I want to ask the hon. Member whether he is prepared to get up in this House on this Friday afternoon and assure us that this is the right Bill, that he is the right person, and that this is the proper occasion to recast our educational system? I believe that the street trading question in a separate Bill—

On a point of Order. Is the hon. Member entitled to discuss both proposals which he has on the Paper? He is now discussing the second proposal to divide the Bill into three parts.

I understand that what the hon. Member is now doing is to give some reason why the Bill should be recommitted, in order, among other things, that it should be divided into three parts, but I do not think that he should go at any length into this second proposal on this Motion.

I wish to show that this Bill should be recommitted in order that it may be divided. I have had the courage to put my own views down on the Notice Paper, and I regret that my hon. Friend has not also had that courage. I am explaining that why the Bill should be recommitted is in order that this division may be made. The hon. Gentleman would then, I think, get some legislation through. I hope that this will be a warning to him if he is fortunate in the ballot another year. The general provisions of the Bill were not properly reviewed in Committee. They would take the whole of several days in the House, and we should require the guidance of the Government. It is my intention, if I am successful in this first Motion, to move to divide the Bill into three parts with the object of securing that the street-trading provisions should be dealt with in one Bill and go to Grand Committee in charge of the hon. Member; that the half-time provisions should be dealt with in another Bill and go to another Grand Committee, also in charge of the hon. Member; and that there should be a third Bill, containing the miscellaneous provisions, which should not be proceeded with unless the Government took it up. I do not think that you can ask for the goodwill and co-operation of all the educational authorities throughout the country unless this course is adopted. Therefore, if I am successful, I shall proceed upon those lines if I can get the support of the House.

I now come to the proceedings in the Committee, and anyone who looks at the figures will see that there is no option before us but to recommit the Bill. The Committee started with an attendance of thirty-three, but on the very first day it fell down to twenty, and they then, of course, adjourned. The second and third day they were rather more successful, but then there began a tailing off of interest. People apparently, after spending a day or two on the Bill, were not so much in love with it. Their attendance got slacker, and in the last Division on the fifth day there were only eighteen Members in it. The House must not think that there were seventy or eighty Members giving patient attention to each Clause. There were only eighteen Members voted at the close of that day, of whom half were writing letters, the hon. Member conducting the proceedings with great ability, and then it adjourned for want of a quorum. There were on the next day twenty-three, and then on the following day sixteen in one Division and nineteen in another. There were twenty required to make a quorum. Three Members, as I understand, remained just to make up the numbers, so that, with the Chairman, they just got the bare twenty, and the sixteen who did vote came to a tie. What moral force can there be behind the proceedings of such a Committee? The Chairman, a very able Chairman, the hon. Member for Dudley (Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen), gave his casting vote. I do not know upon what lines he gave it, but I presume in this case that he would give it according to his convictions. On certain points a Chairman would be bound to give his vote in favour of the existing legislation. Supposing there were a proposal to repeal a Clause, I think a Chairman would say that you must have a majority in favour of it before you could do so. This was a case, however, of restoring a most wonderful provision in the Bill, and the hon. Member gave his casting vote for it—that is to say, that boys of very bad character should be entitled to certificates for street trading. I cannot discuss the merits of such a proposal, it is so bad.

On the following day they started off with twenty members in the first Division—a bare quorum,—and there were twenty in the second—again a bare quorum. There were nineteen in the third and the fourth, the Chairman, who did not vote, of course making up the bare quorum. When we remember how that quorum was obtained, by badgering people to come from another Committee, and holding them there almost by durance vile, one can see how the Bill has been manufactured. The hon. Member himself would, I am sure, be very glad to take the Bill back, and have it before two or three Committees, so that he might have full opportunities for displaying those wonderful talents which he possesses of getting Sections and Clauses inserted in a Bill. I, therefore, hope for his support. In my opinion, that is the only way in which he can get his Bill. There is a good deal in this Bill that one, I think, would like. Some Sections appeal to me, and some would appeal to other hon. Members.

Why not give it a chance?

The hon. Member is always on the side of the sweater.

When you say, give the Bill a chance, I am with you, but mine is the only method by which it can have a chance. The right hon. Gentleman asks that of a loyal supporter who would give his life to save his salary. The right hon. Gentleman must know that only the smallest amount of this Bill has got any chance. I am quite sure that my proposal is the only possible method of giving it a chance. It has some excellent proposals, but a huge Bill of this description, which puts the whole of the North of England into a turmoil, is not the way to get any of these provisions passed. If the right hon. Gentleman will give his friendly aid to my hon. Friend and induce him to narrow his Bill so as to include only the provisions which will meet with general acceptance, I think good legislation would result. The blame, if this Bill does not succeed and if this project fails, must be put upon the shoulders of those who have attempted to do ten times too much in one Bill. I see that my hon. Friends in the Labour party are keenly interested in this Bill. They are often prepared to urge upon their trade unions things which are prompted by the consciences of the leaders, but which do not eventually prevail with these parties. I hope they will see, when they look at a Bill like this, that they cannot defend it, because the work of every trade unionist and social administrator is undermined.

May I press upon the House that we cannot on the Report stage give that detailed consideration to this Bill which it requires, and which it has not had up to the present. I want to ask the Members of the House to pause before they spend this Friday afternoon in that way. There are several Bills on the Paper behind this Bill which are of an admirable character, and which I think might pass into law. But this Bill is before them in the ballot, and it stands in the way of other useful legislation. I ask hon. Members are they prepared to spend the afternoon on this Report stage, and to battle with all the problems which it raises? We must hear the two sides with regard to half-time. We must hear the arguments with regard to street trading. We must discuss all these miscellaneous educational provisions which, from a Committee standpoint, have never been properly discussed, and we are to do all that on a Friday afternoon. With all the good will in the world towards private Members' proposals, we all know well that we cannot proceed in the face of our constituencies to pass a Bill like this. For the first time I have been urged by both masters and men unanimously in the cotton trade, and also in the glass-bottle trade, to take steps against this Bill. I am not prepared to see this Bill passed, and to ruin the cotton industry, without a terrible struggle. I believe the cotton trade and other trades are injuriously affected. I must ask the hon. Member who did so well on this point in Committee to support me. This subject of half-time is quite enough for a Friday afternoon. If we were prepared to take it, it would be a reasonable thing to decide to-day the effect upon the glass-bottle industry, but we have also twenty or thirty other problems. I believe you cannot do justice to them in one afternoon. I believe it is not consulting the dignity and the forms and ceremonies of this House to proceed as we are asked to do by the promoters of the Bill. Let them use the Friday afternoon, as it was intended, for the discussion of one definite point of urgent legislation—thrash it out thoroughly and decide it one way or the other. That is enough to serve a useful purpose on a Friday afternoon. The provisions of the Bill would recast the whole educational system, and would upset trade all round, both as affecting masters and men, regardless of foreign competition. It would make all kinds of difficulties in the trade of my Constituency, which would mean the inroad of foreign articles, and it is proposed by Free Traders! As regards all these points, I do appeal to the House to support my proposal. Let us get on to some of the other more moderately framed Bills and try to pass a statesmanlike afternoon.

I beg to second the Motion to recommit the Bill, because I have come to the conclusion, after a very careful study of what happened in Committee, as well as of the provisions of the Bill itself, that a great deal of further consideration is required for these drastic Amendments of the education law. The issues and the facts of the Bill before the House are so important and so great that I feel quite sure that the Members of the House when they know the facts will hesitate before they accept the Report of this Committee. It is quite clear that an enormous number of most important matters affected by the Bill have not been investigated at all. A great number of them have been overlooked altogether. Necessary information and statistics, the possession of which would alone justify the passing of the Bill, have not been before the Committee. At the same time, having looked at it very carefully, I think it is impossible on the Report stage, looking at the amount of information which is needed to give it that consideration which it requires, and to investigate properly all those great issues and facts, so that it is absolutely necessary the Bill should be reconsidered. Take alone one portion of the Bill, which relates to half-time. Half-time, in relation to what are called blind-alley occupations, that part which is devoted to occupations of a blind-alley character, is a subject of very great importance, but after all it is of some simplicity, and the effects upon the children are understood, and are appreciated very easily without any facts or statistics, because they have already been considered by this House.

May I ask the hon. Member what he means by half-time in blind-alley occupations.

I said half-time devoted to blind-alley occupations. What I meant was that this Bill proposes, as I understand it, to abolish half-time altogether in all occupations, and one of the reasons given is that it is bad for children to be engaged in blind-alley occupations, and half-time is to a great extent devoted to those pursuits. That I can understand in respect of such occupations as selling newspapers, cleaning boots, selling flowers, and so on. Van boys and cart boys are occupations of that description. But the principal importance of the half-time Clauses in this Bill is that they concern the industries of this country where children are trained at an early age in skilled occupations which last them for life, and which form, of course, a very important part of the wealth producing communities of this country. The whole fate of the Lancashire cotton trade is to depend upon the consideration of the Bill by this Committee who only gave nine days to the Bill, which ought, as the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) has pointed out, to be divided at least into three Bills. The question of half-time, in view of its importance to the cotton, trade ought to have had a Bill to itself. Indeed, this ought to have been a Government Bill, because only the Government know the figures and statistics properly, or it ought to have been sent to a Select Committee, where the evidence could be taken. This Bill interferes with the wages and subsistence of the working classes. During the whole of its consideration by the Committee, not a single Amendment seems to have been moved with regard to that. The number of children employed on half-time was not given to the Committee, nor the number of parents who depend upon the earnings of their children, such as widows and men with large families and low wages. That is a matter which should have been the first care of this Committee. Getting a living is the main consideration, both for the children and for the parents.

There are one or two matters which have been entirely disregarded by the Committee. This Bill goes beyond anything that has ever been proposed either in this House or by any authoritative body of persons which has the right to speak on the subject. The Committee put aside altogether the demands of the labour leaders at the various congresses that have been held. At those congresses they never went beyond the age of fourteen, whereas this Bill raises the age to fifteen. There was at the disposal of the Committee a resolution of the Textile Workers' Association, but they took no notice of that, and also a resolution of the International Textile Workers' Congress, which recently met, but they took no notice of that also. Those resolutions put the age at fourteen. The Committee gave the go-by altogether to the recommendation of the Departmental Committee of 1909, where the total exemption age was put at thirteen. 1909 is not so very long ago, and things have not changed much since then. If they have, where is the evidence of it, and why is it not produced before the Committee to justify them in putting the age at fifteen? I cannot go into details and give figures, but the Committee did not consider that the operatives in Lancashire themselves have taken two formal ballots on this question, one in 1909, and the other in 1912, and in each case an overwhelming majority of something like 80 per cent. voted against the abolition of half-time or the raising of the school age. I doubt if these matters were mentioned to the Committee, which was the most ill-fitted body to consider a Lancashire question that could possibly be set up. Representatives of the Midlands and the South know nothing of the conditions under which people in Lancashire live and work, yet they propose to interfere with an industry which is the greatest staple industry in this country, representing one-third or one-fourth in value of the total exports. This is a national matter, and anything that injures that industry injures the nation and those engaged in the industry. The amount of production will be lessened, which is surely a national matter!

The hon. Member is now discussing the merits of the Bill.

I have no intention of doing so, but one, of course, is led on a little. All I wish to put before this House is that this matter has not been properly considered—that there were no statistics before the Committee, and no Amendments on which the matter was raised. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"] There were no figures or statistics. [HON. MEMBERS: "Certainly there were!"] Then perhaps hon. Members will give them presently. If they were before the Committee, they must have flown in the face of the whole of them. The Committee contained very few representatives of Manchester constituencies, and they were not always present, and the Committee did not do justice to this great industry. How far on the educational side did they consider the relative merits of the training of the hand and eye in this industry, as compared with the merely literary training given under the various syllabuses in the elementary schools? That is a matter which ought to have been gone into. We live now in an industrial age.

And a civilised one!

The time has come when we must consider whether the education which is to be given to the children who are to carry on the industries if this country is to be of a purely literary character. There is ground for believing that manual training develops the powers of the brain quite as well as literary training. Sufficient importance has not been attached to that matter by the Committee. These children begin at twelve years of age to work in the cotton mills and weaving sheds of Lancashire, and they develop their brain powers and get a better education than if they had spent part of their half-time sitting at the desk in school.

The hon. Member is again led into discussing the merits of the Bill. I hope he will try to confine himself to the Motion before the House.

I will do my best, Sir. Although not young in years, I am quite a young Member of this House, and I have never before seconded the recommittal of a Bill. I have been warned of its difficulties, and will endeavour to avoid its pitfalls and quagmires, and will always carry out your ruling, so far as I can. There is no indication in the Bill, or in the discussions in the Committee, as to how this Bill will work and what are the sources from which the expenses of working it will be derived. It is quite clear that if the age is raised to fifteen an enormous amount of extra expense will be incurred. If all the children are to remain a year longer at school, it will involve an enormous extra expenditure out of the rates and Treasury money as well. That has never been considered by the Committee. There ought to be, but there is not, a Clause in the Bill saying how the expense is to be met. The wages of the half-time children between twelve and thirteen years of age are to be taken away and extra burdens are to be put on the ratepayers.

The hon. Member is now raising objections to the Bill as a whole. They would be very appropriate to the Second Reading, but they are not relevant to a Motion to recommit the Bill. If the hon. Member will conclude by Seconding the Motion, I will not ask him to resume his seat, but if he does not, am afraid I shall have to do so.

I will obey your ruling, Sir, and conclude by seconding the Motion.

