asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) whether, in connection with the supply to France of tin-plates and steel, the system of having only one buyer, the Comité des Forges, for all British exports from this country to France was initiated and maintained at the request of the British Government; if so, whether the policy will be reconsidered, in view of the dissatisfaction being expressed amongst manufacturers and merchants both in this country and in France regarding the monopoly at present enjoyed by the Comité des Forges; (2) whether he is aware that the activities of the Comité des Forges de France are giving concern to manufacturers in this country; that this body, which is a private association of the principal French steel works, holds the monopoly of imports into France; that British merchants were, and are now, able to supply tin-plates and steel at much lower prices than the Comité des Forges are now charging the French consumer; and whether he is prepared to receive and consider the views of British merchants on this matter!

I venture to refer the hon. Member to the reply given to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Mansfield on the 13th of June, to which I have nothing to add.

asked the Undersecretary of State for War whether he is aware that there are men at present serving in Salonika who have been absent from home for over three years; and whether arrangements can be immediately made to see that these men are given leave?

As I stated on Thursday last, in reply to a question by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland, owing to the restricted facilities for transportation, leave for troops serving at Salonika and other theatres of war in the East is necessarily limited. I can, however, assure my hon. and gallant Friend that everything possible, consistent with the military situation, is being done to increase the numbers to whom leave is granted. Preference is given to men who have served longest without leave.

asked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he will consider the possibility of granting greater facilities for leave to the men of the Yeomanry Division now serving in France who left England more than two years ago, and have not since had an opportunity of visiting their homes?

As my hon. Friend will realise, the military exigencies of the moment only allow a limited number of troops being granted leave. When the situation permits of a resumption of this privilege, I am sure the Field-Marshal will give every consideration to cases, such as those mentioned, where leave has necessarily been postponed.

Will a prior claim be recognised?

Yes, Sir; I will make a point of placing it before the Field-Marshal.

asked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he will consider the possibility of arranging that Driver C. Rawson, No. 19015, Royal Field Artillery, should be sent home, his mother having recently lost her husband and three sons, of whom two were killed on active service, Driver Rawson being her only surviving adult son?

This case will be forwarded to the Commander-in-Chief concerned for his consideration.

This is the case of a pledge being given in this House—is it not?

Yes; I believe it is such a case. I am bringing it before the notice of the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief.

asked what were the emoluments of General Sir F. Maurice as Director of Military Operations; and what is his present allowance from Army funds?

As Director of Military Operations General Sir Frederick Maurice received £1,500 per annum. He is now in receipt of £225 per annum retired pay.

Are we to understand that that is the price of General Maurice for telling the truth?

asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether, considering that officers are liable to be detained in the Service for the duration of the War although they have completed their time for full pension, there is any Warrant that authorises the withholding from such officers thus detained the pension or the deferred pay that is due to them on completion of the prescribed period of service; and, if so, will he quote the words of that Warrant?

The authority is Article 498 of the Pay Warrant, the words of which are as follow:

"Officers who shall, during a time of national emergency, be retained by our Army Council beyond the time when they are liable to retire from our Army, and officers taken into employment before the occurrence of a national emergency and retained in such employment during such emergency, shall not be deemed to be employed under the conditions of Article 496, and shall continue to serve under the conditions of pay, etc., previously applicable to them."

Is there anything in that that deprives the officer of the deferred pay to which he is entitled?

An officer is not entitled to retired pay until he has retired.

asked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether it is intended to take over any more of the Crown lands in the East Riding of Yorkshire for the formation of farm colonies under the Small Holding Colonies (Amendment) Act; and, if so, if he will arrange that the tenants who are to be dispossessed of their holdings shall be given at least eighteen months' notice of such intention?

The suggestion of the hon. and gallant Member will be carefully considered if and when the Small Holdings Colonies (Amendment) Bill becomes law.

asked the First Commissioner of Works why the statue of King Charles at Charing Cross has been sandbagged and covered with staging, and what the estimated cost of this work will be; if he will say if it is proposed to deal with other public statues in London in the same way; and, if so, how many and what statues they are?

