As the Committee will have appreciated, the subject-matter with which I have to deal is an additional sum of £384,000 on the Estimate. That supplementary sum is an agreeable fact to those who may be the recipients, but the question is as to the mode of dealing with the additional expendiure of £384,000 in respect of Irish elementary education. In previous Votes issued in the ordinary course was a Vote for a sum of, roughly, £1,818,000, and in pursuance of the policy of improved provision for the needs of education, which was explained in regard to England and Wales recently by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education, in a speech which delighted all of us, and which I am sure none of us is likely to forget, there arose the question of what was the proper equivalent to be provided on the Irish Education Estimates for the increased expenditure in the English Education Estimates in respect of elementary education of a sum of £3,420,000. I dare say hon. Members who are interested particularly in this subject will bear in mind that, while my right hon. Friend had secured for England and Wales the sum of £3,420,000 for elementary education, he had also secured for secondary education £433,500. In respect of that second sum, all I would say to-day is that this Estimate does not deal with it. The Elementary Education Estimate will be issued on the footing of the Grant-in-Aid of Irish Secondary Education for an amount which will be proportionately on the basis of the amount which was sanctioned in principle by the House with regard to English education. That sum of, roughly, £48,000 does not come into consideration to-day in the explanation which I have to make to the Committee.

I want to emphasise that fact, because, putting that out of the case, I shall devote myself entirely to the question of what are the most urgent necessities of elementary education for which this present sum of £384,000 is to be applied. The veriest beginner in Irish affairs, as soon as he comes into contact with the problem of Irish education, realises that he is dealing there with a scheme of things wholly different from the scheme of things which exists on this side of the Irish Channel, and presents difficulties of its own. I am afraid the beginner will find enormous difficulty in dealing with Irish education upon anything like the comprehensive plan or on anything like those broad and attractive lines that were presented to us in this country in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education. There is one thing in regard to finance which underlies the question with which I have to deal here, when I had to approach my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and ascertain his views as to what was the equivalent Grant in respect of Irish education for the sum which had been authorised in the case of English education. As hon. Members know, the Grant in respect of English education was a Grant conditional upon a payment by the local authorities in England. My right hon. Friend when he was framing his proposals based them upon the fact that the responsibility for education in this country was the responsibility of the locality in which the education was needed and in which it had to be administered. I do not say that you can introduce a system of that kind in Ireland suddenly, but I envy my right hon. Friend the advantage that gave him a proportionate aid from the Exchequer based upon the effort of the community. As we all know, the system of elementary education in Ireland is one which is under the direct authority of the State. There is no local authority, consequently there are no local rates, and since something like 1892 in all but a minute fraction of cases there have been no school fees. Therefore, in discussing this question of the Irish equivalent with the Chancellor of the Exchequer I had to recognise that these comparisons were made with things which differ in their fundamental essentials. But that has not affected the amount of this Grant, and it has been taken upon the footing that the Grant-in-aid will be an absolute Grant from the Exchequer and that Irish education will require the assistance of a Grant arithmetically equivalent. Such questions as contingent liabilities and reciprocal contributions are dismissed from the case.

Coming to the immediate question of the appropriation of the £384,000 in Ireland, the pleasure of a Minister announcing the additional Grant is a good deal modified by the consciousness of the very great number of possible applicants and the serious responsibility of so appropriating a large sum of money in an Educational Estimate as to secure the maximum amount of benefit to the present system, and it seems to me that as an administrator it is my duty to see that the expenditure is made in such a way that it does not hinder the reforms which some day I hope will be adopted either in Dublin or here which will put the Irish educational system on a basis upon which educationists in Ireland would like to see it. As I have said in answer to some questions which I thought were a little impatient, I have to-day, in order to decide where this money ought to go to look over the whole field, and consider the condition of the children in a great agricultural country, in certain large industrial centres and certain old and congested cities. I had to consider the question of provision for medical care in looking after the children and also the question of buildings. I had also to consider the question of the educational organisation. Someone thought fit to circulate a statement suggesting that our primary object was to secure large salaries for officials. Only to-day I was asked an urgent question as to whether it was intended that a particular official should receive an increase of salary. The Irish educational organisation and the administrative organisation has existed a good many years, and as this is known to be a time of exceptional financial stress, I need hardly say that there is no such idea as that which has been suggested. This is a Grant to meet the necessities of the time and its difficulties, and although it may be that those who earn large salaries as. well as those who earn small incomes may expect to be considered with regard to the necessities of this trying time, I could not consider at this moment any question of increasing high salaries. I have to consider the immediate necessities in wartime of the Irish educational system. I hope that disposes of the particular inquiry to which I have referred.

There are certain changes which I will indicate later with regard to the point of contact between the administrative organisation and the great body of the teachers where certain changes are necessary with a view to fair play as well as to efficiency, and those I shall explain. Of course there is the great and attractive question of your curriculum, as to what you are going to teach, and whether the practical should displace the theoretical, to what extent you should extend your system, and how to develop evening schools and continuation schools. There is this great question which in recent years has overshadowed all others and is overshadowing them to-day, and that is the question of the supply, the organisation and remuneration, and the prospects of the men and women engaged. I mention that last, and indeed I do not want it to be supposed that I have given no consideration to the other subjects, but I have come to the subject which will necessarily bulk most largely in the explanation I have to give to the Committee.

There are in Ireland something like 13,500 trained certificated teachers, and there are something like 2,300 other teachers not trained and not certificated, but full-time employés of the Department of Elementary Education, and in the case of that last body of employés one of the strongest reproaches that could be cast upon the fairness and sufficiency of the provision of the existing system has been made. With regard to the 13,500 teachers, one of the great difficulties in framing and working a system and in making anything like reasonable provision for a prospect for the teacher arises out of the size of the school. There are for the 500,000 or so of children in average daily attendance something dike 8,200 schools. That in this country would suggest an average attendance of sixty or seventy children, but averages are wholly misleading with regard to Ireland. The English analogy is misleading. Let me say, not because it is not a fact in the constant appreciation of hon. Members who know Ireland so well, but because it is a fact which underlies everything that I have to consider here, that the Irish school is not a school ordinarily of even fifty or sixty children. There is State aid for schools of seven children and upwards. There are schools of ten, fifteen, and twenty children in remote parts of the country, and it is due to the growing youth of the population in those parts, and to the parents, that you should have an efficient teacher. You must give him, if you can, a prospect in life, and you are confronted with an enormous difficulty in framing and devising a scheme and in the administration of it and in keeping it in operation. There are 400 schools in Ireland in which there are less than twenty in average attendance. There are a good part of 1,500 schools in which there are less than thirty in average attendance, and, when officers of the Board of Education or the National Board speak of a large school, I find that they mean a school of 140 children, which is entitled to three teachers.