The speeches to which we have listened have filled us with rather different emotions, because, when the last speaker accuses the Committee of being deficient in supplies of information, and of not having considered subjects which, in fact, have been considered at great length for a series of nine days, and when he incidentally talks to us of the half-time system in newspaper selling, the patience of the House may have suffered some strain. The argument which has been put forward for recommittal is that the Bill needs lightening. I should like to say one word as to the condition of the Bill at present, because it has suffered a very serious loss in the death of Sir William Anson. Throughout its proceedings, both in Committee upstairs and in private, Sir William Anson has taken a keen interest, sometimes critical, sometimes appreciative, and always instructive. There were points upon which it would certainly have been necessary to meet him and gain his approval. The loss to the Bill is heavy, and as one who had charge of it, I can only say how much I feel it personally, because he co-operated, not so much as a veteran instructing a novice from the ample stores of his experience, but in the frank spirit of a colleague seeking the solution of problems we were all endeavouring to solve. I looked forward this afternoon to Sir William Anson approving most of the Bill, having made such changes as we are about to make, and realising the satisfactory fruition of his own labours. I do not despair that we shall still add something to the Statute Book which will be a record of his ripest energies in legislation. His loss is a severe one to the Bill, but I still rely upon the impartial consideration of hon. Members opposite, and I am glad we have, at least, the keen support of one who is recognised as a leading exponent of educational principles in the party opposite, the hon. Member (Mr. Hoare). As to the lightening of the Bill, the one argument for recommittal, which would have impressed me, has not been advanced. The best argument for recommittal is that the Bill is always in Committee. It has been in Committee now, off and on, over a series of four years. I think there is very little that has not been in Committee twice. Some of it has been through the House of Lords. To assert that in these circumstances the Bill needs this special treatment of being sent back to the Committee is, I think, wholly unwarranted. We realise that it must be lightened. I am satisfied that we cannot, with any hope of success, proceed with the provision to raise the school-leaving age to fifteen. [Cheers.] I gather from the applause with which that is received that the dropping of Sub-section A of Clause I will, at any rate, remove some hostility to this Bill.

1.0 P.M.

Another point that has aroused a good deal of misunderstanding and hostility is Clause 4, which relates to the by-laws controlling certain kinds of employment. That Clause I would also ask the House to omit from the Bill. I ask it with the more confidence because, while I know that it will give great pleasure to hon. Members who do not want to see it there, we who are supporters of the Bill will not be sacrificing much in giving it up. There will be left important matters which I think we shall be able to succeed with. The half-time question, of course, is a big one. May I suggest that the discussion on half-time should be taken on the Motion to omit Clause 1. If the House decides that the half-time system is to continue, there is nothing else in Clause 1 which the promoters of the Bill think worth retaining, and, therefore, I suggest that the Division can suitably be taken on that Motion. There will also remain the Clauses regulating street trading and other unorganised occupations. I will ask the House to proceed at once to make what progress can be made in these matters. If we cannot pass the Bill, we can at least do something to form public opinion and to show what the opinion of the House is, and I should very much like the opinion of the House recorded on these questions. To the supporters of the Bill I am afraid the concessions I have suggested are a considerable sacrifice, which they will make reluctantly. I would ask them to accept the inevitable sacrifices we have to make with the good feeling which has characterised this Bill throughout. I therefore ask the House now to allow us to get on with the consideration of the Bill.

I did not mean to take part in this discussion, and, as I happened to hold the position of Chairman of the Committee, it may be an unusual course to take. But I think, after the announcement which has been made by the hon. Member in charge of the Bill, that he will meet its opponents on very material points, and will take a straight vote after a discussion upon other points like the half-time system, on which there is a great division of opinion, I would appeal to the House to reject, with as little further delay as possible, this Motion to recommit in order that we may really come to grips with this Clause. The hon. Member has announced some very large concessions. There is no doubt that the question of raising the school age affected opinion a good deal in the country, and there were many Members on both sides who were opposed to the proposals in the Bill. Also with regard to the glass trade, the effect of leaving out the raising of the school age and leaving out Clause 4 removes entirely the objections felt by glass makers. It will be impossible now, if that is done, to take away from the glass trade that protection which they enjoy at present, and which is demanded by both the masters and the men. Therefore, in view of the very conciliatory attitude of the hon. Member, I hope we may proceed with the Bill. I must protest against the description given of the proceedings in Committee by hon. Members opposite. It is not for me to discuss those proceedings, and I will only say that I never knew a Bill more adequately discussed. I never knew a Bill upon which there was fuller discussion, and as to the question of there not having been a quorum, as far as I recollect we sat on nine days, and never on one day did we have to adjourn because we had not a quorum.

It is mentioned twice.

I think I remember the occurrences. They were right at the end of the proceedings. We made the arrangement that we should sit only until two o'clock, and I think that, on two occasions, we adjourned near the end of the proceedings, because there was not a quorum.

The record shows that on one occasion there was not a quorum. The report at page 18 says:

"The attention of the Chairman being called to the fact that there was not a quorum present he adjourned the Committee."

After a long sitting.

No. no. A Division took place, and only eighteen voted, so that it is quite clear there was not a quorum.

The hon. Member is really mistaken. I do not wish to enter into controversy on the matter. The fact that only eighteen voted in the Division is no proof that there was not a quorum present. On some occasions certain Members did not vote. If there were three Members present who did not vote, and the Chairman, there were obviously more than a quorum. Speaking generally, there was no difficulty in getting a quorum, except on two days when another Education Committee was sitting. [An HON. MEMBER: "How many members were in the Committee?"]

About eighty.

There were seventy or eighty. If hon. Members who have served on Standing Committees will recall their experience, they will remember very well that very often there were many more members present at this Committee than is usually the case. Therefore, having regard to the fact that the Bill was fully discussed, and having regard to the further fact that every one of the Amendments discussed in the Committee can be again discussed on the Report stage, I think there is no real case for recommittal. Most of the proposals in the Bill have been before Standing Committees in past years. What I think we want now is to get to the Clauses themselves. I have my own personal opinions in regard to some of the Clauses, but I am sure that those who have objections will realise that the hon. Member (Mr. Denman) is willing to meet objections in a very fair spirit.

I quite realise that the hon. Member (Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen) wishes to assure the Committee that their proceedings were the most admirable in the world. At the same time I think the Bill should be recommitted for obvious reasons. It is all very well for the hon. Baronet to point out that the subjects dealt with in the Bill have been discussed over and over again in Standing Committees and Select Committees, but there is one subject which has been imported into this Bill by the Government during its passage through Committee that has never been considered before. I refer to the provision in relation to continuation classes. I want the Bill recommitted, so that that subject can be properly considered. This question of continuation classes arose entirely out of a visit paid in comparatively recent times—even while the Bill was in Committee—by the Minister of Education to Bad Neuheim. He there saw Professor Kirschensteiner and got inoculated with respect to his system of education. He proclaimed it to the Committee, and there was imported into this Bill the Clause dealing with the matter. There was no member of the Committee present who was capable of discussing the proposal, and the Clause was introduced. Lord Sheffield's system of education is thoroughly well known. He believes in developing the Scottish form of education. When Professor Kirschensteiner's system was brought before the Committee, it was regarded as the very latest thing in education, and they thought, therefore, it might be safely embodied in the Bill. It was the very composition of the Committee that made it possible to pass the Clause. There was no one who could point out the vice of Professor Kirschensteiner's system. This Committee was composed of the usual class of people who devote their lives to getting through legislation for the purpose of securing the ideal working man—self-respecting, comfortable, hard working, and happy.

All these faddists were on the Committee, and after they had profoundly considered the advantages of all the new restrictions which are to be imposed, and the new crimes which are to be created by the Bill, they said, "The more crimes we have the better it will be for the ideal working man in the future." It is because we have had imported into the Bill, while it was in Committee upstairs, the ideas of a German professor which have been adopted recently by the Minister of Education, that I think it ought to be recommitted in order that consideration may be given to this subject by people who are capable of looking at the question of education, not from the point of view of abstract training and the turning out of the working classes at fifteen years of age, so as to provide suitable tools for their employers, but from the point of view of real education—the point of view of Scottish education which looks to the building up of the character of the child. The reason for this is well-known to all real educationists. We have at the Board of Education a large mass of bureaucrats who think that if they can get the German system imported into England working men in this country will be able to compete with German working men. That is not real education, and, therefore, we do want to have this question properly thrashed out in Committee upstairs. There was no representative on the Committee representing what I think should be on every Committee, namely, the point of view of individual interests, I opposed the Bill on Second Reading, but I was not allowed on the Committee. The hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) was not allowed on the Committee.

I was not on the Committee.

My hon. Friend the Member for the City of London was not on the Committee. All the people who are noted for looking after individual interests and denouncing this State tyranny which is getting into democratic administration were excluded, in order that the Bill might be put through on oiled wheels, with the Chairman of the Committee pushing it all the time.

I desire to know what right the hon. Member has to impute to the Chairman of the Committee favouritism one way or the other?

As to that point, the Chairman of the Committee has intervened in the Debate, and he must be prepared to take the consequences. If he had maintained the impartial attitude he so ably maintained upstairs—

The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme stated that the Chairman had pushed the Bill through Committee on oiled wheels. I was a member of the Committee, and I say that such an accusation is entirely unsubstantiated by the facts.

Whether substantiated or not, I do not think it is right on an occasion of this sort to make charges against the action of the Chairman of a Standing Committee. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme is entitled to say what he likes in regard to what has fallen to-day from the Chairman of the Committee, but I do not think it is right and proper that he should make such a charge as he has made with reference to his action upstairs.

I absolutely withdraw any insinuation of the sort; but I was annoyed at the intervention of the hon. Member in the Debate in support of the Bill, and from what I know he was most absolutely impartial upstairs. I do urge on this particular ground, that the Committee was composed of one class of opinion and that other classes of opinion which are equally strong in the country, at least if not in this House, were unrepresented on the Committee, that this Bill should be recommitted so that both sides can be considered, and a really well considered Bill threshed out.

I do not hope to equal either the humour or the fervour of my hon. Friend who has just spoken. In supporting his proposition I shall certainly do so without heat, and I hope without vain repetition. I agree with my hon. Friend in thinking that this Committee was not happily constituted for the discussion of this Bill. This Bill contains a variety of subjects, all of them important in themselves, and everyone of them presenting aspects of great complexity of detail, and if they are to come before the House on Report as they come to-day, they should come with the weight of a Committee on which all sections of opinion were adequately represented, and localities in those parts of the country where public feeling is strong on the question were also adequately represented. In the first place, I may refer to the extraordinary expansion which this Bill seems to have undergone in Committee, for instance, with regard to the part of the Bill to which my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle clings with such tenacity, when Lancashire was quite inadequately represented on this Committee. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I am only expressing my opinion, and I am just as much entitled to my opinion as any other hon. Member is to his. I do not know whether I ought to be more sorry or more amused at the extraordinary emotion which has been evoked by a simple state- ment of opinion. My hon. Friend (Mr. Gill) who represents a Division of Lancashire, knows that what I am saying is really accurate, and I may say in development of that argument that over and over again the practice of this House has been to give if possible undue and excessive representation to any locality or minority who are specially interested in the subject matter.

Instead of having that Lancashire has had quite adequate representation with regard to the policy of Members who support the Bill, but inadequate representation with regard to those whom they represent. Not only was the Committee inadequate for the full discussion of this Bill as it began, but the Committee became more inadequate by reason of the enlargement of the Bill. At the instance of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Education the Bill was largely expanded during its passage through Committee at a time when no Member could be added to the Committee, and when the very wholesome rule prohibiting the substitution of Members was ineffective. The result is that we have here on Friday afternoon one of the most important subjects which we can discuss which has to be decided by the House on Report in an entirely inadequate time. For that question is the whole relationship between German and English methods of education, and that requires in itself far more time than the House could now give to it if it discussed nothing else. In the third place, there is general agreement, which is none the less important to my mind, because it is general, that the subject matter of this Bill is too large to be dealt with by a Committee at the instance of a private Member; and in the fourth place there is the clear proof given by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle in making his concession.

It is desirable, in the interests of good legislation, that you should have a Committee overburdened with too large a subject, expanding as it goes on, coming here on Report, and then at the last moment having parts of it thrown over by its own sponsors, with no one, unless specially informed beforehand, knowing until he gets here which part of the Bill is to be thrown over and which is not? Some are interested in one part more than in another. All of us find now, for the first time this afternoon, after five hours of Parliamentary time, that we have got a Bill which is entirely new in perspec- tive and entirely altered, that some parts have been clung to most tenaciously, and that other parts, which might get wide support, have been thrown over at the instance of the hon. Member in charge of the Bill. That is not the way to come to a conclusion which will carry public opinion with it and give proper authority to pass it into law. The only remedy is to recommit the Bill. I am no enemy of the proposals in this Bill when properly brought forward with proper modifications and proper modifying provisions, to make up for the disorganisation that will be caused by this Bill. One proposal—that in reference to half-time—raises a most acute issue, which ought not to be bound up with the other issues of this Bill. While I yield to no one in my profound respect for those Members who acted chiefly on the Private Bill Committee, so far as I may deal with the speech of the hon. Baronet opposite, I would say that a Committee, consisting of eighty Members, which passes critical divisions on the subject matter of this Bill when not twenty Members are present, is a Committee whose authority is gravely minimised. On those grounds I ask that the Bill should be recommitted.

I do not in any way wish to deal with the merits of the Bill, but I support what fell from the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme as to the personnel of this Committee. I think that a Standing Committee should include representatives, not only of all the interests, but of all expert opinion in this House. In reference to one of the principal subjects dealt with by this Bill, a Departmental Committee sat as lately as 1909–10, and inquired into the employment of Children's Acts and what Amendments were necessary. That Committee enjoyed the Chairmanship of the present Attorney-General, and inquired very exhaustively into the whole subject. The Committee met on thirty occasions. They not only took evidence in London, but they took the trouble to visit Dublin, Belfast, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, and though there are eight Members of the House of Commons who sat on that Departmental Committee, only one of these eight Members was a member of the Standing Committee which considered this Bill.

Do you say eight Members?

Yes, I have the list here.

There were only four.

There are eight—Sir John Simon, Mr. Bridgeman, myself, Mr. Gulland, Mr. Law, Mr. Richards, Mr. Sherwell, and Mr. White. Only one of these members was appointed on the Standing Committee. On a subject of this kind it is well to have expressions of opinion representing all sides. Therefore, I think that the hon. Member for Carlisle should reconsider the matter and consent that this Bill should be recommitted to a body which is more widely representative, and which will inquire into this matter in so short a time as it can.