I would refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on the 19th June to the hon Member for Portsmouth for the reasons for this work, the estimated cost of which is £450. It is not my present intention to have any other statutes similarly treated.

Will the hon. Gentleman not consider the claims of Oliver Cromwell for similar protection?

We will consider anything reasonable.

Is it the case that this £450 was paid, not by the State but by the donor?

May I inquire whether this particular statue has been chosen as an indication of the Government's sympathy with statesmen who lose their heads?

The beautiful statue of the distinguished sovereign that I am protecting is one of the finest works of art in the Metropolis.

Why has the right hon. Gentleman not taken the same precaution with regard to Westminster Hall?

Because it is obviously impossible.

Why?

Does this £450, the estimated cost, include the corrugated-iron covering?

It includes the entire expense.

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been drawn by the Incorporated Swansea and District Freighters' Association to the action of the Great Western Railway Company and other railway companies in demanding an undertaking from senders of any traffic to London waterside stations to pay any demurrage incurred upon railway trucks and sheets and barges detained under load beyond the free period; and whether, in view of the fact that when manufacturers have placed traffic on rail they have no further control and their liability is ended, he will make representations to the Railway Executive Committee on the matter?

My attention has been called to this matter, and inquiries are being made.

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention had been drawn to the dearth of coal in Cornwall, and to the fact that, in consequence of this shortage, many merchants are closing down their businesses; and whether he will enable his zone representative to remedy this state of affairs and provide him with information as to what supplies may be expected during the coming weeks in preparation for winter needs?

I understand that the Controller of Coal Mines has received representations on the subject of coal for the South-Western Counties. The immediate cause of the shortage which has been felt in certain localities is the "comb-out" of miners, the effect on which has been accentuated in the South-Western Counties by the recent strike in South Wales. My hon. Friend will be aware that a rationing scheme is to be introduced shortly, and while the amount of coal available for consumption will necessarily be reduced, I have every reason to hope that the arrangements which have been made will ensure a reasonable supply throughout the country. The Controller will be glad to look into any specific case of difficulty, if precise particulars can be furnished.

asked the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the profits made by the tenants of small house and cottage property by sub-letting portions of their houses; and whether, in view of this method of profiteering, he is prepared either to propose an Amendment to the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest Acts to enable the landlords of such properties proportionately to increase their rents or to limit the right of the tenants to profiteer by under-letting at increased rentals?

My right hon. Friend's attention has been drawn to a few cases of the kind referred to, but he cannot undertake to promise further legislation on this subject at the present time.

asked whether dependant's allowance is still being paid to the wives of Russian subjects who left this country ostensibly to bear arms against the Central Powers; and, if so, is it his intention to discontinue this payment except where the wife is a woman of British birth?

As I have previously informed my hon. and gallant Friend, the allowances to the dependants of Russians who returned to Russia for military service in compliance with the terms of the Anglo-Russian Military Service Convention are only paid in necessitous cases, and His Majesty's Government agreed to provide the necessary funds on the understanding that the sums expended will be recovered from Russia at a later date. It is not proposed for the present to discontinue the existing arrangements.

asked the Minister for Reconstruction when he will be in a position to introduce a Bill setting up a Ministry of Health?

A Bill on the subject is under the consideration of the Government, but I am not able to make any statement as to its introduction.

If an agreement as to departmental reorganisation is not arrived at soon, will the right hon. Gentleman refer the matter to the Cabinet for decision?

It is before the Cabinet.

asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food the number of copies sent out of the special educational paper by the instructions of his Department; if they were paid for, the cost of the same and also of the postage to each school in the country; can he state what quantity of paper was released in order to enable this paper to be issued; whether it was paid for by his Department; whether the special feature of the paper to which his Department attached so much importance was not in the original number submitted, but was supplied by his office to this paper; if he can state if any of the staff of his Department are or have been members of the staff of this journal; and if he will give an undertaking that this special favouring of one competitive professional paper shall not occur again?