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There are also schools which run up to 1,100 and 1,200 children in the great centres of population. Some of the convents have very large and very efficient schools. I do not think anybody would suggest that the boys and girls in the great centres and even in the more moderately peopled towns would not get the basis of a good education or could not get it if you had a body of teachers who were able to deal with their task, but the mode in which they are dealt with strikes one with something like dismay. You find a number of schools in Belfast and Dublin with 200 or 300 children, and the head master, with many years' service behind him, may have a salary of something like £100 a year, and very likely in such a case an assistant earning more than he is earning himself. That is topsy-turvy, and it is not good sense or good administration, but these anomalies arise out of the enormous difficulty of making a comprehensive scheme for the grading of teachers and the payment of teachers when in that scheme you have to include both the schools with seven, ten and fifteen pupils and these larger schools, and when your grades of payment have to comprise the whole body of teachers. I am sure the scheme, when it was framed, was well intentioned and very likely at the moment it met the necessities of the case, but it does not meet the necessities of the case to-day. In those inequalities, in the deadlock upon promotion in some cases, and in the restrictions upon the possibility of increasing their earnings in other cases, there are reasons for discontent which ought to be removed, and the satisfaction with which I approached the task of adding £384,000 to the expenditure on elementary education in Ireland was tempered by the difficulty of proposing channels for that expenditure which would do some good in connection with the system as it exists.

I said that my mind had been increasingly occupied with this problem of the teachers, and I have been helped in my view by a practically universal consensus of opinion, expressed in all parts of the country by representative bodies and by public meetings, to the effect that the Government would do well to devote every penny that could be devoted to the betterment of the position of the teachers, and to put them into a condition with regard to pay in which it may be fairly said that they have a living wage and a reasonable prospect, and with regard to promotion that there are not the hindrances which have developed in the existing system, but that a man when he has entered upon his. vocation in life and has shown diligence and efficiency in the conduct of his duties shall, at any rate, have a reasonable prospect of arriving at some satisfactory state of things fairly early in life with the further prospect of something like the moderate prizes which ought to encourage ambition in the general body of the teachers. That is not easy. Hon. Members from Ireland will know why I say it is not easy. Where you have a system in which there are vested rights to increments of pay and systematic increments where £10 given to-day means £20, or £30 presently, when your present distribution commits you to a basis of distribution for the future—unless you are going to adopt the clumsy expedient of taking your money, dividing it up and scattering it, it is not easy to propose a scheme for the distribution of this sum of money which will be sure to amend the present state of things with regard to pay, promotion, and prospects. I trust that the proposals I shall make to the Committee will in some degree secure those objects.

There is one difficulty which has constantly confronted those who have had to-deal with questions of this kind. Where you take in hand a complex problem, and, at the commencement of a year, you have to distribute money with regard to those complexities and to make estimates which will meet them, you may over-estimate or under-estimate. The Treasury has to take the risk of an over-estimate, but with regard to an under-estimate in past times there has been a perfectly wholesome general rule with regard to ordinary cases, that unexpended balances must be repaid to the Exchequer. With regard to this case, I have had communications with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he has agreed with me that it would be entirely unreasonable that anything in the nature of an under-estimate here should be followed by the loss of any part of this sum of money which has been earmarked for the betterment of Irish education. So I have an assurance from my right hon. Friend that if something more should be found possible to be done than that which I am advised at the present time can be done, I shall not be met, when that question of something more comes to be discussed, with any Treasury rule that there was a balance which had to be returned. I mention that matter in order that the teachers themselves may be reassured, and may see that it is intended that this sum, so far as it is being devoted to the betterment of the teachers' position, is going to be wholly dealt with in that way, and that the object is to secure a better scheme for them and to give them not only better pay, but better prospects. Here, may I say two or three words about the grades, not so much by way of explanation "to the Irish Members, but because it will interest some English Members?

They are not here.

The hon. Member for South Kildare will observe that there is a select few. He will see that I have here a tower of strength in my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Education, who has devoted such attention to the matter, and who will make up for the absence of a greater number of hon. Gentlemen who may have only a casual or indirect interest in the question. With regard to grades, there are substantially four. There is the third grade, into which at the present time a teacher comes when he leaves the training college when he has done his period as monitor and pupil teacher and got his certificate at the training college. He gets £56 a year, plus a sum of £7 at the end of it, and by triennial increments, which extend over a period of nine years, he can arrive at a maximum salary of £77, plus £7, in all £84. He has an off-chance of getting some share of a capitation Grant if he happens to be in one of the larger schools. Of the total of 5,700 male teachers in Ireland, about 3,000 are in Grade III., and are destined to remain there at the present time, because there is a barrier in their case which, in the ordinary course, they cannot get over. If they display some pre-eminent ability, they may bound the bar, but in the ordinary course the man who has come into the work for which he is fitted, when he does not display genius, may find that he is bounded by these figures, which begin at £63 and stop at £84. He may be an assistant in a school in a city or in a town, and probably will have the greatest responsibilities in life, because the Irish teacher has not been a coward; he usually is married, and may find himself with a wife and, shall I say, a thriving family, or, at any rate, with a numerous family. I had the other day a letter from a man who told me he had twelve. I have had letters from the wives of some of these teachers giving me their balance sheets, and I have had some from teachers perhaps of schools of 200 or 300 or more and I have seen their balance sheets. With breadth of view, combined with the economy they have displayed, every one of them should be competent to be a Chancellor of the Exchequer and run the national establishment very cheaply.