After the speech of the hon. Member for Dudley it is perhaps hardly proper for me to take part in this Debate. As I was a member of the Committee, however, I wish to say that I do not agree with the hon. Member for Dudley, that this Bill should not be recommitted. I do not lay so much stress upon the fact that the meetings of the Committee were very sparsely attended, but I do contend that the great interests dealt with in the Education Bill were not adequately represented. I will state to the House the fact, which has already been alluded to, that the interests of the glass-bottle trade were represented only by myself, and I represent a constituency which has nothing whatever to do with it. Other industries also were inadequately represented and inadequately dealt with. Other members of the Committee were from time to time engaged either on legislation in this House, or in other Committees; a great many Members were engaged in discussing the Importation of Plumage (Prohibition) Bill, which apparently had more interest for them than education. I wish to refer to another matter, more particularly as the Under-Secretary for the Home Office is here. This Bill, among other details, transfers to the education authorities powers hitherto exercised by the Home Office in purely industrial matters. This great change with regard to the local education authorities was inadequately discussed. The Under-Secretary for the Home Office was present on several occasions when it was expected that the discussion would take place. When the critical point was positively reached, it was expected that the Under-Secretary would make a statement as to the powers of the Home Office being transferred to the Education Department, but as no one got up to make a preliminary statement on the subject, and I myself, though not specially concerned in it, had to make some sort of a lame preamble to give the Under-Secretary his chance of stating his case. I do not think that the whole proceedings on that important part of the Bill occupied more than twenty minutes at the outside. Yet we find, when the Bill comes down to the House on the Report stage, that there are twenty pages of Amendments, of which a large part relate to this very important subject. This really means that the House have to discuss all these matters, instead of their having been properly thrashed out in Committee. The hon. Member for Carlisle has now announced the omission of two important parts of the Bill, which will clear away difficulties; but I would point out that on this Report Stage we are asked to discuss a large part of which concern those parts of the Bill which it is now announced are to be omitted.

I do not believe that any Member of the House knew earlier than at five minutes to twelve to-day that the whole complexion of the Bill is going to be altered. The position in regard to those various parts of the Bill is illustrated by the Amendments on the Paper so strongly that the hon. Member has jettisoned them, and we only knew of that five minutes before the House met. I submit that this is strong evidence that this House is being used to do what properly was the work of the Committee upstairs. Allusion has been made by the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) to the occasion when there was a tie in the Committee upstairs, and when the Chairman gave his casting vote, in respect of Clause 6, Subsection (4), which provides that no licence for street trading shall be refused on the ground of the poverty or general bad character of the applicant. That is a proposition that has a great deal more support in this House, and certainly the support of the hon. Member for Pontefract, than it received upstairs, where it was carried by the vote of the Chairman, sixteen members of the Committee voting. With regard to the continuation classes, I wish to say a word in support of the contention of the hon. Member opposite. The main provisions in regard to the continuation classes were added to the Bill in Committee upstairs, and in connection with the granting of licences to young persons to pursue any calling the condition is imposed that they are to attend those continuation classes. But the continuation classes, practically, are not in existence, and it is a case of putting the cart before the horse. The attendance at the continuation classes is being insisted upon though there is not the slightest evidence that the Board of Education is able or will be able in the future to establish any continuation classes.

The hon. Member is now discussing the merits of the Bill.

I was only referring to what was said by the hon. Member for Middleton (Sir Ryland Adkins), and it seems to me quite a valid reason for recommitting this Bill, because, as the hon. Member behind me said, the Committee did not include any body of members who could really deal with this subject, or with the great subject of street trading as well. I do not think the Committee was representative. I, of course, submit to the superior opinion of the Chairman of the Committee, who is an experienced member. I should be very sorry to say, with the meagre attendances—I am not speaking of the character of the members who were there—with the amount of interest displayed, and with the amount of knowledge there was on the very technical questions which had to come before us, that the Committee was really representative or that it could be considered an average representative Committee of this House. I do not consider that it was an average Committee, and I feel certain that many important parts of the Bill were not only inadequately discussed, but necessarily inadequately discussed, because there were no Members there who really represented the interests concerned. I support the Motion.

May I venture to submit to the House a consideration which has not yet been put before it, and that is that these Committees meet for the consideration of Bills in the morning, at a time when business men really are unable to attend. That is really the case. It is somewhat difficult, I submit, with that great respect which I have for hon. Members of different complexions of thought, but who have what I may call an educational bias, to prevent a Committee like this, or other Committees of the same character, naturally and inevitably falling into the hands of hon. Members of that trend of thought. Take, for instance, the case of Nottingham, which was represented most admirably by my Noble Friend the Member for South Notts (Lord H. Cavendish-Bentinck), but perhaps he was not able to represent feelings to the contrary effect, and with which he did not agree. For instance, when a particular Amendment was before the Committee they had not before them strong objections by some people in Nottingham and from the journalistic profession, and that is also the fact elsewhere, since I merely mention my own Constituency to justify my intervention. These Committees must necessarily work in the absence of business men who are really in practical relation with these subjects which must affect them. That is a fatal objection to a Bill of this character, especially when it comes before the House practically a different Bill from what it was before the Committee.

In the evidence before the Departmental Committee it was disclosed that newsboys showed only 6 per cent. of deformities in contrast with 26 per cent. in the case of shop boys. That is a proof that the hon. Member in charge of the Bill is jettisoning the wrong portion of this Bill, and I submit that point alone makes it improper and even impossible for the House to proceed with the Bill to-day. I submit that this is a Bill, whatever it is called, which unduly extends the powers of the Education Department, which is an extremely serious proposition, and one which I believe is unpopular in the country. A Bill like this, which abolishes to some extent what remains of parental authority and responsibility, certainly should not be proceeded with by the House to-day when it has undergone a drastic change. Hon. Members who represent our greatest industry protest against its provisions. It is a Bill which is entirely opposed in spirit and in its details to the real economic facts of life and business in this country, and it is in furtherance of that class of legislation which has just been shown by one of the great business men in the world to be most injurious at present and probably fatal in the future to British commerce, industry, and prosperity.

The hon. Member who is in charge of this Bill referred to the late Sir William Alison. May I point out that in all probability if he had been here he would have voted for the proposal which is now before the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] Hon. Members say no, but let me read what the late Sir William Anson said:—

"The Bill is obviously one which needs careful consideration in Committee and on the result of that the future support of myself, and I think of some of my hon. friends, must depend."

The right hon. Gentleman (Sir W. Anson) did not vote on the Second Reading at all. He had a conversation with me, knowing the views I took on the Bill. He told me that though he could not vote against it he was not in favour of it, unless it had very careful consideration in Committee. I think no hon. Member who has listened to this Debate would maintain that the Bill received that careful consideration in Committee. We have been told over and over gain that out of eighty members of Grand Committee, the attendance rarely exceeded twenty or twenty-five. Sir W. Anson did not discuss this Bill as a party Bill at all, but said it required careful consideration, and that consideration is from a handful of Members, and many apparently brought in at the last moment from an adjoining Committee.

I feel that much more than the consideration of the larger number of Members is the very careful consideration which Sir William Anson devoted to this Bill, both on the Committee and in private, and there is a good deal of his work on its pages at present.

I would be the last person to decry anything he did. No one had a greater admiration for him and for his ability and integrity. The point is, however, that he was of opinion that careful consideration should be given to the Bill, and, while I am not imputing anything against the conduct of hon. Members who did attend, I am saying that a Grand Committee of eighty Members cannot be considered to have given that consideration which the House intended Grand Committees should give.

One-eighth of the whole House.

Will you have eighty members for your Dogs Bill?

I do not think I ought to be led away into a discussion of the merits of Grand Committees. One of the defects of such Committees is that you cannot get people to attend, whether on the Dogs Bill or any other. That is one of the reasons why I objected to Grand Committees. I should like to express my admiration for the very able speech which the hon. Member for Middleton (Sir K. Adkins) made, and in which he apparently put his finger on all the blots and pointed out the proper course to pursue. He said, and I thoroughly agree with him, that the concessions which the hon. Gentleman has made amplify the arguments for the recommittal of the Bill, which is practically a new Bill, and which ought to be reconsidered in Committee where Members can speak more than once, and where considerations as to rules, quite proper in the House, do not arise. If it is right for hon. Gentlemen to bring forward this new Bill the Committee must have been wrong in not altering the Bill, and the arguments for recommittal are multiplied. I am not quite sure I agree with my hon. Friend (Sir J. D. Rees) as to morning sittings. The Committee to which the Bill would be recommitted would also sit in the morning, and that is one of the bad practices we have to put up with. I really cannot see how the hon. Gentleman can resist the proposal to recommit, and that the Bill should be divided into three parts. All the difficulties which have arisen are due to the fact that the Committee attempted to do too much. That is what this Government have always attempted to do. The hon. Gentleman attempted, in order to get the Bill through, to roll two portions into one, and it would be much better if the Bill had been brought forward in two parts, and then possibly it might have been properly considered in Committee. I shall have much pleasure in voting for the recommittal of the Bill.

Question put, "That the Bill be recommitted."

The House divided: Ayes, 71; Noes, 124.

Bill, as amended, considered.

The new Clause ["Saving in respect of glass works"], standing in the name of the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Peto), should be moved as an Amendment to Clause 1.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Saving for Apprenticeship.)

Where any child works under a contract of apprenticeship, nothing in this Act shall be deemed to render the employment of such child illegal, or to impose upon such child any obligation to attend an elementary school or a continuation class at any time at which such child is bound to work under such contract.

Clause brought up, and read the first time.

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a second time."

I am sorry I was not in the House when my hon. Friend stated what Amendments he proposed to make in the Bill. If he had let me know yesterday what the Amendments were to be, I might have reconsidered the proposed Clause that I have put on the Paper. I understand that some of the grounds on which I propose this Clause have been removed, but one or two still remain, and the course the hon. Member has taken in concealing his intentions leaves me no alternative but to move the Clause and see whether he can meet me on other points. I was rather at a loss whether to cast my proposals in the form of a new Clause or to move Amendments where I thought them necessary; eventually I decided to give notice of this Clause. My object is to encourage apprenticeship, and not to discourage any of those very valuable experiments which are in progress combining apprenticeship and instruction. I think that those experiments should be extended and improved, but that voluntary efforts should be allowed to lead the way and give us the fruits of their experience before we apply any compulsory system. There are apprenticeship systems in connection with a number of trades. I have made no extensive survey, but I have printed conditions here in connection with plumbers, painters, bricklayers, joiners, flaggers, slaters, printers, the engineering, and some other trades, in connection with which there are regular hours of labour, regular rates of pay, the prohibition of overtime, and various other arrangements made. In some cases time is given during the hours of employment for the child or young person to receive education. The Bill, as it came down from Grand Committee, traversed the conditions of apprenticeship on several points. It appeared to me that the promoters had imposed upon local authorities sufficiently wide duties without bringing into the conflict the trades to which order has been given as to hours and conditions. One point, I understand, my hon. Friend has conceded. As the House is aware apprenticeship very generally begins at fourteen years of age. Were the school age fifteen it would make the apprenticeship end at twenty-two instead of twenty-one, but I understand that point is now conceded and is removed from the Bill. Therefore I need not enlarge upon it.

By Clause 4 the local education authorities are empowered to fix the hours of the beginning and the ending of work for every boy and girl in the Kingdom, and the number of daily and weekly hours of work. I understand that that has disappeared, so that we need not consider its reference to apprenticeship. But it eventually might have brought those who had systems of apprenticeship into collision with the local authorities. I do not think this was necessary to be applied to apprenticeship, because the hours are fixed, and in most cases which I have examined overtime is not allowed to apprentices under sixteen—that is in the hours which would be affected by this Bill. There is one point, I think, on which I have not learnt, at all events from the hon. Member, whether or not he has made any concession. By Clause 10, Sub-section (3), a limit is put upon the time during which a child may be employed upon any day upon which his attendance is required at a continuation class. That time fixes the total time to be occupied by class and work as eight hours. Where the ordinary working hours are nine in a five-days' week, with a short day on Saturday, this provision would mean that the employer must not merely do, as in some cases he already does, give to the apprentice time to attend the class, but also give another hour of cessation from work on that particular day. It is a rigid limit in the Bill, and not dependent upon the discretion of the local authority. I do not know whether my hon. Friend made an indication of any concession upon that point during his paring down of the Bill. If not, he might possibly in his reply tell us whether he is prepared to meet us in this case. I think the case of apprenticeship is the case where the least activity on the part of the local authority is required. The hours of employment are already regulated and the conditions of apprenticeship are being improved by the good example of many public-spirited employers, and the very lamentable examples which do exist of overwork of children are not in the organised trades. I think, therefore, we might leave the case of apprenticeship and the improvement of the education of apprentices for the present to agreement and consultation with the employers. The Bill already recognises this necessity. Clause 10, Subsection (7) says:—

"The local education authority shall consult with local employers as to the arrangement of periods of attendance at continuation classes, and shall give to the employer of any child who is required to attend continuation classes under this Act particulars as to the amount and the time of attendance at continuation classes required in the case of the child."

2.0 P.M.

There is very little difference from that course and the course suggested here. You will not get the thing well done unless you have the concurrence, and the willing concurrence, of the employer, and unless you have a willing student in the boy or the girl. I think the matter is progressing. There are so many good examples of apprentices being well trained that we might leave it for the present to voluntary effort.

I beg to second the Motion. I agree with the speech of my hon. Friend, and therefore there seems no need to put forward further arguments.

I am not quite sure that that this Clause under the new conditions of the Bill effects anything that the hon. Member desires to effect—so far as I understand the statements in his speech. I do not quite follow the effect that it has in the case of bonâ fide apprentices, but apparently it is intended to make new ground for exemptions of attendance at school when a boy is about to enter into apprenticeship. There is no need whatever to make that statutory ground. If the boy satisfies the educational qualifications no educational authority under present circumstances, or under any circumstances, would dream of holding that boy in the school if he had, as an alternative, a good apprenticed position. On the other hand the Clause as we are invited to consider it opens the way to an unlimited system of bogus apprenticeship. For example, newspaper proprietors have only to make a contract of apprenticeship with street traders to drive "a coach and four" through the entire Act.