The cost of printing the 28,043 copies sent out to schools was borne by the educational paper. These copies were sent post free, and the only direct cost to the Government was for the paper, the exact amount of which cannot at present be separated from other returns. I am not clear what was the special feature of the paper to which the hon. Member refers in the fifth part of his question; the answer to the sixth part is in the negative. Any similar application on behalf of any other educational journal will be dealt with on its merits in a similar fashion.

asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the resolution sent by the British Empire Producers' Organisation to His Majesty's Government urging the desirability of co-operation between the Government and the United States for the immediate purchase of raw materials necessary for industry during the period of reconstruction; and whether he can make any statement on this subject?

The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The question of the best methods of securing command of essential raw materials produced within the Empire with a view to safeguarding the industries of the Empire and the Allies during the reconstruction period has been considered by the Imperial War Conference now sitting, which has arrived at important decisions thereon. I hope that these decisions will in due course form the basis of discussions with our Allies and will lead to that co-operation which the hon. and gallant Member desires.

Will the decisions arrived at by the Imperial War Conference be published?

I cannot give an answer to that. I am not acquainted exactly with what is being done.

Will those decisions be submitted to the House?

That is a question which I have already answered.

asked the Prime Minister whether a Return can be laid before the House of all men of German parentage at present in Government employ, stating if and when naturalised?

I can add nothing to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for East Herts on the 26th June, to which I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend.

asked the Prime Minister whether Lord Rothermere has received a fresh appointment under the Government; if so, what is the nature of the appointment; and on what date was it conferred upon Lord Rothermere?

Lord Rothermere has been acting since 1st June in an advisory capacity in connection with the American and British overseas section of the Ministry of Information.

asked the Prime Minister when it is intended to take the Committee stage of the Trade Boards Bill?

I understand that the Grand Committee to which the Trade Boards Bill has been committed will probably take it next week.

(by Private Notice) asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider the advisability of providing an early opportunity to the House for a discussion of the method of control of alien enemies in this country?

I know how strong the feeling on this subject is in the House, and the sooner it is discussed the better from every point of view. I hope that it may be possible to arrange for it next week.

What Vote will be taken on Thursday? Could not the discussion take place on the same Vote?

My right hon. Friend (Mr. Runciman) has a question on that subject.

What form will the discussion take?

That is a matter for consideration. Probably the best form would be the Home Office Vote, but that must depend whether or not it is the wish of the House that the Vote should be taken.

If the discussion takes place on the Home Office Vote, will it not shut out other questions which ought to be raised on that Vote?

Are we to understand that this question will be taken in the absence of the Home Secretary?

I hope that the Home Secretary will be available next week.

The first Amendment—to leave out Sub-section (1), standing in the name of the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Sir J. Larmor)—is equivalent to a negative of the whole Clause. The next four Amendments—in Sub-section (1), after the word "elementary," to insert the words "or secondary"; leave out the word "elementary"; after the word "school" to insert the words "or secondary school"; and at the end of Sub-section (1) to add the words "nor in any secondary school provided by a local education authority, or which is in receipt of Grants from the Board of Education"—standing in the names of the hon. Members for the Haggerston Division (Mr. Chancellor), for North Somerset (Mr. King), for Sunder-land (Mr. Goldstone), and for Mid-Lanark (Mr. Whitehouse), raised the question of secondary schools, which was dealt with on Clause 1, when an Amendment was proposed to the same effect by the hon. Member for North Somerset and was negatived on a Division.

On a point of Order. When this subject was discussed it had reference to the establishment of schools in the future, whereas the present Amendment deals with existing schools.

In any case it would not come on this Clause, but, if a new Clause is brought up, I will consider it. It would not be appropriate on this Clause.

I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (1), to add the words "and as hereunder mentioned."