With regard to female teachers, you have 7,725 of them, of whom 5,700 are in grade three, and, as to the great majority of them, destined to remain there, because there is at present a limit on the number in the upper grades which prevents them getting a vacancy, unless they get what used to be called paper promotion, which has gone out of fashion. Their salaries begin at £44 plus £7—that is, £51—and when the three triennial increments have been secured it is £65 plus £7, so that these 5,700 women teachers have the prospect before them, when they have begun at £51 a year, of ultimately reaching a sum of money less than 30s. a week as their earnings in an occupation for which they have been apprenticed and trained in college and have secured a certificate. I confess it has amazed me that the Irish teachers, through love of their country and their own home, which has rooted them to the soil under these con- ditions, have not made an exodus over to this country in very large numbers, and thereby diminished the difficulty which my right hon. Friend has of supplying his schools "with men and women teachers. These certificated teachers are qualified to teach in practically any school, but they have stayed at home. There seems to be a magnetism which holds them with a bond they cannot break. These are the conditions on which they stay. The numbers in the higher grades, both male and female teachers, can be guessed. There are 1,700 male teachers in the second grade, there are 600 in the second of first, and there cannot be more than 700 in the grade. And in the first grade, which is the object of a man's ambition, with whatever qualification and with whatever class of school, there are 435 male teachers and 286 female teachers. The highest salary of the female teachers is £151 at present. The conditions in the lower grades, of course, condemn those who are destined to spend their lives in those grades either to celibacy or to indigence. That is a matter which is essential to be considered in this case. The practical effect of the system of grading, with its stereotyped regulations and its hard and fast exclusions, is that of the 1,300 male assistant-teachers in Ireland all except about forty are in grade three, and accidental circumstances would be required to alter the proportion under the present system. Of the female assistant-teachers, of whom there are 4,500, 4,000 are in grade three, and all but a negligible number are destined to stay there. That state of things suggests a course which is essential to be entered upon at once—namely, that of improving their pay and amending the system of promotion and improving their prospects. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Fisher), when he was speaking of the lot of the teacher, pointed out what a lamentable thing it is with a man or a woman whose daily task is the inspiring of youth and the formation of the young character if he or she is discontented and soured by the conditions of life. Just apply those observations to the conditions to which I have referred. The practical assistance I have had with the explanations they have given me of their difficulties, and the little balance sheets they have furnished me showing what becomes of this money and how much they are in debt, have made me take the view that whatever was available here ought to be distributed to improve this system, not for a hasty distribution of a bonus, but for the application of the money in a systematic way so that the whole system shall be better for it.

I come now to deal with that aspect of the case. First of all I will deal with the question of pay. At present the teacher's pay will consist of his grade pay and the Grant given by my predecessor, the Birrell Grant, and in the case of an assistant teacher of five years' service some other special bonus, and in the case of some teachers a larger or smaller share of the capitation Grant. What is proposed to be done here is, as far as possible, to consolidate the teacher's income, to let him know what his income is, subject to a certain provision which at present must statutorily be postponed and with which at the moment I do not see my way to deal. That is the statutory Grant which becomes payable at the end of the year and as to which legislation might be required, but, speaking generally, with regard to the salary as a whole, to consolidate it and make your distribution so that he will know what his income is and make your payment by the changed system which I was happy to find my way to introduce earlier in the year on a monthly basis. To have such money as is going to him month by month, subject to anything which it may be essential to postpone, is of great advantage with regard to the teacher, and it has a great advantage also in administration. I hope that in place of this endless system of subventions and supplements, with a solid organic plan, with proper continuity and with a proper method of distribution, the endless work of accounting may be got rid of, or, at any rate, greatly reduced at no very distant date. The scales of salaries which I am going to mention are scales of salaries which will cover not only the grade salary but the casual sums with which the grade salary is slightly supplemented.

I come to deal with the emoluments of male teachers in grade three, and that is the grade in which the very large proportion of the teachers are. At present they have an initial salary of £56, plus £7—£63—and they may rise by three triennial increments of £7 each if they satisfy the inspectors and so on with the class of work they are doing, ultimately to £84. It is proposed that the initial salary, instead of £63, shall be £78, that this system of triennial increments shall be abolished, that the teacher shall have a series of six annual increments, so that instead of an increment extending over nine years and amounting to £21, he shall be sure, subject to satisfying the conditions of Ms service, of an increment in six years of £24, which gives him, added to his initial salary of £78, an assured income, after his year at the initial salary and his six increases, at the end of seven years, of not less than £102, instead of the income which he gets under the present system of £84. That is the position with regard to the male teacher. With regard to the women teachers in the third grade the general basis is substantially the same. In lieu of the triennial increment there will be an annual increment. In lieu of the initial salary of £51, made up of the grade salary and with the additions, there will be a commencing salary of £64, and instead of an increment extending over nine subsequent years and amounting only to £21, there will be an increment in the course of the six years of £24, so that the range of the salary for women teachers in that grade will be from £64 to £88. I come now to the second grade, in which there is a greatly diminished number of teachers. I am happy to say that from this time forward, after the adoption of the scheme, the lines of which I am merely indicating here to-day, the virtual impossibility of the assistant teacher rising to the second grade will be removed and he will be able to rise in all cases where he is teaching in schools to which the higher salary is appropriate, and where he is getting a certificate for special efficiency and a certificate which designates the class of teacher who is doing really valuable work in the cause of education, he will be able to reach the second grade. The mode by which the progress will be regulated will be explained in rules. The object in view is to make it reasonably easy for the man who had heretofore been limited to the third grade to pass to the second grade as a matter of normal promotion. In the second grade the commencing salary was £87 plus £7, and the maximum salary £107 plus £7. That was for men. What is proposed now instead of the £87 plus £7, which was arrived at by triennial increments extending over not less than six years, is a graduated annual increase. There will be a commencing salary of £110 and a graduated increase by £6 a year until a maximum salary of £134 a year is reached in the second grade. If our anticipation is realised to the extent to which I hope it will be then £134 is the actual prospect in view for a diligent and capable assistant-teacher in that grade. Between the third and second grade and the second class in the first grade there will be a longer interval, and, of course, the conditions of promotion are more stringent, because, however benevolent your intentions, you cannot have a school of ten children In a remote rural district and plant a teacher there with the prospect of spending his life educating ten children and arriving at the end of a blameless career at the same salary which a man gets who bears the burden and heat of the day in one of the great cities or in a busy town or in a big school. In regard to the women in the second grade, they at present begin at £80 and increase to £96 by two triennial increments. They will now begin at £94 in the second grade—that is, they will get £94 on attaining their promotion to the second grade—and by annual increments of £5 it is proposed that they will rise to £114. I mention the position as to the mode of promotion between these two grades. The grade between the top of the second grade and the bottom of the entrance to the second class of the first grade will be a longer one than that between the two classes to which I have referred. The detailed changes I cannot at present supply from my memory, but they will appear in the rules which will be issued.