Newspaper proprietors do not employ street traders.

They do not at present, but with this delightful provision in the Bill there would be considerable incitement to them to make fresh arrangements by which they would employ street traders and make them apprentices.

Then they could not consider it a "blind-alley" employment, and would have to carry the boys forward and teach them a trade.

I know of no definition of apprenticeship that would not allow newspaper proprietors to keep these boys for, let us say a couple of years, from thirteen to fifteen, and having taught them the complete art of street trading, leave them on the street as they were before. I suggest to the House that this Clause produces no new valuable result whatever, and it is open to very serious dangers.

I am not surprised, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, at the attitude of the hon. Member for Carlisle in regard to this Clause. It is, I frankly admit, very much easier to be a destructive critic, than it is to construct something useful. There are some who wish to issue orders for the rest of mankind. The hon. Member should know something of the facts of life, for this Clause is a constructive Clause, the object of which is that some boys may have a definite training and a career in life. But of course under the circumstances that is all wrong. It used to be the fashion on this side to upbraid the Conservative party as the opponents of reform. But I am perfectly sure from what I have seen in this House that a good deal of the opposition is because the reform is too frequently of a destructive character. I candidly confess that Progressives and Radicals as we are, we seem to be pulling down and knocking down things rather than engage in constructive work. The hon. Member in charge of the Bill comes forward with very drastic proposals. There is a good deal of destruction of existing customs, rules and regulations, which are all to disappear under his masterly hand. But when we come to something constructive he scarcely thinks it worth discussing. I want to know where the representatives of the Home Office are at the present moment. In a matter like this I think the Committee would have hesitated to act without a legal adviser, or without the presence of some responsible member of the Home Office. I am not disputing the ability of the hon. Member for the Elland Division (Mr. Trevelyan), who is present. Whenever it comes to real educational matters, I think I would as soon hear him just as much as his chief. But the Home Office is the Department that knows something about apprenticeship. I think the hon. Member for Warwick (Mr. Pollock), opposite, will agree with me that before we vote upon this Clause we should hear some legal pronouncement. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle is very concerned for girls and boys and black people, as to what they should do, but he cannot turn his mind to a constructive point like this.

The apprenticeship idea has been a very beneficial one in the industries of this country, and I am not at all sure that the reforms we have brought about in industries are really reforms as compared with the customs that existed in bygone times. It may be that under modern conditions and the introduction of machinery we cannot pursue the old ideas, but I am glad to say that this Clause does revive some of them and calls for a return to that wholesome principle which existed before. Hon. Members come to this House with Bills that deny to boys the right to do things that they can do. They are simply all restrictions, "you shall not go here, you shall not go there, you shall not listen to a band or work according to your own ideas." Everything is destructive of constructive ideas. Take the golf clubs. You have educational experts who come here and condemn blind-alley labour with all their eloquence and then go out on the golf links and employ golf caddies, engaged in blind-alley labour. There are many occupations that people can only enter late in life. There must be some kind of blind-alley occupation, otherwise you would not get certain kind of engineers and chauffeurs. I do not say that newspaper boys will be able to write leading articles; they must begin at something else. In this Clause you have a system that seems to me to be ideal. What sympathy does it meet with? The hon. Member for Carlisle seems to me to be hopeless; he represents a Border constituency, and here he is afforded a chance of getting on the borderline of usefulness. He says that a suggestion of this kind is hopeless. That shows the difficulty there is in discussing a Bill of this kind on an afternoon like this. I do not suppose he will accuse the hon. Member for Bury of not having a good object in proposing this Clause.

Look at what a system of this kind did for boys in times gone by! It gave a good training to those who would be otherwise roaming about the streets leading loose lives. They were apprenticed, and they grew up in families. They were looked after by the wife of the shopkeeper, and they were under the authority of the head of the firm. They sometimes married the daughter and succeeded to the business. Does not that appeal to the hon. Member for Carlisle? I am very glad this Clause has been brought forward, because I think it will test the opinion of the House, and we shall see for once what is the genuine attitude of those who support this Bill. I am glad that this Clause has come from the quarter from which it has come. I do not say that I entirely agree with the hon. Member who moved it, but I think this Clause might be an excellent example to other trades in their treatment of boys and girls by bringing in the newspaper people, who come forward and say we will take the responsibility of seeing that the boy shall go through a whole apprenticeship with a view to turning him out as a useful man. I do not see what can be said against that. We should get useful experience from it, if we found newspaper people making great progress and making these boys into useful citizens, which would afford an instance to other industries to do likewise. I do feel, if the Clause has been interpreted rightly by my hon. Friend and myself, that it will restore something of the old guild system which made London famous and saved its boys from being ragamuffins. I shall support my hon. Friend if he goes to a Division.

I wish to say a word or two in support of this Clause. I do not feel that the hon. Member for Pontefract is quite right in saying that there is anything in this Clause that will tend to restore the decaying system of apprenticeship. I say we can do something of that kind in the Bill, but it will not be found in this Clause. Having said that, I think the omission of this Clause or that the Bill without this Clause would tend to the further destruction and elimination of what remains of the system of apprenticeship.

Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present. House counted, and forty Members being found present—

I will conclude my remarks by making a suggestion to the promoters of this Bill. I think perhaps we might allow this Clause to pass with the addition of these words which I shall move later on. I am going to suggest that after the word "apprenticeship," in the first line, we should add the following words: "the terms and conditions of which have the sanction and approval of the local education authorities." I should like to enter a protest at this stage. I very much regret that the promoter of this Bill thought it necessary, in answering the speech of the hon. Member for Bury (Sir G. Toulmin), to drag in the newspaper proprietors, as if the hon. Member for Bury had really taken the action he did through some motives of self-interest. That kind of thing has gone on far too much in these discussions. Those of us in trade have to look after the interests of traders in which all parties are concerned and interested, and I hope we shall have no more of these suggestions.

I think we have a right to know whether these new Clauses and Amendments to this Bill are going to be definitely considered by those in charge of this Bill. It is quite easy for an hon. Member to assume the official manner, hoping later on to get a seat on the Treasury Bench. Personally, I do not think this Amendment would lead to bogus apprenticeships. An hon. Member gets up and says, "Here is a contract of apprenticeship, not necessarily confined to the industry that he is particularly associated with, but applies to a very great many industries throughout the Kingdom." Now if there is one thing that the promoters of this Bill are agreed upon, it is the necessity of doing away with blind-alley employments. Now the apprenticeship system, while it may have many demerits, has at least this merit, that it does direct the attention of the young person, either boy or girl, to a particular skilled occupation at the end of a definite period. The whole of the Bill is optional, and the option is to be exercised by an authority that in no sense can be said to be directly representative. The local education authority generally consists of a good many butchers and bakers and candlestick makers, who never need to appeal to the public at all, and who may go on to those authorities with their own whims and prejudices and ideas of their own importance, and be prepared to ride roughshod over the needs of the locality and general education requirements. Subsection (3) of Clause 10 deals with the power to be given to a local authority and it provides:—

"The local authority may on cause shown remit or modify any direction under this Section with regard to attendance at continuation classes."

The Section we are complaining of is that, as the Bill stands, it would really break into the contractual relations that exist between the young people and their employers.

Which Clause does the the hon. Member say breaks into contractual relations between young people and their employers?

The provision that the children shall attend continuation classes. It does not follow that the children necessarily commence their apprenticeship at fourteen. We have not that knowledge of the whole of the conditions under which apprenticeship obtains which will enable us to say that it only applies to children of fourteen years of age and over.

It would apply to any child exempted from attendance below the age of fourteen.

Then it is very desirable that the Bill should say so clearly. The Bill provides: "Where a child is required under this Act to attend continuation classes." Does that really mean that no child fourteen years of age or over shall be required to attend continuation classes? I think the time has arrived when we ought to have some person on the Treasury Bench competent to tell us what the Bill means and where its provisions would carry us. I am sick and tired of amateur lawyers and amateur politicians. I know perfectly well that many of these people have the best intentions, but we have it on very good authority where these good intentions have led us in the past. I am very anxious that responsible legislation shall be undertaken by responsible statesmen and not by amateur and embryonic statesmen. Here we have a definite proposal made that the contractual relations existing between employers and workmen shall not be broken into for the purpose of compelling attendance at continuation classes, and I think we ought to have a definite statement from a competent lawyer on the Front Bench as to where this proposal is leading us. We do not have apprentices in coal-mining, but I am speaking as one desirous that if we do pass this Bill it shall not be a piece of nonsensical legislation. I think it is treating this House shabbily not to have someone here able to show us the legal pitfalls and guide us in the constructive legislation we may be engaged in. Within half an hour of us getting into Committee on this Bill the House has stood a real chance of being counted out, and that shows the lack of interest taken in a measure of this kind, which is fraught with the gravest danger both to workmen and employers. Even now there is only one person sitting on the Treasury Bench.

I think it is rather hard on my hon. Friend that he should be accused of amateurship, because the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken does not happen to have read the Bill. I should like to explain how this Clause with regard to continuation classes applies. He does not seem to understand. It is a very small exception to the general provisions of the Bill. If the local authority chooses to give exemption below the age of fourteen, they may give it at thirteen under certain conditions laid down. One of these conditions may be, but need not be, the compulsory attendance at continuation classes. Then there are various conditions laid down which must be observed, if that condition is enforced. The only children who would come under the operation of this provision are the children who choose to take advantage of an exemption at thirteen where that exemption has a condition that they must attend continuation schools. As a matter of fact, I think probably there are very few local authorities at any rate at first who would, even if they gave the exemption at thirteen, impose this condition of attending continuation classes. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] Because a good many of them have not got continuation classes to attend. There will in all probability be very few children indeed who will come under this Clause at all, and if they do there is no necessity for any child to leave school at thirteen. If the parent wanted to apprentice them, he could wait till fourteen, and do so in the ordinary course. I am bound to say that if there is any amateurship it is on the part of my hon. Friend who has brought forward this proposal, because I am advised that as it stands it would enable any boy who is an apprentice at the age of ten or seven to get out of school.

Is that being seriously put forward?

Is it challenged that as the Clause stands it would be possible for an apprenticeship contract to be made and for a child to get out of school long before not only fourteen, but long before thirteen or twelve years of age? We all regard apprenticeship as a means of train- ing boys principally in skilled trades, and I am quite certain that the majority of the House will think that for skilled trades boys ought to have a full general education before they leave school, and that these boys are the last you want to get out of school early. I should, therefore, deprecate this Clause really in any form, because I think, so far from apprenticeship being a reason for shortening education, it is rather a reason for lengthening education. It is a proof that the parent wishes to give his boy a really good chance and is taking some trouble with him. That is the sort of boy who ought to have a good education. I may remark, incidentally, that this Clause seems to me to be going in the wrong direction, because it is increasingly common at the present time for contracts of apprenticeship to have in clauses regarding the attendance of boys at continuation classes. Therefore, I think this Clause, although as it stands it is entirely unworkable, is going in the wrong direction, and I hope the House will reject it.

It is perfectly true that apprenticeship is chiefly for skilled trades, and no doubt it is true that in many cases the greater the general education any boy can have before he is an apprentice, the better. It depends a good deal upon what the trade is. There are trades where apprenticeship at a comparatively early age is the best kind of education. I am not speaking of so early an age as five or seven.

That is what they expect—seven years of age.

It gives opportunities for that personal touch and supervision which are so difficult to secure when you are dealing with large numbers of young people. Therefore, I think apprenticeship in some form, carefully restricted and carefully guarded against, ought to be specifically allowed in this Bill. It often happens when you have complex questions discussed at the last moment on Report that it is exceedingly difficult to know how to vote on a proposal the germ of which you believe to be sound and the form of which you believe to be unworkable, but, interpreting this Amendment of the Clause as merely indicating that apprenticeship ought to be especially allowed for under proper conditions, I shall vote for it.

I was unfortunate in not hearing the whole of the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State for Education, but I am sorry to say that I am unable to agree with him in that part of his speech which I did hear. The hon. Gentleman objected to this new Clause because he thought that a child should have a full education. The hon. Gentleman did not go on to explain what he meant by a full education. I am not at all sure that it is to the advantage of the child to attempt to teach it too many things at once. If a child is apprenticed to any particular trade, surely it has enough to do to learn that particular trade without being given a full education, which may mean all sorts of things which will be no use whatever to him in after life, which, in all probability, he will have forgotten before he reaches the age of twenty-two or twenty-three, and which would render it impossible for him to grasp the details of a trade which, if he did grasp, would enable him to become a useful member of society, and to earn his living without any difficulty. I think that was a bad reason given by the hon. Gentleman for rejecting this Clause. I fail to see the advantage of this very full education. The other day in one of the daily papers I saw a letter signed "M.A., Cantab.," in which the writer pointed out that, though he had passed through the schools of Cambridge and had been a hardworking man with nothing whatever against him, and was only about thirty, he could get no employment. If that gentleman—I think his letter was in the "Times" and he asked them not to divulge his name—had been sent to an apprenticeship and had learned to be a good carpenter, or a good mason, or a good bricklayer, and had dropped his full education, he would have been able to earn an honest living, and would probably be a good citizen; but by having the full education he was obliged to write to the daily papers, and say there was nobody who wanted to employ him. That struck me as a very good illustration of the futility of this Bill, and the absurdity of certain Members of this House, with excellent motives, I have no doubt, attaching extraordinary advantages to what the hon. Gentleman calls a full education. Then the hon. Gentleman said we were going backwards if we passed this Clause. Why are we going backwards? As I read the Clause, it says:—

"Where any child works under a contract of apprenticeship, nothing in this Act shall be deemed to render the employment of such child illegal, or to impose upon such child any obligation to attend an elementary school or a continuation class at any time at which such child is bound to work under such contract."