This Amendment must be taken in conjunction with a later and somewhat lengthy Amendment, which requires some little explanation. Under Sub-section (2) of Clause 22, exception is made with regard to matters under Section 14 of the Education Act, 1902, and it is rather necessary that we should go back in order that the Committee may understand what Section 14 of the Act of 1902 did. It really carried out an agreement that was entered into at that time with schools where fees were charged prior to 1902, and whereby those fees were to be allowed to be continued. There is a feeling of injustice on the part of many of the managers of these schools on account of their treatment under this Clause. The Bill has been kept pre-eminently free from all those questions of religion and all those old troubles between different classes of education which were so rampant in 1902, but this Clause rather introduces contentious matter which is felt very keenly in certain parts of the country. The Committee are probably aware that fee-paying schools were not at all prevalent in the South of England. They were built and carried on very largely in one part of Lancashire and Cheshire, but outside Manchester, Chester, Liverpool, Birkenhead, and a few other Lancashire towns, there were very few fee-paying schools. I should like to state one reason why some of these fee-paying schools were established. Those who really valued education found that there were a number of private schools that were very inefficient, but parents felt strongly that they should be at liberty to choose the school to which they sent their children, and they were prepared to pay a reasonable price to make the selection. These advanced workers in educational matters saw that if they erected suitable buildings and obtained the Government Grant and charged the parents fees, they could give a really good education. That was how some of these schools were started. Others were provided schools, in the ordinary sense of the term, whether Church of England, Roman Catholic, or belonging to the Free Church bodies. They were erected by people in the belief that they were really serving the best interests of national progress. In 1902 an agreement was arrived at between the Government and the managers of these schools. The agreement carried two points. In the first place, the managers of the schools granted the local education committee the use of their buildings for six days in the week, provided that they might have the use of them on the Sunday, and for such portions of the week when the education committee did not require them.

That was a real compromise and a real bargain. In addition to that, the managers of the schools were allowed to continue the fees, with the proviso that the local education committees were to take charge of those fees and, in consultation, were to divide the amount in such proportions as might be mutually agreed. If they would not come to an agreement, the matter was to be referred to the President of the Board of Education to decide what proportion they should have. This led to an amicable arrangement, under which the managers of these schools receive about half the money paid in the form of fees. The other half is spent in this way: The managers of the schools meet after they have collected the fees, and where permanent alterations to buildings are required they still fall to the lot of the managers. Out of those fees the managers keep their buildings in repair from the capital point of view, while the local education authority keep the buildings in repair so far as ordinary painting and cleaning are concerned. The providers of these unprovided schools did a great national service when they erected these buildings and then practically handed them over to the country, free of charge, for educational purposes.

What next?

What objection does the hon. Gentleman take to that statement?

Get on with the War!

I know that in the town I represent many of the inhabitants subscribed thousands of pounds in order to put up these schools for the children of that town, even before free education was considered, and they performed a national service.

Is it not the case that ever since the free Education Act they have been receiving thousands of pounds from the taxpayers in lieu of fees, as well as the fees from the scholars? Of course they have!

I was about to explain to the Committee what happens with regard to these fees. Out of the amount of money received in my Constituency—I can speak with absolute knowledge—they have spent since 1902 on keeping up the actual fabric of the buildings £11,000, and they have received £2,800 from the portion of the fees which the local education committee handed back to the managers of those schools. In view of that, in common fairness and justice, those fees should be continued. The consequential Amendment which stands in my name reads:

"In any school of the higher-grade type or in which fees have been charged of not less than threepence per week, fees may continue to be charged, and, if a non-provided school, the local authority shall repay to the managers such portion of the fees as may be necessary to cover the cost of the up-keep of the buildings and other expenses of maintenance which have hitherto been borne by them."

That answers the hon. Member for North Somerset (Mr. King) as to how the money that is going to be paid out of the fees to the managers is to be spent by them on these schools. The Amendment further reads:

"This arrangement shall continue as long as the schools are carried on to the satisfaction of His Majesty's inspector, and, in the event of any dispute, the decision of the Board of Education to be final. The local authority shall also have power to charge fees in any new school where they think fees will be for the educational benefit of the district, subject to the approval of the Board of Education."