With regard to the higher grades, at present in the second of first the men get, from £127 to £137. That is, a man gets £127, and is eligible for a triennial increment of £10, and there he stops. It is proposed that the commencing salary in the second of first shall be £146, and that there shall be annual increments of £7, and the top salary in that division of the first grade shall be £160 for men. For women, at present the salary is £107 to commence, with one triennial increment, so that the teacher goes on for three years with the £107 to the triennial increment, £8, which makes the salary £115. It is proposed that the commencing salary in that grade shall be £123, and that there shall be two annual increments of £6, and the top salary in that grade shall be £135. Now I come to the highest grade of all, the first of first. There the man begins at present with £149, and he may rise by three triennial advances, if he is fortunate, in nine years, to £185. It is proposed to raise the commencing salary in that grade to £168, and to make the advances annually by three annual advances, so that the man will proceed from £168 to £178, £188 and £198, and the salary at the top of that grade will be £198. As usual, if he is a principal teacher he will be receiving his capitation fees, and he will have an encouragement which I will mention presently. In regard to the women, their present position is that they commence with £124, and rise by three triennial instalments, so that at the end of nine years they get to £151. The commencing salary which is proposed for the future is £141, the advances to be by annual increments of £9 for three years, with the result that at the end of three years in that grade—that is after three increments in that grade—the woman teacher will be eligible for a salary of £168. If she is a principal teacher she may also get the advantage to which I have referred.

I should like to illustrate the application of these proposed changes in a case which I put at random in conversation with one of the accounting officers, and that is the case of a teacher in the third grade with one triennial increment and two years of service. I wanted to see how this thing would operate in practice, and I hit upon that case. He is a teacher who has left college and is doing satisfactory work, and so receives the triennial advance, and is two years beyond it, and in another year will be eligible for a second triennial advance. At the present time that teacher will be getting £70, and in twelve months' time will be eligible for £77. As matters stand now, and assuming this new scheme comes into operation, that teacher will be receiving £78—of course, the past services will be reckoned for and provided for—the initial salary of £78, with two increments of £4 and a third increment of £4, making in all at the present time £90 in lieu of the £70, and that teacher will be four months on—we shall graduate these increments—towards another £4, with the net result that after the eight months his pay will be £94 instead of the £70, which it would be under the existing system. If hon. Members, or if the teachers, will take the trouble to work out the actual receipts by the teacher from the new scale, and to see the benefit which he gets from the annual increment, it would be found that the degree of benefit is very appreciably increased by the method of waking the increment annual. If a man who was entitled to get, at the end of the three years, £12, becomes entitled by the new system to an annual increment of £4, he will have had £4 and £8 now before he gets the £12, so, of course, there is an appreciable difference. That is a matter which could be elaborated, but I shall not do so.

I hope that I have indicated to the Committee, at any rate sufficiently for this stage, what I regard as the main advantages of the proposal which I am presenting here. They are an all-round increase of salary which will be paid monthly, annual increments instead of triennial increments, shortened service to come to the maximum grade, the opening of grade two to the assistants in a degree which removes the present reproach that it is practically closed to them everywhere. I do not suggest that everything should be automatic. Hon. Members know that there are conditions as to class of school and efficiency of service which regulate promotion. The grade will be opened, and there is given to the whole of the grades an improved maximum. I have discussed with those who are capable of giving me expert advice on this matter the position of the principal teachers. I mention the case of the principal teacher of a big school with £100 a year and no particular prospects and with assistants earning more than he has earned himself. That is a burlesque of the reasonable method of carrying on educational administration. With regard to the principals of large schools, they will get their capitation, but in the case of schools of above 140, and in order to produce the reasonable competition for the better places which is desirable and which may prove a stimulus to activity amongst teachers in these large schools, it is proposed to establish a supplemental salary beginning with a supplemental salary of £30 and, subject to all the conditions which safeguard the funds against being encroached upon by those who have not done their duty, rising by annual increments of £5 to a supplement of £50. That mode of dealing with the principal teacher is designed with the object of making the responsible position of the principal teacher in a large school an object of reasonable ambition on the part of teachers and encouraging them to break the bounds, to get out of this wretched system by which they remain tied down. It leads to something.

Those are the proposals with regard to remuneration and with regard to prospects in the great body of the schools. There is a large body of other schools in Ireland. I have referred to them incidentally before. They are schools which are under the National Board—convents and monastries. I will go back for a moment. I had forgotten for a moment one class of the teachers whose claims have been so often pressed upon me, that of the 2,300 girl assistants. I have not forgotten them in fact. It must not be supposed that they are young women who are starving on account of the existing system. They are young women, many of them daughters of schoolmasters or daughters of people in the neighbourhood, who took the salaries mentioned owing to the possibility of adding to their positions by these small salaries But that is not the mode in which a public Department ought to get its labour. It ought to pay for what it gets some reasonable remuneration which will attract an abundant supply, and there should be some reasonable proportion between the work given and remuneration received. The present salary of these young women is £24 a year, with a supplementary grant of £4 for those who have given two years of satisfactory service. Now it is proposed that no teacher who is appointed to these posts or no untrained assistant—these are untrained; they may find their way into the profession, find their way into training colleges ultimately—shall be engaged at less than £40, and that every such teacher shall be entitled to annual increments which, at the end of the fourth year, will give a salary of £l a week. That is not an ideal salary, but one has to have regard to the fact that teaching is necessary for classes of young children, and these teachers are untrained and uncertified, and there is no desire to withdraw those teachers from what I hope may still be the great vocation and ambition of every healthy woman—that is, to be honestly married. That has not been left out of view. There is a proposal for the appropriation of a modest sum to give each of these teachers whenever she retires, if she is retired by illness or on marriage, a modest gratuity, so that we may part with these teachers in a reasonable way as one parts with a young lady who has been a useful member of his household.

The schools in Ireland include a great number of convent and monastery schools. Some of them are staffed by certificated teachers, and they receive from the Departments, in the same way as the managers of national schools, the appropriate salary, the grade salary, for the certificated teacher. No difficulty arises with regard to those schools. They will get that graded salary, and those managers of schools, efficient schools, who desire to extend their system may extend it, and they will be welcomed by the Department in their extension as a school. But there are other schools where, owing to circumstances and views which it is not difficult to understand, the managers of the schools do not employ graded teachers; they employ teachers whom they pay, and the security the State has for the efficiency of education is in the result in that school, in the result that is gained upon the inspection of the school. Consideration has been given to the question of what to do in that class of case. You have not a graded teacher, you cannot have a graded teacher, you have not a, teacher who is within your system of promotion, and I have been advised that this is a method of dealing with it. Those schools have a subvention from the State in the form of a Capitation Grant, which at present could be 40s., I think, and which works out in practice at something like 38s. I have had calculations made to ascertain what would be the amount in the case of a school with a principal, two-assistants of the second grade, and three assistants of the third grade—that is in Ireland a large school, bearing in mind that these schools are of varying sizes. I have ascertained that with an increased Capitation Grant of 10s., which if the averages work as they do now would make the average 48s. and the maximum 50s., the managers of that school would receive out of their Capitation Grant the total amount necessary to provide the full salaries of the staff of teachers I have mentioned—a principal, two second grade, and three third grade assistants, and not leave them out of pocket. Therefore, what is proposed with regard to the convent schools, which are not graded, is that there shall be an increase of the Capitation Grant in the school I have mentioned and with the practical results I have mentioned. It must, of course, be a uniform increase, and this increase deals with schools of considerable size and with teachers of considerable position in their profession. There is only one other class in elementary education to which I want to refer, and that is teachers in workhouse schools. It is true of them, as it is true of other elementary teachers, that they are not in the direct service of the State, but they are paid by the State, and so I propose by such means as I am inclined to think—I am not quite sure at present having regard to the position in which they stand—will better the position of the workhouse teacher in some such manner—I do not say on precisely the same lines because conditions are different, they are rationed persons in public institutions—as I propose to deal with the other teachers.