What does that mean? We have in it the law as it now is. I see behind him one of my hon. Friends who is learned in the law and who is capable of expressing an opinion on the legal aspect of the case. I appeal to him whether it is not the fact that this Clause, as it is, leaves the law in the same state as it is now. There is nothing in this Clause, as I read it, which would make any alteration in the law, and it does not ask that a child should forego what I consider to be the very helpful advantages of a full education, because the law as at present existing enables him to do those things. I shall vote for this Clause because I think that we are making an effort to secure that, instead of teaching children things that are no use whatever to them, we should give them a real opportunity. I hold the view strongly that we should not in England become a black-coated England where people would assume that they were socially better than those who are engaged in honest toil, better than the so-called workman. I do not mean to say that the man who works with his hands does any more work than the man who is engaged in trade, but notwithstanding that, I have a very great admiration for those who carry out their work with their hands, provided they are not led away.

Provided they vote Tory.

I do not care how they vote. May I say that this discussion is an illustration of the fact that we really sought to be considering this subject in Committee and not on the Report stage, because I have advanced what appear to be reasonable arguments, and I should like the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Trevelyan) to get up and try to show where I am wrong. I am always open to argument, and if he can show I am wrong, I shall no doubt alter my opinion, but we are now in the House and on the Report stage, and he cannot get up again, and, therefore, I shall have to abide by my own opinion, unless the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Chiozza Money), who, I see, is leaving the House, takes up the cue. I do not know whether he has already spoken—I believe he has not—but, if he has not, he can show me where I am wrong. I assume that he is unable to do so, and the fact that he is leaving the House tends to strengthen me in the opinion that I am right. I shall vote for the Clause.

The hon. Baronet who has just spoken challenged the hon. Member for Northampton as he was leaving the House to show he was wrong. It is a very grave task for me to attempt to take the part of the hon. Member for Northampton; therefore, in a single sentence, I would put to the hon. Baronet this view of what would happen if this Clause is passed in its present form. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education (Mr. Trevelyan) is perfectly right in saying that it will be possible for the parent of a child to contract a child out at the age of seven or eight years. I am quite sure that no one in this House wishes that to be done. I hope, therefore, that the hon. Member for Bury will not persist in the Clause, which obviously does not carry out his own intention. I think he will find, if he studies the later Clauses of the Bill, that his point is really met.

I admit that is a point which my hon. Friend has just made, and, therefore, I suggest that we should pass the Second Reading of the Clause, and then put in an Amendment that it shall not apply to a child of that early age.

I think it will be better to leave the Clause as it stands. I think the point of the hon. Baronet is clearly met. The local authority will be able to exempt a child at the age of thirteen if it is satisfied that the employment is beneficial employment. I cannot imagine any local authority refusing to exempt a child if the child is genuinely apprenticed, and the employment is beneficial. If there is any exemption, that is the kind of exemption which will be made. I do appeal to the House not to take up any further time with this matter, but to let the Clause stand as it is now, and, if necessary, make Amendments in the subsequent Clauses.

I hope the hon. Member for Bury will stick to his Clause. The hon. Member who spoke for the Government accused the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. Walsh) of being an amateur, and of not having read the Bill. I am not particularly concerned with the relations between the Front Bench and the members of the Labour party, but I should like, when, there is a taunt of amateurishness made in the House, to say that surely the hon. Gentleman should not have referred to the hon. Member for Ince! If he is not eminently qualified to deal with this Clause, there can be no Member of this House—there could be no Member of this House—who would be qualified. If there is any amateurishness it is not on the part of the Member for Ince. [An HON MEMBER: "Do you mean the Member for Bury? "] No; I am referring to the hon. Member for Ince.

I said I thought the Clause was amateurish as moved by the Member for Bury.

I am in the recollection of the House, and he said the hon. Member for Ince had not read the Bill and that it was an amateurish Clause. The hon. Member for Ince, besides having a practical acquaintanceship with mines, which are immediately connected with this Clause, is agent at Wigan of the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Federation; he is a member of the Miners' Conciliation Board; he is president of the Wigan and District Trades Council, a magistrate for Wigan, and a Labour Member of Parliament.

Yes; I have all those blushing honours thick upon me.

With all these blushing honours thick upon him this taunt is thrown at him. May I be excused—I do so in a most courteous spirit—for saying that that shows how absurd it is. It is an illustration of the manner in which the Parliamentary Secretary dealt with the proposal of the Member for Bury. Here you have a case in which actual business interests are intimately concerned, and you find up against you at every turn a number of Members of whom it may be fairly said that they cannot be presumed to be in any special way business men. The Member of the Government who spoke said a child, if he chose, could take advantage of this Clause. What can a child do? It means that a child is in the hands of the local education authority instead of in the hands of its parents, as it ought to be. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education is trifling with the House. In the short speech he made he crammed as much heresy and schism as it was possible to do. I only regret that the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) did not come into the House earlier to hear it, because he would have been able to riddle it with shot and shell. I agree with the hon. Baronet as to the necessity of giving manual training as against merely intellectual training. That is what we want in this country. The encroachments o£ education authorities are objected to by those who have a first hand acquaintance with business. The hon. Member for Bury (Sir G. Toulmin) has an intimate acquaintance with business at first hand, and I hope he will stick to his Clause and go to a Division. The hon. Member for Ince may laugh at me for being his strong supporter on this accasion when I so often differ from him, but when an hon. Gentleman like him is accused of being an amateur it is the most absurd statement that could possibly proceed from a Treasury Bench.

I am sorry I have not had the advantage of hearing the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, but I do not think that what he could have said is deserving of the attack made upon him by my hon. Friend (Sir J. D. Rees), because he is not accustomed to making speeches full of inaccuracies such as have been suggested. The very fact of our being asked at the present moment to assent to or differ from this particular Clause shows how wise the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Booth) was in suggesting that this Bill should be recommitted. It is almost impossible to look through the proposed new Clause and the Amendments without seeing how imperfectly this Bill has been considered in Committee. I need scarcely say that I agree with every word which fell from the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Denman) as to the great loss we have sustained, particularly in connection with educational matters, through the death of Sir William Anson, whose wise and sane advice on all such matters we very much miss. It was a strong argument for recommitting the Bill that Sir William Anson was strongly opposed to the very Clause which the hon. Member for Carlisle has now had the wisdom to withdraw. The very last words spoken by Sir William Anson on the Second Reading of this Bill were to the effect that he could not possibly support the age limit of fifteen. As regards the proposed new Clause, I feel considerable difficulty in giving my assent to it. As the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Hoare) pointed out, it would give an opportunity to every employer to determine for himself the age at which a child should leave school and the number of hours it should be in the workshop.

It can be amended.

That is all very well, but I do not see any particular advantage in passing this Clause. It states that no obligation shall be imposed upon the child to attend any elementary school or continuation class at any time at which such child is bound to work under a contract of apprenticeship. I do not understand how a contract of apprenticeship could possibly be framed containing a condition that a child should attend continuation classes for eight or ten hours every week. The Clause seems to be utterly meaningless. It gives to any employer the power of determining whether a child should leave school at eight or nine years of age or later, by means of a contract of apprenticeship. It would be a very great blow to the cause of education among the young children of this country. It may be that our system of elementary education, as the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) pointed out, is altogether wrong, but I do not entirely agree with him, although it may be susceptible of improvement. I do not know of any institution which is not susceptible of improvement. On more than one occasion I have pointed out in the House that certain improvements might be introduced into our system of elementary education. I cannot admit that a child is the worse for receiving education in connection with the work in which it is engaged, which is likely to enable him to do it far better than without that education. The Clause goes a great deal too far. Throughout this Bill sufficient attention has not been shown to the close connection which ought to exist between trade employment and education. That has been overlooked in Committee, where a great mistake was made. It was probably overlooked through the fact that the members of the Committee—I was not on it—were of too academic a character, and did not realise the close connection which must exist between elementary and even higher education, and the trades and manufactures of this country. I cannot support the Clause in the form in which it stands, and I do not think we shall gain very much by first passing the Second Reading and then amending it.

I have always so strongly advocated apprenticeship for training, particularly of a manual character, that perhaps I ought to explain why I propose to vote against this Clause. The hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) said that he does not believe in a black-coated England. I am rather surprised at that expression of opinion coming from him, because, if I may venture to confide this to the House, whenever I myself have appeared in this House in a light suit on a Friday afternoon I have always been severely rebuked by the hon. Baronet for the impropriety of doing so. However that may be, I regard it just as essential to a future Sovereign or future Prime Minister, as it is to a future cobbler or a future ploughman, that manual training should be part of his education if it is to be complete. But what is sought by this particular Clause? In the first place, the last part of the Clause indicates that a child, or its parents, can contract itself at the earliest possible school age out of elementary education altogether, and the first part is so framed as to render it possible to allow apprenticeship in lieu of school education, even if that apprenticeship be of a non-educational character, and even if it be the result of an attempt on the part of employers to exploit boy or girl labour for their own commercial advantage. As that Clause is framed at present I regard it as a reactionary Clause, both from the educational and from the industrial standpoint, and I shall vote against it, although entirely in favour of industrial training.

I am not concerned to defend myself from the charge of being an amateur. We become professionals, I suppose, when he reach the Government Bench, but at present I consider that I have a right to call upon the Front Bench to give me proper assistance in securing my object, and that it shall be ultimately put in form by the members of the Department concerned. I am advised that notwithstanding this Clause the obligation of compulsory attendance at school will remain the same as under the Education Acts, and nothing so ridiculous will be allowed as a child of seven or eight entering into an indenture of apprenticeship. "Anything in this Act" are the words of the Clause. If the Clause is read a second time I shall be perfectly prepared to accept any Amend- ment in the direction suggested by the hon. Member (Mr. Gordon Harvey) which will secure the object.

Am I not right in thinking, as I said before, though I could not get a legal Gentleman to reply, that all that the Clause does is to leave the law in exactly the same position that it was in before the Bill was introduced?

That is what I am advised. I am very sorry to differ from the Front Bench. They ought to be able to give us an absolute opinion upon it. Without some such Clause or some provision I do not consider that the Bill, as it at present exists, meets the case of apprenticeship. A proper contract of apprenticeship does not necessarily need to be in writing. If there is a verbal agreement of apprenticeship the employer is bound to carry it out. I think I am bound to go to a Division.

I beg to move, "That the Debate be now adjourned."

I have carefully listened to the whole Debate on this Clause, but at present am not able to make up my mind whether we have been told by the hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench that the law under this Clause remains as it stands at present or whether it is going to be altered. I am really of opinion that on a complicated Bill like this, which is full of legal difficulties, we ought to have the advice of one of the Law Officers of the Crown. I had not an opportunity of being on the Committee upstairs. I have listened to the Debate, but have had no official information whatever what the state of the law would be if this Clause were passed. It has been held by some Members that they want to pass this Clause, or want to have something like it, but want to have it in a different form. Are we to vote for this Clause as it stands and amend it afterwards, or are we to vote against it? We are absolutely in the dark. Therefore, I am going to move the postponement of the further consideration of the Bill, and I hope when we consider it again we shall have the advantage of some other hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench, and that it shall not be left to the Undersecretary for the Education Department.

3.0 P.M.

I beg to second the Motion, and to point out that though this is a private Member's Bill the Government have taken a very active part in furthering it, and, that being so, the least they could have done would be to secure, especially in view of the fact that the Bill has been changed since twelve o'clock, and they apparently knew that it was going to be changed, not only the presence of the Under-Secretary all alone, but a Law Officer. We have two Law Officers whom we pay very large salaries, and the least we could expect is that when we have to consider a Bill of this sort, and when we have to consider new Clauses, where the Government are really furthering the Bill and backing it, they would assist us by having a Law Officer present. I even appealed to the hon. Member (Mr. Chiozza Money). In my ignorance as to what the exact state of the law is, and as there was no Law Officer here, I knew that he knew a great deal about a great many things, and I went so far as to appeal to him to put me right. All he did was to wait until he heard my appeal and then run away. I do not blame the hon. Member. He is not paid £5,000 a year, but I think those hon. Gentlemen who fill the responsible position of Law Officers of the Crown should be present here and should be able to give us advice upon this matter. I hope that hon. Members will support us on both sides of the House. I do not say this because I am an opponent of the present Government. I should say just as much if I were on that side and finding fault with my own Government, but there has been a tendency during the last year for the eminent Gentlemen who occupy that bench to absent themselves from this House unless the subject under discussion is one in which they themselves are immediately concerned. Instead of coming in to assist us Back Benchers, their object seems to be to fly the House. They are never here at all, and here we are, at half-past three on a Friday afternoon, with a very important Bill to discuss, and the only representative of the Government is the hon. Gentleman opposite. I am told that one of the Law Officers was in a Division. That is a very bad example to the House to vote without hearing any of the arguments, and then, having recorded his vote, to run away. We do not pay him a large salary for that, and I have very much pleasure in seconding the Amendment.

I am only one of the Back Benchers to whom reference has been made, but I am not obstructing the Bill. I do frankly desire to see the Bill passed. I think the Motion for the Adjournment of the Debate which has been proposed is a perfectly genuine Motion. After all, this is not the luncheon hour. Three o'clock is a time when the House ought to be full, and I think there is a good representation of Members with the single exception of those who usually sit on the Treasury Bench. I cannot see why a Bill of this kind, which cannot be got through without the support of the Government, should not receive very careful consideration when important points are brought forward. I cannot understand why the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education is left in sole charge of the Bill. The Motion for Adjournment has been moved chiefly because of the absence of the Law Officers. That is a substantial ground for not proceeding, and I do hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will convey to his colleagues, and especially to his chief, what has been said to-day in regard to the absence of Ministers. I hope this will be taken seriously, and not treated as a merely obstructive Motion.

It is alleged that this, is not an obstructive device. I am sorry that I cannot altogether see what is the genuine feeling of those who are helping forward this movement for the Adjournment. There is no doubt that the Parliamentary Secretary gave a clear exposition of the legal position. (An HON. MEMBER: "Nothing of the kind!"] The Parliamentary Secretary told us that he was advised what the legal position would be. I take it that he got advice before coming to the House, and that he gave us an absolutely legal interpretation of the effect of the Clause. As a supporter of the Bill, I wish to say that I have not heard the word "children" mentioned in the Debate yet. [Indications of dissent.] I have not heard the interests of the children ever mentioned. It is the last thing which seems to have occured to hon. Members. They have resisted the Bill by every attempt known to old Parliamentary hands. Attempts are being made to kill this useful measure. Now that the Bill has been partly jettisoned, there remains but little, but what remains is important as regards the half-time question. Here we are supposed to be legislating by this Bill in the interests of children and we are—

On a point of Order. Am I to understand, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that you will limit the discussion to the point which has been raised, namely, the absence of the Law Officers, or allow other reasons for the Adjournment to be introduced?