I ask myself and the President why Clause 22 should be introduced at all? It is only going to make friction in the country. There is no object to be gained, except the questionable object of equality. Some of us do not believe that in matters of education we should all be reduced to one plain, straight line of uniformity. We believe that in variety, such as is found in these schools, you have a little local friendly competition in the matter and the manner of administering the Education Acts. It is a good thing that there is this slight variety, and it should continue. I know that the President has no desire whatever to raise again the religious question in this House or in connection with this Bill, but I want to tell him that this Clause does raise that question in this way: The managers of these unprovided schools are the men who, in the past, have stood for religious teaching in all schools, and they have a constant fear that, if we weaken the position of these unprovided schools and gradually wipe them out of existence, the bulwark against the idea of secular education, which was so prevalent and may come to the front again, will be removed. I put it to my right hon. Friend that the fair and generous usage of the unprovided schools should be continued, and I sincerely trust he will accept this Amendment with a view to doing what I call simple justice. In 1902 it was agreed between the Government and the managers of these schools that these various matters should continue. The right is admitted in the Bill by the right hon. Gentleman saying that the payment of the money shall be continued for five years. If these managers are entitled to their money for five years, they are entitled to it as long as the buildings are used for the purpose for which they were handed over. I cannot conceive, seeing that the right hon. Gentleman acknowledges the justice of the claim by providing in the Bill that the same money shall be paid for the next five years as was paid for the last five years, why that should not continue, and why this Clause should be introduced at all. The President admits the justice of the managers receiving their share of these fees for five years. Why is it not just to say that they should continue to receive the money for a still longer and an indefinite period? I trust that the President of the Committee will see that this Amendment is not a casual one, but that it goes to the root of a very important and strong national feeling with regard to the suppression of unprovided schools.

The question that has been raised by the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Bigland) is by no means a new one in our educational discussions in this House. As I understand him, he has put forward practically two proposals. One is that there should be some means of differentiating between the higher grade schools where no fees will be charged and the schools where fees will be charged, and that mainly, I understand, on social grounds. The feeling in favour of having schools where fees are charged is based almost entirely, in the various towns where the practice still exists, on the desire of some parents to have their children taught in schools which they regard as of rather better social class than others.

Not at all!

Yes, that is the view that is held by those parents who pay fees.

By some of them.

My hon. Friend (Mr. King) is no more justified in speaking for them than I am. I express it as my opinion and as a result of the experience I have had. Perhaps my hon. Friend will allow me to speak on behalf of a sphere of national activity with which I am just as closely connected as he is. I am only stating what is the fact. I do not say they are justified in their view. What I observe is that although that may be the view of large numbers of parents, and a view supported by some Members of this House, it is not the view now held by the Board of Education, for they have in their proposals definitely adopted a doctrine which has often been preached here in the past and been pretty generally though not unanimously supported, that it is better to get rid of fees altogether in this class of school. With opinion such as it is in the country, I cannot see that much is gained by a continuance of the old practice. The minority which is in favour of this differential treatment of their or other people's children is a comparatively small one, and although we must recognise it as a social fact, it cannot be justified on purely educational grounds. I think the Board of Education has been well advised in ignoring these social grounds, and on purely educational grounds deciding once and for all that they are against the continuance of the practice, even in the higher grade schools. For that reason, in the first place, I would support the proposal which is put forward by the Government, and oppose that put forward by the hon. Member (Mr. Bigland).