Will the right hon. Gentleman say what he proposes to do with regard to the pensions of teachers?

I am coming to that; I cannot deal retrospectively with pensions. I want to say this, that the effect of this scheme on the increase of pensions will, I believe, add a contribution of something like £20,000 a year in pensions to the pension fund as they accrue and are paid. I mention that as one of the indirect effects of the scheme. It is one of the incidents of this graded system in which as you begin you must go on, one circumstance which makes it difficult as compared with a scheme where you make a present payment and there is an end of your liability. I said just now that there was one other particular in which I hoped that the ambitious teacher might be encouraged. From time to time in recent years there have been constant complaints of the inability of the teachers to secure uniformity of the standard upon which they were judged for their Grants and their promotion, an inability sometimes, as it was said, to secure attention to appeals. There is another matter which is of very considerable consequence, and that is the position of the junior inspectors. I desire to say, and I am sure Members from Ireland are aware, that there are two classes of junior inspectors, and that thirty of them at the present time are appointed on a commencing salary of £150. Just consider; assume that you are a school teacher, who is the most natural candidate? Your experienced teacher who has displayed his qualities, who is the most natural candidate for one of these junior posts,, and a candidate who is welcome and certainly ought to be welcome. There he is with his maximum, under the existing scale, appreciably above the sum at which it would be suggested that he should undertake more responsible duties. The practical consequence is, of course, to shut him out. He has to ask his wife, and she has to consider her interest in the case. We are going to alter it, and out of this fund, with regard to junior inspectors, it is proposed that the commencing salary shall be £250 a year, and that it shall rise by incre ments of £15 to the salary which the higher grade of junior inspector gets at present, that is, £400. That is what I venture to describe as an additional prize for the profession, and I hope it will be an inducement to the energy, diligence, and ambition of the teachers who look to make their way and to be in a position of influence in their own country.

Are these positions confined exclusively to teachers?

No.

Mainly?

I do not administer education inside in Ireland, but teachers are eligible, and my own view is that so far as you reasonably can you should not do anything that will necessarily exclude them; but I would not myself draw a distinction between a young fellow who as a graduate from one of the Irish colleges or universities comes down as an inspector, having such teaching experience as may be required, and the teacher who has worked his way up and is qualified to become an inspector, and comes in from what I call another branch of the profession. I would not draw that distinction. There is the matter of uniformity and of appeal. The Dill Committee, with which hon. Members are familiar, urgently recommend that there should be a class of inspectors of the higher grade—in fact, substantially of the highest grade—as divisional inspectors. That is a grade very little subordinate to the two chief inspectors, inspectors who can go through the country and see that there is a reasonable equality in the demands made on teachers, and if there is a difference between inspectors and teachers can compose it and remove a cause of irritation. Though I do not regard this as an occasion when it is justifiable to consider questions of increases of salaries where large salaries exist, the demand for these additional inspectors has been so great, and is, I think, so well-founded, that my proposals include the establish- ment of three divisional inspectors—I am told the work can probably be done by three, but at any rate we may reasonably begin with three—with the object in view to which I have referred.

Will the right hon. Gentleman state how these man will be selected? Is it by competitive examination?

I cannot myself conceive the inspector who is got by competitive examination. I know excellent students, perfect monuments of learning, who are as little fit to conduct the business of inspecting schools as any baby. The object is to invigorate the system, to give better chances to teachers wherever there are difficulties and doubts, and to introduce something like equality of demand and fair means of removing difficulties and discords before they become acute.

What about organising inspectors of Irish—they are in the same category?

That is not a case to which at the moment I have devoted part of this sum. I do not say that that is final, but at the moment it is not so. That is a matter, however, which I will consider. There are one or two other matters. I spoke of the schools. It was pointed out to me that at boys' schools you can have training in gardening, and you ought to be able to have it in girls' schools. That will be put right. It is pointed out that the head teacher, who is a woman, of a model school has not the advantage which a head teacher who is a man has, of an allowance for residence. Well, she must live somewhere, and it is proposed to remove that grievance. In the case of the training colleges and the provision of teachers, two steps are proposed. One is with regard to the training of the monitors and pupil teachers. At present there is not the inducement there should be to the teacher who is in charge of them to cause him to be specially active in the matter. It is proposed to make him an award for each teacher whom he successfully presents when that teacher has completed the course. With regard to the training colleges, these are very hard times, and it is proposed to make a modest increase in the capitation allowance which is necessary for the maintenance of the students in the training colleges, which will somewhat ease their position. I am greatly indebted to the Committee for the patience with which it has listened to an involved and a somewhat difficult explanation. I can only hope that upon consideration these changes will be found to be changes which will not worsen the conditions of the education problem in Ireland, but on the contrary will give it an impetus towards development and steady improvement.

2.0 P.M.

I have listened with the greatest interest to the very exhaustive, elaborate, and interesting survey which the Chief Secretary has given of the condition of elementary education in Ireland. He has shown the Hosue that as Irish education has been worked in the past it was practically impossible that that very important public service could attract to it men of high education, and what I think was even more important than that in a nation such as ours, that if they did happen to go into the education service with the intention of devoting their lives to education they found in time, owing to the meagre salaries and very limited prospects of promotion, that it was impossible for them to stay in it. The result has been in many cases, that the best of our teachers, trained and paid for out of Irish funds, either left that service for some other walk of life, or, as I know of my own knowledge, by the hundred and by the thousand came to England, or went to the Colonies, to teach to those countries. The Chief Secretary's survey of the whole system of elementary education in Ireland must have proved to the House, if proof were necessary, that at least up to the present the salaries paid to teachers were utterly absurd, and inadequate. I am sure that having gone so exhaustively into the matter and made such full inquiries as he must have done, the right hon. Gentleman realises, even after the proposed increases of which he has told the House, that the new salaries, considering the new times in which we are living, not alone war times, but the increased cost of labour of every kind in the community—he must be satisfied that the salaries paid to teachers of the various grades are not such as he, or I, or any educationist would consider sufficient to attract really educated and enthusiastic men into the service of education. He must be equally satisfied, if he has contrasted these salaries with those paid in England and Scotland, that the salaries in Ireland stand far behind those that are paid to either English or Scottish teachers. Irish teachers and Irishmen as a whole have resented this distinction which is drawn between Irish, English and Scottish teachers. They feel that the Irish teacher takes as long a time to prepare for his important work, that he is as well educated and trained for that work, and that he does it with at least as great efficiency and enthusiasm as English or Scottish teachers.