It was solely on the ground that the Law Officers are not present that I allowed the Motion, and the reason I gave was that there seems to be an impression that there is not sufficient legal aid to enable hon. Members to know the position in which they are.

My contention and reply to that is that we have had what amounted to a legal interpretation of the effect of the Clause which has been moved. It must be obvious to all that if the Adjournment Motion is carried the Bill is killed, and, therefore, I appeal to hon. Members to give what remains of the Bill a chance, in the interests of those for whom it was brought forward.

I wish to join my voice in support of those who urge that on an important measure of this kind we are entitled to all the skilled advice we can possibly get. First of all, with regard to the new Clause, I am in doubt as to what its meaning is. I have endeavoured to consider the Clause with some care, but, having done so, I should be in great difficulty as to what the effect of the Clause is with respect to the conflict between the obligation to attend school and the conditions under an apprenticeship. Apart from that, I wish to say that this measure is viewed with very great anxiety in Lancashire and in the northern parts of the country. I was in my own Constituency last week and I was astonished to find how strong a feeling there was on the subject, and under these circumstances it seems to me desirable that this House, before passing the Bill or introducing new Clauses, should know where we stand exactly as to the effect of the Clauses. We should be fortified by the best legal advice on the subject. I would, therefore, urge that we should not proceed with the discussion until we have the best possible information as to the effect of the new Clause which has been proposed, otherwise legal difficulties are bound to arise.

I think we really do suffer from the absence of any authoritative legal advice. I did not understand my hon. Friend the Parliamen- tary Secretary to quote any legal authority on this point. The new Clause runs:—

"Where any child works under a contract of apprenticeship, nothing in this Act shall be deemed to render the employment of such child illegal, or to impose upon such child any obligation to attend an elementary school or a continuation class at any time at which such child is bound to work under such contract,"

Sub-section (2) of the last Clause of the Bill says:—

"(2) This Act may be cited as the Children (Employment and School Attendance) Act, 1914, and shall be construed as one with the Education Acts, 1870 to 1911; and this Act and those Acts may be cited together as the Education Acts, 1870 to 1914.

This Act, so far as regards exercise of powers under the Employment of Children Act, 1903, shall be construed as one with that Act."

In the circumstances, at any rate, it appears arguable that the restriction in the new Clause applies only to this Bill, and that all the compulsory powers under the Education Act will still be the effective law of the land. It is not my business to advise the House of Commons on points of law, but the facts which I have put before the House make me anxious to have the opinion of a Law Officer in order that I may know what we are doing.

I very much regret the absence of the Law Officers. I oppose the Motion for the Adjournment on the ground that the point raised is entirely unimportant. I think I can shortly state the meaning of the new Clause.

You can only speak with respect to the Motion for Adjournment, and not on the merits of the Clause.

I think everybody who has listened to the Debate must agree that it has been most unsatisfactory. I came down to the House and examined the Bill and found it was an extremely complicated one, dealing with a very large number of subjects, many of which were not strictly in relation to each other. I thought the Bill had been carefully considered in the Committee stage, but a great deal of doubt has been thrown upon that by what has occurred in the course of the Debate. Now when we are called upon to deal with these very complicated questions, which affect a large number of industries in all parts of the country, the very great importance of the measure has been shown to me by many representations I have received from my own Constituents, and it seems to me extremely unsatisfactory that on an occasion like this we should not have the advantage of the best legal advice possible, and I assumed that that would have been the case, and that the Law Officers of the Crown, or one of them, would have been here this afternoon in order that the House might be guided in coming to a decision, and not take any steps which will involve industries, probably, in very great difficulties indeed. Though speaking as one who desires very sincerely that many questions dealing with the subject of children and regulations connected with their employment should be carefully gone into and examined in this House, and that if necessary legislation should be introduced to settle them, I do think that in the circumstances we should be doing far more harm than good if we proceeded with the discussion of a very important measure like this in circumstances which are so obviously disadvantageous and unsatisfactory, and therefore, so far as I am concerned, I shall support the proposal of my hon. Friend that the Debate be adjourned.

I hope that the House will be under no misapprehension as to what has really taken place this afternoon. We are wasting several hours of the time of the House of Commons in deliberately killing a very valuable measure. I am not entitled to discuss the merits of this question now, but upon the particular Motion that we should adjourn the Debate because of the absence of the Law Officers of the Crown, I say that that is no good reason why we should adjourn this Debate. When we were interrupted by this Motion we were discussing a Clause, the Mover of which admits it to be imperfect. My hon. Friend to whom we are indebted for the devotion which he has given to this Bill, a devotion which has been its own reward this afternoon—

I absolutely deny the interpretation put upon it.

However that may be, there can be no question about this that this Clause is not of very great importance. It can at the most only affect a few people.

The Motion is that the House do now adjourn.

I am discussing the reasons which led you to accept the Motion.

The hon. Member must confine his remarks to the Motion before the House.

I understood you to admit the Motion on the ground of the necessity for the presence of the Law Officers of the Crown during the discussion of this Clause. I want to say that it seems to me, at any rate, that so far as any legal opinion on this matter is concerned, surely I can give my hon. Friend on the Front Bench the credit for this, that he did not make his pronouncement to the House without having informed himself—it would be very improper if he had done so—as to the true bearing of the Clause. That has been explained to the House, and yet we are now asked to adjourn this Debate and wipe out this afternoon, for all practical purposes, a most important measure. I am not entitled to discuss this important measure, but I hope that I may be allowed, before sitting down, to say that this country undoubtedly needs such a measure as this to be, I will not say on a level with its chief competitor in Europe, but—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"]—I will conclude by hoping that the hon. Member opposite will withdraw his Motion, and if he does not I would ask that we should vote on it.

I threw out the suggestion in perfect good faith. I threw it out; first of all because I felt that there was a growing disrespect which had been for a considerable time shown to the private Member on Friday afternoons. We are called to assemble here to take part in the legislation of the country. We are given few opportunities of doing private Members' work, and when we do so assemble we are entitled at least to be treated by the Treasury Bench with the respect which is due to our constituents. That is the first point that I submit. I will not say any more on that point, except that I think that every Member of this House, in whatever quarter he sits, must admit that there is a growing disrespect towards the private Member. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"] I quite see that that is not in order. The point is, not only the very unsatisfactory answer, but the brusque and discourteous answer, and the incorrect answer given by the Under-Secretary for Education. There is not a single word in this Bill as it stands that repeals the compulsory Clauses of the former Act, and therefore—

I would remind the hon. Member that the Standing Order says that speeches must be strictly confined to the Motion—"That this Debate be now adjourned."

I quite admit that. Possibly there is this great difference that he has been advised, but by whom I do not know. Surely, in the interests of everybody we should have definite legal knowledge as to the effect of this particular Clause. I have the greatest possible pleasure in supporting the Motion.

May I point out that this is exactly the position in which the Committee was, time after time, and had it not been for the presence on that Committee of the Under-Secretary for the Home Office things would have been in an unsatisfactory condition. It was stated this afternoon that the Committee was badly attended. I quite agree with that view, and on many occasions there was a difficulty in getting a quorum.

I would humbly point out to the Front Bench exactly how this arose. Very frequently in this House a suggestion is made by some speaker, and one gets puzzled with regard to the meaning of the proposal. My hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. S. Walsh) who, at any rate, is a very keen student of anything which he takes up—I am the last man to be told that he does not read a Bill—was in a difficulty, and he asked to have it explained.

The hon. Member should confine his remarks to the Motion before the House.

I am distinctly on the Motion before the House, which was founded upon what took place here. The usual practice is for someone to go out and tell an absent Minister that complaint is being made about his absence. That repeatedly takes place under your Chairmanship, and as a rule we see the Minister hurrying in. That has been seen from time to time. On this occasion the hon. Member made a suggestion, and he got a very angry rebuke from the Front Bench. Though I am not a member of his party, I felt keenly what happened. You would expect better conduct from a person in the distinguished position of the hon. Gentleman. Then I have a complaint as to the other side. I was asking whether so-and-so was a barrister, to see to whom I could put my point. I wanted to get an interpretation. I appealed to the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington by name and the hon. Member for South Ayrshire. I appealed to the hon. Member for Islington. I saw that they were members of the legal profession, and I appealed to them to throw some light, but no one came to our assistance, and the consequence was that this Motion was made by the hon. Member for Stowmarket. I do not like to support a Motion of this kind, but I do say that there was no obstruction in it, and the speeches of the hon. Member for Sunderland and the hon. Member for Northamptonshire were the only obstructive speeches we have had.

I have not the slightest desire to obstruct or stop this Bill, though I submit that it is a scandal that on a matter of the most important kind of Law Officers are not here. It is perfectly true that the same thing happened in Committee, and there was considerable complaint that there were no Law Officers present. I do not wish to stop the Bill, but I do think that the Under-Secretary for the Board of Education ought at once to take steps, if he wishes it to proceed, to send for the Law Officers of the Crown.

I think it is not quite reasonable to complain because the Government are not present in great force. [An HON. MEMBER: "The Law Officers."] The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education (Mr. Trevelyan) knows this Bill exceedingly well, and is perfectly well able to give us guidance in the matter. I think the hon. Members are suffering from an attack of undue modesty in thinking that they are not competent to continue the discussion. I trust that the Debate will be continued, even without the assistance of the Law Officers.

Question put, "That the Debate be now adjourned."

The House divided: Ayes, 82; Noes, 162.

Question again proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."

Now that we have cleared away the question of advice, which has not been given to us, by the Law Officers of the Crown, may I say that one of the arguments put forward against this Clause was that there might be a conspiracy amongst employers to employ babies and sucklings of seven or eight years of age. I do hope hon. Members will not be influenced by an argument such as that. If the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Denman) desires to have an innumerable number in

the schools, I do say that there is no desire and there will be no conspiracy on the part of employers to have infants of five, six, or seven under bogus apprenticeship papers employed in any capacity whatever. Instead of being influence for, I hope such an argument will persuade hon. Members to vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Bury (Sir G. Toulmin).

Question put, "That the Clause be read a second time."

The House divided: Ayes, 84; Noes, 161.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Reservations as to Section 55 of The Factory and Workshops Act, 1901.)

Nothing in this Act nor any by-laws made in pursuance of any power contained therein shall alter or affect the provisions of section fifty-five (Night employment of male young persons of fourteen in glass works) of the Factory and Workshops Act, 1901, and that Section shall be construed and have effect as if between the words "male" and "young person" the words "child or" had been inserted.

Clause brought up, and read the first time.

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a second time."

This Clause is put down entirely in the interests of the glass trade. As the House knows, the glass trade in this country depends entirely upon an adequate supply of boy labour. The present age limit is fourteen. Moreover, it is impossible for men to become adept in the highly technical business of glass-blowing unless they begin young. The special conditions of the glass trade have always been recognised by the Legislature. The whole question was gone into in the year 1895, when, I think, the Prime Minister was Home Secretary. The result was' that the present exemptions were put into the Factory Act, 1895, and were repeated by Section 55 of the Factory Act, 1901, which enables boys of fourteen and upwards to work in glass works and also to do night labour. If this Bill were passed in its present form there would be a great likelihood of these particular privileges or facilities for the glass trade being taken away. Clause 1 ( a ), by allowing local authorities to raise the school age, would enable the local education authorities to prevent boys under fifteen from working in glass works, while Clause 4, which gives the local education authority power to make by-laws for regulating the employment of children, would enable them to take away that night-work which is absolutely necessary in the case of the glass trade. I understand from the statement of the hon. Member for Carlisle that he is prepared to leave out Clause 1 ( a ) and Clause 4. I have had an opportunity of consulting those who represent the glass trade here, and I am in a position to say that if that undertaking were carried out the objections of the glass trade would be completely met. But I am bound to enter this caveat. I do not for a moment doubt the bona fides of the hon. Member for Carlisle, but when he announced these concessions I noticed that many Members shouted "No!" or "Shame!" or something of that sort. It is, therefore, necessary to know whether he can carry the House with him. I hope that the hon. Member, who has taken an honourable and honest part in the matter, will be prepared to say that, in the event of those particular Clauses not being dropped, he will drop the whole Bill. If he will make that statement it will not be in necessary to press this new Clause; but, in order to get a statement from the hon. Member, I will move the Clause, and my future action will be guided by the statement which he makes.

I beg to second the proposed new Clause.

If this were a Government Bill, which in many respects it really is, an undertaking on the part of the Front Bench to delete certain Clauses would naturally carry with it an obligation upon all Members bound by party ties; but as the Bill, in spite of its importance, is only a private Member's measure, we are bound to consider whether we have any guarantee which will enable us to abstain from pressing this Clause and proceed upon what we know to be the intention of the hon. Member for Carlisle, as far as he can make it effective. That is one of the incidental misfortunes of carrying forward legislation of this importance, which goes right to the root of many of our great industries, with nothing more authoritative behind it than the opinion of certain private Members. If it is clearly understood that the whole Bill will be dropped in the event of the House deciding not to delete Clause ( a ) and Clause 4, there will be no object in dividing on this proposed Clause. In regard to Clause 4, I might point out that our objections were intended to be met by Clause 13, which was introduced in Committee; but whereas Clause 4 enables local education authorities, under certain circumstances, to raise the age to sixteen, Clause 1 enables local authorities to pass by-laws making attendance at school compulsory up to fifteen years of age, and as both Clauses equally do away with what is known as the Charter of the glass trade—that is, Clause 55 of the Factory and Workshops Act, 1901—it is necessary for us to bring forward this proposal. Although an agreement was supposed to have been arrived at, we now find that, although we meet Clause 4 by Clause 13, we do not meet Clause 1 at all unless we pass the present proposed Clause. That shows the extreme difficulty in which we find ourselves, and it is necessary that we should have an assurance that the whole Bill will be dropped if Clause ( a ) and Clause 4 are not deleted.