I do not want to make comparisons, but I am satisfied that all who study and compare the systems of the three countries will admit that the Irish teacher is a most excellent servant, and, in spite of the fact that there are scores of obstacles to discourage and annoy, he is really a most efficient servant for the salary he gets. Contrast the English and Scottish systems. The salaries proposed to be paid under the new scheme, I admit freely, are a considerable increase on the old system. I admit the sweeping away of obstacles on the long and toilsome road that had to be travelled by teachers before they reached the maximum of their grade. That is an excellent thing. But why is it that there should be this distinction between the teachers of the three countries? The right hon. Gentleman said truly that in Scotland and in England the rates contribute to the salaries of the teachers, whereas in Ireland there is no such contribution. I am not going into that question further than to say that this House and the Government of this country have been responsible for the education which is given in Ireland, and neither the Irish teachers nor the Irish people are to blame if the system which exists in Ireland does not provide for the granting of local assistance to improve teachers' salaries. This House and the Chief Secretary are responsible for seeing that Irish education is conducted on at least as favourable lines as education is conducted in England and Scotland. I think I am right in saying that the view of most educationists is that the system of rate-aided or locally aided education is not really good, and that the State should be responsible for the education of the children, and should not leave to local districts to have it in their power to withhold from children in those districts facilities for education that are given in the richer districts and in districts where the inhabitants are more generous.

This House is responsible for the conduct of Education in Ireland. We have no local rates or assistance from the districts concerned. That is not our position. We, as Irish representatives, would be most anxious, if we had the power, to do every-thing we could to bring Irish education up to the needs and necessities of the country. We have not that power; we are not responsible, not having the power. And I submit to the right hon. Gentleman—and I think he will agree with the proposition—that it is not fair to the Irish teacher nor to the Irish child that the condition of education in Ireland should be what it is at present because this House, having had control for seventy years of Irish education, has not had the time nor the desire to make such alterations as would have enabled the Irish teacher and the Irish child to have all the advantages possessed by Irish and Scotch children and teachers. The Government of this country, while it remains as it is, is bound to see that the Irish teacher is paid as good a salary, and that the Irish child receives as good an education, as are given to teachers and children in England and Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman in the course of his remarks expressed the hope that the present system of management of Irish education would be altered. I only wish that I could have the same hope. But at least I am with him, and if the right hon. Gentleman is looking for trouble, which I know he has the courage to face, if he and the Government are anxious to take this matter in hand, no one will be more ready to assist him and work with him and fight with him to bring about such an alteration, than I personally would be. The condition of education in Ireland is disgraceful; but, at the same time, nowhere in the world are the parents of the children more anxious to see that their offspring are brought up under a system of teaching which will enable them to get on in life, and prepare them for the employments into which they desire to enter.

There is no country where the parents are so completely devoted to education as are the parents in Ireland; yet in that country they have nothing whatever to say in regard to education, and that is the condition we have in our country. If the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to do something he will find that he has many supporters in this most excellent and necessary work. The first question on which I think the right hon. Gentleman must feel that he has not completely satisfied the House has reference to the amount of the Grants which are given. I listened with the greatest interest to the statement of the English Minister of Education recently. Having made a careful survey of the needs of education in England, so far as finance is concerned, and having stated those needs, he simply pointed out that so much money was necessary. He went to the Treasury and he got the amount he required. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary is responsible for education in Ireland in the same way as the Minister of Education in England. He equally made an inquiry, and he was equally convinced of the needs of Irish education. I think if we had access to his private documents we would become aware that he knows that Irish education requires not merely £384,000, but I think I would be within the mark if I said that the amount required is nearer £1,000,000. Anyone who listened to the figures which the right hon. Gentleman gave this morning, and contrasted those figures with the figures in relation to England and Scotland, would be satisfied that the amount required is at least double the amount he has been able to get. If we are driven back to the old and absurd principle of proportion, and comparison of Irish education with education in England and Scotland, if the neglected condition of education in Ireland is not realised, if instead of your going to put it in a proper condition and bring it up to the level of modern requirements, getting the money required—if, instead of that, you say, "We do not care how badly Irish education has been treated in the. past, we do not care how poor the teachers' salaries have been, how miserable the schools have been, how inadequate the education of the children, we pass by all that, but we will insist that the only step shall be that England shall get so much, Scotland so much, and that Ireland shall only get a certain proportion," then I submit that it is a wholly uneducational test to apply; it is a wrong test to apply.

And we have had so many tests in this matter. We had the Goschen ratio of eighteen, eleven, and nine, but Mr. Wyndham in 1902 discarded it, and instead he adopted the population basis. As to the right hon. Gentleman's figures, I have gone through the Estimates of the three countries as well as I can, and it is not an easy matter to do in the case of England, where primary and secondary education are so mixed up, whereas in Ireland we have only the primary education to deal with. I have gone through the figures, and I find that even on the Goschen ratio of eighteen, eleven, and nine we have not got our due proportion. Scotland gets £530,000 on the ratio of eleven, and £530,000 is greater than £384,000. That would be only taking the figures in the new Supplementary Estimate, but even on those figures the right hon. Gentleman will find that Ireland has not got its proportion on the Goschen ratio. I go further and I take the Goschen basis on the total Grant, not merely the Supplementary for England, Scotland, and Ireland, and I find that we have not got our proportion, for instead of being £350,000 it should be very nearly £450,000—that is, on the proportion basis. The Goschen basis has long since been discarded. When the Wyndham education Act of 1902 was before this House, and when the new Grant was being proposed for England, it was clearly and definitely stated that the Goschen ratio would be discarded and that the population basis would be adopted. Working that out, and making a comparison between the amounts of the three countries, I find that Ireland, instead of getting as she now gets £384,000, ought to get £784,000. That is the amount she would be entitled to under the operation of this basis. I submit that this old Goschen basis, which we have not even got, has long since been discarded and should not now be revived, and that the population basis, which was adopted fifteen years ago and has been followed ever since, should not now be departed from. Are we to assume, if the population of Ireland had gone up instead of, unfortunately, having gone down, and if, instead of four and a half millions, it had become five and a half millions, that a different basis would have been adopted? I think it is clearly established that the population basis should be continued, as it has been in operation for fifteen years, not alone in education, but in practically every other matter. I know the right hon. Gentleman himself is not responsible, but I cannot understand why those who are should revert to the old and discredited and discarded system where it is to the disadvantage of Ireland and that most important service—Irish education.

Therefore, I contend that Ireland in this matter of finance has been very scandalously treated, and that the right hon. Gentleman, in framing his scheme of the salaries and promotions of teachers and for junior assistant-mistresses for inspectors and for all those who work in the education service, has been driven and forced to fix salaries that are wholly inadequate and that really will not satisfy anybody. I trust we have not heard the last of this question of the meanness and stinginess of the Treasury in dealing with Irish education. Another question that has been raised is that of the difficulty of dealing with Irish education because of the number of small schools. I admit that when it comes to a question of ten children in a school that really it is nearly time that something should be done, if possible, to get rid of it, but I am not one of those who believe that it is to the advantage of Irish education or of education in any country to herd children together in schools of 500 or more. I think that when you get to more than 500 you get beyond efficiency. No true education and no true connection between the teacher and the child and none of the relations of life that are necessary in order to make education really effective can be attained if your school is too large. Therefore, I think too much stress should not be laid on the advantage of the large school. Schools in Ireland of from thirty to a hundred are essential. Many of our districts are remote, and it is impossible for the children to get to town centres. I was extremely glad to find that the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to go a very considerable distance in order to meet the necessities of those schools. With regard to the question of the unexpended balance, did I understand the right hon. Gentleman in thinking that in future, if there is a certain amount left, the National Board are to get that or are they to return it to the Treasury, or only part of it?

I did not refer in my statement to the question of unexpended balances on the whole Education Estimates. I merely pointed out that I had received an assurance from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the proposed increases of salary, etc., to be made from this new equivalent Grant would not be prejudiced by the Treasury rule as to the surrender of unexpended balances.

I hope that the whole question will be dealt with in the same manner as that in which the right hon. Gentleman has got the Treasury to deal with this particular portion of it. Let me come to the question of the teachers. Everybody who takes an interest in Irish education realises that the old system of grading and promotion is really an impossible system. It took thirty-nine years for a teacher to reach the maximum of his grade. I have tried to follow the new proposed scheme, and as far as I can learn it takes twenty years without any break, and under the best conditions, for a teacher to reach the maximum. I wonder if the right hon. Gentleman is aware that under the old system there were so many marks and grades and methods of distinction. I do not want to go into it now in detail, but you had "good," "very good," "efficient," "highly efficient," "fair," "middling," and "bad." I think it required "highly efficient" or "excellent," I forget which, to enable a teacher to go from one grade to another. What is to be the test of going from one grade to another? I assume that the right hon. Gentleman says one may go from the minimum to the maximum of grade by annual and automatic increments without any special distinction given by the inspector. At the end of this grade, and before he goes from that to the next grade, what is to be the standard? Is it to be "highly efficient," or "efficient," or "good"?

The standard which is known at present as "highly efficient," I think. I am not sure, but that is a matter of internal administration, and depends on examinations and regulations which the Board will issue to give effect to the matter.

I am not one of those who believe or who would ask that the Irish teacher should be promoted if he does not deserve it; far from it. But at the same time I do not think that a. number of stringent and difficult rules should be laid down to prevent a man going from one grade to another after a certain period has elapsed. I think-where the teacher has been trained and is a man who has spent years in a training college and gone to the country where he has improved by experience, and where he has done his work faithfully and where there has been no mark against him, this over-inspection and over-criticism and this suspicion haunting him day and night does not improve the man. He feels that at every turn of the road there is the inspector, and that his prospects may be thereby affected. We are, indeed, over-inspected in Ireland in everything, and nobody seems to trust ourselves. I am one of those who believe that education is a thing which depends on the "teacher. It depends on his willingness to do the work, and you only get the best out of him when you say to him, go and teach. I do not suggest that there should be no inspection. Nothing of the kind, but I would give the man freedom to do his work, which is a high and noble work which calls forth the best instincts of man. You will not get that best work if the man is over-inspected. Therefore, I would suggest that too much inspection and too much criticism and too much direction from outside is really a bad thing for Irish education I do not mean to suggest that Irish inspectors are not good men. I believe in the main they are, but they are human, and too many of them in the past at least had not that intimate and practical knowledge of Irish education which would enable them to be the best persons to assist and advise the teacher.

According to the system here it takes about twenty years before a teacher reaches his maximum. I do not suggest that would not be fair, but I think the beginning salary is too low. You begin at £78 for a man who has reached about twenty-one years of age, and who has spent, we will say, two or three years in Dublin in a training college, having previously spent five years as a monitor in a national school. I am afraid that even in Ireland you will not attract good men into your service at that figure. There is then the position of assistant teacher. As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, the assistant teacher loses his position altogether if the attendance falls below forty, the exact figure being 39.5. What is the position of the man? I do not suggest that he should be kept on in a school with an attendance of less than 39.5, but here is the case I wish to present. This man began training and educated himself for the profession of teacher. He spent his youth in preparation, and has passed the same examination and the same courses, and went down to the country to teach and to spend his life in the profession. He finds himself after five, ten, or twenty years a local parish servant—and that is all he is If the attendance in his particular school drops to 39.4 there is absolutely nothing for him to do. He may be a married man, too. He finds himself with his wife and children absolutely with nothing to do, and wholly unfitted to do any other work. Is it right that that system should continue? I would suggest to the right hon. and learned Gentleman a remedy for that. The man has been trained at the expense of the State, first as a monitor, then as a pupil teacher, and finally he has gone through one of the training colleges. He gives his teaching by the authority of the State, and receives his salary from the State. After some years' teaching in a particular parish the attendance drops, and he drops out. Could not the National Board make it a rule that the next vacancy somewhere throughout the country should not be filled whilst there was such a man as this without employment? Some such rule as that might be made to get over the difficulty; for really it is a disgrace that a man should, after a number of years in the way I have described, be thrown on the world, wrecked and useless for any other purpose. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will endeavour to do something in connection with this matter.