I rise with the view not of saying one word on the merits of the Bill. I quite understand that hon. Members may feel some doubt as to the ability of any private Member to fulfil a Parliamentary bargain, but, fortunately, I think there are sufficient powers yet left to private Members to enable them to fulfil any pledge that they have publicly made, as I publicly made this afternoon. I certainly feel that if the House does not support me in withdrawing the paragraph of the Clause to which I refer, I should certainly feel bound to withdraw the Bill.

I am rather disturbed myself about this bargain, because I do not see that this Clause, if carried, would affect prejudicially the Bill. The promoters of the Bill fear the insertion of this Clause. On the other hand, when the Bill has been cut about in the way it has been, it is very difficult at the eleventh hour for hon. Members of this House, who are laymen, and not lawyers, to be sure of the position, and that some of the evil effects which they fear might result in the glass trade or in any other industry are, in the Bill, entirely removed. It is certainly a case where we very much need the opinion of the Law Officers. The hon. Member for Carlisle says that these Amendments will, in fact, save the glass trade. The hon. Member for Dudley has told us that that is so. Well, of course, no doubt he considers that that will be so; but he is not a lawyer; he is not a glass-maker. I do think it would be on the safe side if this Clause were inserted, because nothing is more certain than that the glass trade cannot possibly stand the provisions which were originally contemplated in this Bill. Foreign competition is so keen that the passage of those provisions would practically mean the ruin of the glass trade in many towns in this country. Therefore, I would ask the hon. Member for Dudley and the hon. Member for Carlisle to consider twice whether this bargain is really necessary and whether there would be any harm in inserting this Clause, because I do not think it would do the Bill any harm, whereas it would make safe the position of the glass trade.

The glass-bottle trade is a very important industry in my Constituency, and I cannot take responsibility in connection with that very important industry without being on the watch. If that is an interested motive, I confess at once that it will guide me. I join with the Noble Lord in his statement that the glass-bottle trade—which, of course, is rather distinct from some branches of the glass trade, and in some respects is of higher importance and in a better position—is involved in this problem. I am perfectly certain that the glass bottle trade cannot stand against foreign competition if subject to legislation of this kind. Therefore, this is a matter, as the Noble Lord has said, of life and death to the glass-bottle industry, and the employment of a great many people in my neighbourhood, and big firms who are very large employers. I also agree with the Noble Lord that it could not make much difference or do much injury to the Bill if this Clause were in. I do not think there is much chance of the Bill becoming law, although many of us are inclined to give it a helping hand; but at the same time I heard the hon. Member for Carlisle cheer when the Noble Lord was speaking, and It is owing to that that I have risen. When the Noble Lord was saying that this legislation would have a very damaging effect upon the glass-bottle trade my hon. Friend below me was crying, "No, no!" So it is quite clear that although he has given way that he is not convinced that this will be damaging to a large industry. Under these circumstances I hope he will excuse me, but I would like to put a question to the hon. Member of Chelsea opposite—for I do object to this being considered a bargain between one side of the House and the other. Here is some sort of agreement publicly made. I would like to ask the hon. Member for Chelsea, as one of the backers of the Bill on the opposite side, whether he endorses the statement of the hon. Member for Carlisle?

Yes.

As the hon. Gentleman places such implicit faith in the statement of a Liberal Member, so I place implicit faith in the word of a Conservative Member.

Under the circumstances, I ask leave to withdraw the Motion. I entirely accept the statement of the hon. Member opposite.

Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

The other proposed new Clauses on the Order Paper, standing in the names of the hon. Member for Bristol West (Mr. Gibbs) and the Noble Lord for the Newton Division of Lancashire (Viscount Wolmer), the hon. Member for Kingswinford Division (Mr. Staveley-Hill),. the hon. Member for the St. Helens Division (Mr. Swift), and the hon. Member for the Ludlow Division of Shropshire (Mr. Hunt), should come as Amendments to Clause 1.

CLAUSE 1.—(Power of Local Education Authority to make By-laws regulating Attendance at School, and Abolition of Existing Provisions as to Exemptions. 33 and 34 Viet., c. 75.)

(1)A local education authority may make by-laws under Section seventy-four of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, as amended by any subsequent Act—

( a ) Requiring parents to cause their children up to the age of fifteen years to attend school, as if in that Section as amended fifteen years were substituted for fourteen years:

( b ) Providing for the total exemption from attendance at school of any child—

(2) Where exemption from attendance at school is granted to any child under this Section, the local education authority shall give to the child a certificate of exemption in such form as the authority determine.

(3) Where a local education authority has given to a child a certificate of exemption under this Section, and has subsequently become aware that the child has either not entered or has left the employment in respect of which the certificate was given, the authority shall have power to revoke such certificate.

(4) The local education authority may make it a condition of the grant of a certificate of exemption that the child exempted shall attend continuation classes.

(5) Any by-law in force at the commencement of this Act which fixes a less age than fourteen as the age until which parents are required to cause their children to attend school, shall have effect as though fourteen were substituted for the age so fixed, and any enactment or by law then in force so far as it provides for the exemption of children from school attendance shall cease to have effect, with out prejudice to any exemption already granted:

Provided that this Sub-section so far as it affects the law relating to the employment of children in factories and workshops under the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, or to the education of children so employed, shall not come into operation until the first day of January nineteen hundren and seventeen.

In view of the fact that the hon. Member opposite is prepared to leave out Subsection (1), paragraph ( a ), I do not propose to move to omit the whole Clause.

4.0 P.M.

But I propose to omit the Clause, which embodies what I believe to be a thoroughly vicious principle in legislation. It gives power to the local education authority, which is by no means a democratic body, to do as suggested. The local education authority is not the town council. Even with the town council you do not always get that close rapprochement between the electors and the town council that one would like to see. But this is a case of the local education authority, full of co-opted members, with all their various ideas as to what is good for the working classes being given powers which I do not believe any education authority should have. First of all, there is this question of raising the school age to fifteen. I do not intend to say anything more about it except that no more unpopular proposal was ever embodied in the legislation of this country. Besides, what it comes to is that it gives these people power to do some of the following things:—

"To provide for the total exemption from attendance of school of any children who are about to enter some occupation or employment which will, in the opinion of the authority be beneficial."

That is what I object to. I do not think you have any right to put the future of the child in the hands and power of an authority when that business is the business of the parent and the child. I do resent this idea that the local education authority is to be the provider of work and to be the judge of whether the work for the child is suitable or not. I know that ninety-nine people out of a hundred with the very best intentions would try to see that the child or children went into certain trades which were not blind-alley employment, and which they honestly believed were better for the child and would promote the future of the child, but the effect of a lot of this will be that there will be certain trades that are useful for children into which an enormous number of children will be put, and the enormous competition in those trades will bring the wages down. I believe you had better leave these things to the law of supply and demand.

You should go to the root of the evil and stop that appalling poverty which compels parents to send their children to work at an unduly early age. All this talk that many of our children are ruining their lives in unsuitable employment, and that we—that is, the local authority—should supply them with proper work and will have power to say exactly the kind of work they are to do and who are to be the masters, all that policy of patching is, to my mind, not going to be of much permanent benefit to the nation or to the child life of this country. You may know perfectly well in doing what you are proposing that it does not stop the evils which will be just as bad in the long run. The rock bottom evil is the poverty of the people, and until you establish some measure of justice in this country whereby the worker will get the full reward of his labour, there is no good tampering with the results of this poverty by means of the local education authority or by means of any other small State doles. That is so much for this interference of the local authorities in these trades; but if the House would look at Sub-section (3) of the first Clause, they will see that a boy or girl put into a particular trade is not allowed to leave that trade without the permission of the education authority. However much the House may be inclined to make that authority the arbiter of what employment the child should be put to, it surely does not want to make them the arbiter as to whether or not the child should remain in that employment. The Sub-section says:—

"(3) Where a local authority has given to a child a certificate of exemption under this Section, and has subsequently become aware that the child has either not entered or has left the employment in respect of which the certificate was given, the local authority shall have power to revoke such certificate,"

and the child may have to go back to school. That seems to me to be a further piece of interference even more dangerous than the first. It gives the employer of those children an undue hold over them when he knows they cannot leave his employment, or if they do leave it it means the alternative of going back to school. In Sub-section (4) the Bill goes further and introduces that principle of the German system, to which I alluded to earlier. Under Sub-section (4) the local authority may make it a condition of the granting of a certificate of exemption that the child exempted shall attend continuation classes. That is what the promoters of this Bill tell us will be done in nearly all those cases of exemption. The opportunity for the chid to earn half-a-crown or four shillings a week for its parents-shall be dependent upon its compulsory attendance at evening classes. I do not believe you have any right to interfere in that way with the children, but I think it is very mean that you should bribe them to do this by giving them a certificate from other employment by making it a condition that they should compulsorily attend evening classes. These evening classes, I understand, are to be directed more and more upon the lines of technical training. There are to be technological schools, and in these schools, as is explained by the circulars which have been sent to Members, and by the speeches of the Lord Chancellor, who appears to be a strong supporter of the system, the education is to be strictly technical. If a child is put to the bakery trade, he is to centre round that trade, he is to send out bills, and he is to know all about bread. His whole life is to centre round the bread-oven. If he becomes a chimney sweep, his whole life is to centre round chimneys. The whole object of this education is to turn out admirable tools and pieces of machinery, and nothing else.

I thoroughly dislike this scheme of technological education devised solely with a view to providing the employers of this country with more suitable, docile workmen. I object to this scheme of technological education in these evening classes,. and I do not want to give to these local authorities, who are easily carried off their feet by the latest thing from Germany, power to inflict this' system, brought forward in Germany, upon this country, in order to provide skilled workpeople and, at the same time, in order to provide workpeople with views as to their relation to their masters more suitable to what the masters and the State consider desirable, and which are to elminate all independent spirit. I do not want to see that slipped into this Bill brought in by private Members. I protest very heartily against this first Clause, which contains provisions giving the power to local authorities to force children into this system of education. I do not want to take up more time. I am most anxious not to obstruct this Bill. I know it will never become law, but I really want to make the House see how vital are the dangers of this new system of education, and the danger of taking away from parents the responsibility to the children and to the community.

I beg to second this proposal for the omission of Clause 1. This Clause introduces certain new principles which, personally, I am very strongly opposed to. The first of these which I should like to mention is paragraph ( b ) of Sub-section (1), which provides for the total exemption from attendance at school of any child

"who is about to enter some occupation or employment which will, in the opinion of the authority, arrived at after consultation with the parent, be beneficial to him."

In Committee I put forward the view which I want put forward here as an objection to the whole of the remainder of this Clause, namely, that it is a question of what is in the opinion of the local education authority beneficial employment. If any authority has to decide such a question as that, it certainly should not be the education authority. We have no right in an Education Bill to set up the principle of absolutely overriding parental control and responsibility. In the Sub-section those propositions look very innocent, but there could be nothing more revolutionary, not of any department of politics or of State life, but of the whole basis upon which our national existence depends. Sub-section (4) provides that:—

"The local education authority may make it a condition of the grant of a certificate of exemption that the child exempted shall attend continuation classes."

We ought not to insert in the first Clause of the Bill a condition that the local education authority is to be allowed to make that a condition of granting a certificate of exemption from further education. It provides that a child shall attend certain classes, not classes in existence to-day, not a system that has been proved to be an advantage to the mass of the children and to the trade of the country, or a system that has shown itself by clear proof and example that it is able to do something for the children, which no occupation can do for them and which no practical training can do for them. It may be something only recently introduced into this country as a mere idea and a mere experiment. We do not know how it will work, and we may find that it will not work as well as the old apprenticeship system or half as well as-the early employment of children in the practical industries in which they are going to engage. To allow an education authority to make such a condition as that seems to me to be taking a great risk to meet the requirements of the class for which such a provision is required. If it is necessary to bring forward another, I would point out that Clause 9 is practically a repetition of the same sentiment, and it is only a proof of how inadequately this Bill was considered and how it was rushed through Committee, because, if it had been thoroughly worked out, there is no doubt that this question of the conditions to be placed upon the employment of children, in respect of their attendance at continuation classes, would have been dealt with, not in this Sub-section at all, but in one clear, definite Clause.

The hon. Member for Carlisle says that he is going to withdraw the portion of the Clause which gives the local education authority power to make by-laws raising the school age within its area to fifteen years of age, but there is still a good deal of vice. It is not eliminated, because in the fifth Sub-section it says that any by-law in force at the commencement of this Act which fixes a less age than fourteen as the age until which parents are required to-cause their children to attend school, shall have effect as though fourteen were substituted for the age so fixed, and so forth. Even with the Clause as it remains, where-ever we have a local authority who has taken into account local considerations, the requirements of the local industry, the conditions, perhaps, of the poverty in which a large section of the population of the locality may have been, and who have allowed the exemption from school attendance to commence at a less age-than fourteen—all that is to be swept away, and it is to have the effect as though fourteen were substituted as a cast-iron minimum. Therefore, in effect, although we believe that we are going to do away with Clause 1 ( a ) this is still a Clause for raising the school age in many cases. I am opposed to raising the school age for compulsory education at the present time. I am convinced that continuation classes are merely in an experimental stage, and I believe, with regard to our ordinary elementary education, that in a vast number of cases all that they are profitably able to teach children can be taught them before the age of thirteen, and that after that age to keep them in the same school is merely a matter of vain repetition. The reports sent to parents of scholars in elementary schools in most districts are not of that detailed character which would enable them to form any opinion as to what their children were becoming fitted for. They confine themselves to such vague facts as that their attendance is fairly satisfactory and their conduct on the whole good. I am, therefore, opposed to any measure to raise the school age until this matter has had a great deal of careful thought, and until these objections, which I have ventured to put before the House very much in outline, have been met. I think there is an excellent reason for omitting the rest of this Clause, and making a clean job of it, and recognising the fact, although it may have been discussed from time to time, that the principle meets with no general approval from the majority of the people concerned in this country. I do urge that this House has no right to pass such a Clause by means of a private Member's Bill.