The training of the teacher is a question in which I have always taken a very great interest. Surely all other things are of minor importance to that of the man who is behind the work? It is the man who counts, not systems or programmes. In order to get a thoroughly efficient and really valuable educational system everything should be done to make the man efficient for his work. In this connection the system of training is to my mind of vital importance. I have always held the belief, and I hold it strongly now, that the man who is to train our children should not be taught, as he is at present, exclusively in training colleges, and entirely separate and apart from other professions and classes. Some arrangement should be come to by which the boys and girls from the different parts of the country, when they come to Dublin, or Belfast, or elsewhere, to undergo training for the teaching profession should avoid that training being in a narrow groove. They should be brought into contact with other professions and other educational forces in the country, and they should be encouraged, these men and women who are growing up to teach our children, to spend at least a year in one of the universities. Until such is done you cannot expect to have that high standard and type of education and that wide outlook on life which is really essential in order to make Irish education what it ought to be. I do not know how far the statement of the right hon. Gentleman has met that point. I have no doubt he is sympathetic, but this is really a most important matter. There may be difficulties in the way, but it is absolutely essential, if Irish education is to be the broadening influence that everyone of us would like it to be, that the teacher should have some connection with other professions; he ought not to be taught within the narrow groove of merely the few subjects that he has got to prepare for technically.

I was very pleased to find that in the matter of the junior inspectorships there is an increase in their salaries. Apparently in the future there is to be a greater number of these posts available to national teachers. These latter will be delighted to hear that. Many of the national teachers have undergone university training. They are highly trained and qualified men. This new move will be an incentive to work for the additional prize. I am entirely with the right hon. Gentleman in doing everything in this direction. I am not at all sure that the other scheme, that of £40 or £50 a year in the schools, will have quite the effect desired. I agree that under a proper system it would be, but as the right hon. Gentleman is aware, in Ireland the teacher is merely a parish servant; he is not a national teacher at all. It is a misnomer to call him so. He is paid by the State. He is subject to State rules. But he is merely a parish servant, and to that extent, of course, the opportunities of availing himself of this scheme are very limited. I only hope we had a system by which the hard-working efficient teacher would be able to go on from the smaller to better schools in another district, and until you have some such system Irish education will, I am afraid, suffer a great deal. The right hon. Gentleman has been to Ireland; he has seen what are some of our principal industries. Primary education, like all education in Ireland, is of a literary kind. There is practically no consideration given to the work that a boy or a girl will have to do in after life. I do not suggest—and here, of course, is the difficulty in dealing with one phase of education—that the boy who really learns to read, to write, and to cypher, has learnt all that he should before he is put to anything else, but really I think it is absurd how in some matters things go now. I have been in some of our primary schools recently. I have asked how many subjects are being taught, and I have been told the number is from fifteen to seventeen. I say that the boys and girls who learnt reading, writing, and arithmetic under the system that obtained when I went to school were, to my mind, much more efficiently and better educated than those of to-day who get a wholly inadequate smattering of fifteen or seventeen subjects. It is absurd, it is monstrous, to begin particular (branches of particular subjects until a boy reaches eleven or twelve. After that, if he is well grounded in the main subjects of reading and writing, and if he can do his multiplication table, then by all means let him commence to specialise.

To-day, however, in our national system, you have such a host of subjects that the teachers really do not know where they are. Speaking of my own. country, as an agricultural country, I think the situation is really hopeless. One casts ones eyes abroad and finds the world awakening to the necessity of an improved national system of education to enable the boys and girls to go out into life and to do those things which will improve their own condition and improve their country's condition. We find, on looking abroad, even in England, that matters are moving. England never bothered about education—that is really its history! But even in England there appears to be signs of an awakening. Scotland has always been stirring. The Scottish system of education from beginning to end is a model. So far as I know, it is superior to anything we have either in England or Ireland. There is a terrible road for us to travel in Ireland before we can approach anything Hike the Scottish system. We are forced by the rules of the House to deal only with primary education. We cannot deal with education if you tie it up in little batches. It is, I think, a pity that we have not an opportunity of just a few words in regard to secondary education. I do not know, Mr. Rawlinson, whether you will rule me out of order, and say that I cannot deal with secondary education.

The Estimate refers only to elementary education.

Is there not a Grant of £40,000 for secondary education?

I think not.

Then I do not propose to take up your time any further on that point. I notice that the White Paper says:

"Civil Services and Revenue Departments Estimates and Supplementary Estimates, 1917–18, Class 4, Votes 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17."

That includes secondary education, and, therefore, I am entitled to say a few words on the subject.

May I submit that when this question was raised a couple of days ago my hon. Friend the Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon), speaking for us, asked that the whole of the Education Votes might be put down for to-day in order to raise the whole subject of Irish education, including secondary education, and I submit, therefore, my hon. Friend is entitled to allude to the question of secondary education.

He will be, after this Vote is concluded. On the next Vote he will be able to discuss the question of intermediate education in Ireland, but this Vote only deals with primary education.

That rules me out in practice as well as in theory. There is only one other point with which I wish to deal. It is in relation to the six organising inspectors.

I will look very carefully into that matter.

I will accept the right hon. Gentleman's promise, but I would point out that when considering it he must be influenced by the fact that their salary begins at £120 a year and goes up by increments of £5 to £200. All these have been teachers, who are very highly trained and very efficient, and it would be really absurd to leave them with their present salaries, in view of what the right hon. Gentleman proposes to do in the case of other teachers. The amount the right hon. Gentleman has got is wholly inadequate on any test that can be applied, and not one third of what it ought to be if the right hon. Gentleman were to adopt the principle that the Minister for Education in England adopted as to the needs of education in this country. If the same test were to be applied to Ireland instead of the £384,000, we would at least get £1,000,000, and if he were to ask some of us to tell him where the needs of education lie we should have no difficulty in showing, not fanciful schemes, but practical, useful schemes. We would not confine ourselves to primary education, but would show the road to advance in our country in commerce, agriculture and industry by true secondary education, and not farcical and absurd secondary education, such as we have got to-day. If the right hon. Gentleman would go to the trouble of getting a small committee of men, not merely theorists, not merely professors, but practical business men, men in commerce, men in industries, workers and engineers to inquire into the needs of higher and secondary education in Ireland, they would present a report to him showing the immense advantage and immense service that could be done to Ireland had we a proper system of education. He will not have done his duty—and I know he has strained every nerve to do it—by merely dealing with primary education. Secondary education in the broadest sense—not your classical, not your theoretical, not your literary education, but something which would prepare men and women for life—that is what I trust he will turn his attention to, and if he will appoint a committee such as I have suggested, they may frighten the Treasury, but they will serve one of the most neglected portions of Irish education.