I understood from the promise of the promote of the Bill to remove certain portions of the Clause that nothing now remained except the words dealing with the half-time system. The hon. Member who has just spoken holds different views. He says that the Clause will still have the effect in some places, and under some conditions, of raising the present school age. I must confess I have failed to understand this Bill. I have had twenty-five years experience in the administration of education, and I have given a great deal of study to this Bill, and I have endeavoured, with such intellect as I possess, to interpret the meaning of the Bill, and I have failed. I have never met with a Bill so insiduously and skilfully drafted to conceal its meaning and guiding purpose. I would venture to ask the promoter of the Bill to give to the House a statement of what the various Clauses and Sections of the Bill will really carry out and which of them will carry out each purpose. Leaving aside the question of raising the school age—to which, in theory, I am not opposed—I desire to call attention to the proposed abolition of the existing system of half-time. I am here to oppose the abolition of that system as it exists at the present time. There is a very prevalent idea about, promoted by various people with the most amiable motives, that the very best thing you can do with children and young persons is to keep them, and continue to keep them in the schools. I must confess that I think there are other things in life besides the school I want, and I am sure that any hon. Member who is interested in education or in the welfare of young people also wants, to see the rising generation of this country get more education.

How can you get it except in the school?

If the hon. Member had done me the honour of listening to what I said—perhaps owing to the peals of thunder outside I was inaudible—he would have heard me say that, in my opinion, there are other institutions and other walks in life whereby part of the necessary education can be given.

Why have any schools at all?

That is a childish interruption. I should not have worked for twenty-five years in education if I did not believe in schools in their proper place. I am only saying that I do believe that the whole of the education and training of the child whereby it will, in the end, when it becomes a man or a woman, fulfil its proper function as a citizen, cannot be got within the walls of a school. That is what I have tried to lay down. As I said a moment ago there are certain people who desire authority to keep the child within the walls of the school. I have this complaint against them, that when they get the children there they do not keep them there; they are really not making the best of the educational time which is now at their disposal. I submit that the improved education of a child, which this Bill is intended to promote, should be obtained, or attempts ought to be made to obtain it, more by a reorganisation of school life, by an improvement of the schools, by better staff- and equipment, and by treating the education of young children in a more scientific and practical manner than is done at present. It is a monstrous thing that some four or five hours in the day should be all that we allot to education in our schools, and that on only five days in the week; and that there should be an inordinate number of holidays, cutting most dangerously and inconveniently into the teaching of the year. As to the homework, one is supposed to be an oppressor of the child, and not its best friend. People who talk to the working classes about their children in this way are not their best friends, because they themselves are sending their own children to public schools, where an immensely greater amount of work has to be done—

No.

Than is done in the schools of the people. My hon. Friend who interrupts me can make his point good later in the Debate. The present Bill is inopportune. Within the limits of the present law you have, if you will use it, a full opportunity of giving the child not only as good an education as we contemplate for him now, but an education far superior. As to the half-time system, here I speak frankly and unashamed as a Lancashire man and a representative of a Lancashire constituency. The Lancashire people are supposed, at any rate we read it in the Press and hear it on certain platforms, to be very indifferent as to the fate of their children, and their one object and aim is supposed to be to take the earliest opportunity of grinding out of child labour as much as can be ground out of it, and to use the fruits and proceeds of that labour to lead idle and luxurious lives. That is really an insult to Lancashire. The Lancashire parent, above all things, is a tender and thoughtful parent, and, instead of calling them a greedy and grasping people, I would call them an intensely practical people. It is from the strongly practical point of view that their objection to the abolition of the half-time system arises. It would be far better to proceed on the lines I have indicated, raising, when the time is opportune—it may be opportune to-day—the school age, and allowing the half-time age to rise with the school age, keeping an interval between the two, and not abolishing the half-time system. A sudden break in the life of the child is not good for it or for its education. You keep a child rigidly at school for a certain period of its life, then you send it to work, and there is no connection between school and work. Under these conditions the idea of a child is that it has done with school for ever, and has suddenly become a man or woman, a worker, and a person of great responsibility and importance. Instead of destroying the half - time system, I would rather see it developed. That has been done in the case of Germany at the present time. I should like to see the connection of the working child with the school maintained, and I would let the break take place as gradually and quietly as possible. I would do that in the hope that the connection of the child with its school and the regard to the child for its school might be maintained until such a period of life that it would of its own volition then take up the continuation classes or the night schools, and that up to the age of eighteen or twenty, if you like, there might be a prospect of the continuance of some modicum of education going on influencing that child and improving its chances in the world. I am not a very hostile critic of the Bill. I take no bitter side. But I wish that before the half-time system is given up for ever this side of the question that I have brought before the House might be seriously and carefully considered.

I beg leave to support the Motion, and I hope hon. Members will believe that it is not only Members who support the Bill who feel strongly on this subject as it affects children. From the draftsman's point of view I should have thought that as paragraph ( a ) is deleted the deletion of paragraph ( b ) would rather follow. It is, I think, because in paragraph ( a ) the age is raised to fifteen years that the promoters of the Bill provided for certain action being taken by the local authority during the longer period with which they are now asked to deal. At any rate, it seems to read in that way. If that is not so, it is an additional reason for supporting the Amendment. It is a well-known fact that where authorities have leave to make bylaws they are always inclined to stretch that authority, so much so that it often becomes necessary for legal opinion to be called in at a subsequent stage to see whether the by-laws really are within the ambit of the authority by which they purport to issue. While I am supporting this I wish to disclaim altogether the argument advanced by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Wedgwood), who objected to these provisions on the ground that they would provide capable workers for this country. If I thought they did that, I should be very much inclined to support them. I protest against the perpetual interference with children, and with parental authority. It seems to me to be an intolerable thing that a local authority should have power to decide, in consultation with the parent, as to the occupation of the child. You may as well abolish by law all parental authority and responsibility as pass such a Clause as that. I am aware of the excuse, which is that this is for the good of the children. That was the argument of the Spanish Inquisition. That is the spirit which has informed all the tyrannies which have ever been perpetrated in the world—to judge for other people what is good for them. If anyone else is to judge for children what is good for them, surely it should be the natural guardians of the children and not any local education authority. The hon. Gentleman opposite very fairly said they are not even democratic authorities. Nothing, I suppose, is good which is not democratic. Upon these authorities sit ladies of property, who are willing to take parliamentary votes for themselves without giving such to the wives of working men. I would give to neither, but the fact shows how undemocratic such authorities can be and often are. Under paragraph ( b ) it is provided that, in certain circumstances, the local authority shall give a child a certificate of exemption. Will there be categories of children in this country—those who are and those who are not exempted children? There will be as much difficulty in deciding to what class a child belongs as there is in this House in deciding what is "exempted business." Is the local authority to look after the unfortunate child right through its adolescence, and to decide what is going to be the future of the child? What is the use of children having parents if foolish provisions in the nature of legislation are to be made, and if Parliament is to do its best to nullify the obligations of parents? I am perfectly conscious of the sincerity and good intentions of the promoters of this Bill, but I would remind them that, "Christians have burnt each other quite persuaded that all the prophets would have done as they did."

This Clause, or rather the larger half of it, raises several important questions any one of which could be debated in this House a whole afternoon, and now the House may be asked in a few minutes to decide very far-reaching questions after a Debate of leas than an hour's duration. I propose to deal with the question of half-time. There is a widespread notion that those who care for education must therefore be opposed to half-time at the present moment in all parts of the country. I desire, as one who has for twenty-five years taken an interest in public education, to state why I cannot support the abolition of half-time under this Bill. I speak as a Lancashire Member. Nothing would do more good to some of my hon. Friends than the spending of a little time in Lancashire to learn how you can have the best quality of artisans taking the greatest interest in education, together with great and widespread opposition to this particular proposal. That opposition will never be understood if it is regarded as mere obscurantism, and if it is supposed that the opposition does not proceed from motives of honest intelligence. Anyone acquainted with the widespread feeling in north-east Lancashire on this matter has, I think, the duty of bringing it before the House briefly and courteously. I have endeavoured to get expressions of opinion on the proposal from people who differ on ordinary political questions, and I find that they are most anxious that half-time should not be abolished out and out as it is abolished by this Bill with snakelike sinuosity. I think if the hon. Gentleman would draft a Clause stating boldly that we are going to abolish half-time in so many words, that would be a better way of proceeding. What is the proper way of treating the opposition where you get a great industrial population sincerely opposed to the abolition of half-time?

I am trying to point out what I submit is the proper dealing with a peculiar state of things. It is not to enforce the abolition of half-time on a community like that; still more is it unwise to enforce its abolition by means of local authorities, which, in some cases, are remote from the locality affected, and, in many cases, have a large undemocratic element in them. You cannot force great masses of English people, in the matter of their daily habits, without mischief. What you can do, and what you ought to do, if they are wrong, is to try to alter their opinion by making that course attractive, which you ought not to make compulsory. One of the reasons why it is not attractive is that the elementary schools in this country, largely, as I think, through the mischievous legislation of 1902, have not improved as they ought to have done. We are still suffering from the effects of the Cockerton judgment, stereotyped in legislation. There is still a tendency to cut down the scope of elementary schools, and to make them far less useful to those beyond a certain age than for younger children, and you must make the elementary schools effective, satisfactory, and attractive to the industrial community, whose children are sent there before you can lead them on to change their opinion as to half-time, and to make them more disposed to leave their children at such schools for a longer period.

You are putting the cart before the horse in coming along with suggestions like this until you have your elementary system really effective and attractive. You want higher elementary schools far more extensively. You want encouragement given by the Board of Education, instead of the chill courtesy of the last eight or ten years. Until you have got these developed, until you have quickened democratic instinct and education, until by devolution you have given more power to a locality to look after its own education, until you have got it into the heads of parents and children that the school is really something which they can help to manage and in which they are interested, just as through their trade unions they have something to do with the mill in which they work; until you have got that change in the attitude of the people which can be brought about by legislation of another kind, it is idle, it is even entirely ineffective, to try in this hard and fast way to say that "we will abolish the custom of your locality; we will abolish half-time; if you do not like it, you may lump it."

That is not statesmanship. It is bureaucracy of the worst kind, and that is why some of us who are passionately interested in education and have given to it some of the best years of our life are resolute in opposing this proposal this afternoon. With reference to the other matters included in this Clause, I am entirely in favour of continuation schools being encouraged. Whether in this country the time has come to make them compulsory, through a local education authority, independently of local education conditions, is a very large and difficult question when you come to that part of the Clause. I venture to repeat in a sentence what the House was so good as to allow me to say earlier this afternoon. This was largely put into the Bill since it went into Committee, and it was never before the House except for an hour or two this afternoon. I am not at all opposing it altogether. I do say that the time is not wasted if it is spent in ripening public opinion and seeing how far we can apply to English conditions methods which have been appropriate, or effective, in certain parts of Germany. Therefore, what is now before the House really is whether, by a Clause in a private Member's Bill after a few minutes' discussion, you are going to make a great wide-reaching change in English education, without any evidence of popular support behind it, and in the teeth of evidence of the strongest popular opposition from some of the most important parts of the country. Therefore, while I far prefer to support education rather than criticise it, if this Motion goes to a Division I shall vote for it, because I am confident that we will not lose in the long run by opposing a bad method, but will reach the true goal all the quicker.

I would like to join in part of what has fallen from the hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir Ryland Adkins). Those of us who are interested in education, and who are also connected with Lancashire, cannot but feel somewhat sore at the attacks which are sometimes made upon us, that those who are interested in Lancashire are not also interested in education. The elementary schools of Lancashire compare, from every point of view, most favourably with the elementary schools in any other part of the country, and there is a large number of Church schools among them. The secondary schools in Lancashire are supported with the greatest enthusiasm, and are largely attended. One of the most interesting educational experiments in this country is the Workers' Educational Association, which, I believe, has great support in the North, and more particularly in Lancashire.

And it supports the abolition of half-time.

Education in Lancashire is first and foremost all the time. So far as certain portions of this proposal are concerned, they seem to me admirable; and in reference to education, the joint interests of the parents, the child, and the teacher are considered. The Clause, for instance, which says that the exemption certificate should be granted on its being ascertained that employment is available for the child on leaving school, I believe to be in itself, so far as it goes, an admirable proposal; but you are placed in this position, that whether you like it or not, there is a tremendously strong opposition to this proposal, a strong opposition which is felt not only by the parents of the poorest class, but also by those who are interested in education of almost all grades. You cannot get away from that fact. I ventured to mention earlier in the Debate that if you go into Lancashire, and it is known that you are in public life at all, you will be accosted about this very question. You will be asked, "What do you think about it?" by people you do not know, so strong is the feeling on the subject. Those who are interested in education accept the position that it should be developed rather than diminished. But, after all, where a locality is strongly opposed to your proposal, it should be carefully considered. I think it is the defect of a great deal of Liberal legislation that it does not allow sufficiently for strong local objection on the part of minorities. It is a difficulty of which we have seen the result in an adjacent island. The spirit shown in regard to Ireland has improved this particular measure. It is a spirit which seeks to impose a hard and fast rule without considering sufficiently the idiosyncrasies of particular localities. You cannot in education certainly go ahead of opinion with the locality you want to deal with. You cannot, I am quite certain, in Lancashire go beyond the opinion of the locality with regard to this education proposal we are dealing with to-night. Is there any justification for this feeling in Lancashire? Personally, I think there is.

I do not know whether Gentlemen opposite have forgotten by this time the recommendations of the Poor Law Royal Commission. They were very large and illuminating, and some of them ponderous, but they were to the effect that our educational system at present was not a good one, and that it required many amendments, and that it must be made more practical, and so on. I am quite certain that a great deal of the present discontent in the minds of parents in Lancashire is due to the fact that they are not satisfied with the products which our present educational system turn out. It is no good, on the one hand, to say that the education system is unsound, and on the other to say that we shall have more of it and that the hours shall be extended. If the proposers had come forward with proposals to extend the hours, and, on the other hand, with proposals to materially develop our educational system on the practical side, I believe they would get rid of a great deal of the opposition to the present proposal. Educationists of all kinds are dissatisfied with our present system of education. Let us improve that by all means, and until we do—