There is a second point, and here I think he was leading us on to most dangerous ground. He was quite frank about it that immediately you have raised the question of compensation for the absence of fees in schools which are denominational we get into the region of religious controversy. I appeal to the hon. Member, and those who support him, not to let us get a single hair's breadth into the religious region. The only possibility of our getting this Bill through with any degree of general support is that we should keep away from all religious controversy. This does not of necessity directly raise our old religious controversies, but anyone who has been in the House for any length of time and heard the discussions on other educational Bills knows that immediately you come to the question of compensation for fees to denominational schools you will have the right of the denominational school to exist as a separate entity at once challenged, I hold particularly strong views on that subject, but they are not as extreme as those held by some of my hon. Friends, and I was not unprepared to come to an arrangement on the subject. But if you do open the question, you have to remember that you will arouse a pretty strong controversy. It will be urged, as nearly all our religious controversies are, with a good deal of bitterness, and the only hope of the right hon. Gentleman getting his Bill rapidly through with the degree of general support which we all desire is that he should not be tempted on to any of this familiar ground of the past. I therefore suggest, although there may be a good deal to be said on the subject of differential schools, that to raise in any degree the second part of the discussion suggested by the hon. Member would take us into a sphere that we had much better avoid, and on that ground I appeal to him not to press his Amendment.

There is an Amendment standing in my name of a more comprehensive character than this, and I greatly prefer it, but in the meantime, in case the right hon. Gentleman should decline ultimately to accept my Amendment, I should like very strongly to support the Amendment of my hon. friend (Mr. Bigland). I do not think anyone who approaches this question can be insensible to the very strong appeal, which I believe will be endorsed in all parts of the House, which has just been made by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Runciman). None of us desires to introduce the bitterness of religious controversy into the Education Bill, which we hoped might be entirely free from any such considerations, but I am bound to ask who is responsible for the raising of that question, if unfortunately it be raised? What, in the name of fortune, induced the President of the Board of Education to insert this Clause, with the hope of avoiding the controversy which we all desire to avoid, I cannot imagine! We who object to the Clause cannot, therefore, take any iota of responsibility for any controversy which in this connection may be raised.

I foreshadowed on the Second Reading an intention to amend, and, if possible, omit, this Clause, and since then I have received an accumulating mass of testimony to what I can only describe as the dismay which has been excited in all parts of the country by the proposals contained in this Clause. I sometimes wonder whether the President of the Board of Education himself is aware of the extent to which this system of fee-paying schools, though their aggregate number is, I admit, not very large, permeates the provision of public education in this country. I differ a little from the hon. Member (Mr. Bigland). I think he underestimates very seriously their extent in other parts of the country. I have here a Return, for which the hon. Member (Mr. King) moved in 1914, of those fee-paying schools, and they do not at all bear out the description of their geographical distribution which has been suggested by the hon. Member (Mr. Bigland). There are altogether 430 of them, very widely distributed, and the total fees taken amount to about £66,500 a year, of which only a small proportion, about £14,000 a year, is returned by the local authorities to the managers. I am perfectly prepared to be told that those figures, both of the schools and of the fees, are, in relation To the statistics of public education, quite insignificant. They are by no means insignificant in certain localities. For example, here is a Midland town. In Kidderminster, out of nine schools no fewer than four are fee-paying.

There are nine free schools and four fee-paying schools. The hon. Member must explain my Return correctly.

Perhaps I may rely on the hon. Member for North Somerset to give the figures correctly later on. The point I was endeavouring to make is that the geographical distribution of these fee-paying schools is very much wider than that suggested by the Mover of the Amendment. What do you propose to do about these schools? You are proposing, as I understand the meaning of this twenty-second Clause, in these towns and counties—there are about 120 of them, I think—to prevent those parents who deliberately prefer to pay fees for their children from exercising what I regard as the elementary right of paying fees for the education of their children if they prefer to do so. I am totally at a loss to understand the reasons which have inspired the introduction of this Clause. Is it that you desire deliberately to upset—I cannot think it is—the compromise which was embodied in the Acts of 1870, 1891, and 1902, because the existence of these fee-paying schools is an essential part of the compromise embodied in that series of Education Acts? You are deliberately proposing by Clause 22 to reopen the basis of the compromise embodied in these Acts. Further, by the Amendment which has been put into the second or third edition of the Bill, you are proposing to hang up this matter for a period of five years. I quite understand the motive of that Amendment. I understand you desire to give a period of grace to these schools to arrange their affairs before they are finally extinguished. But there is an unfortunate side to that concession. You give notice that in five years' time these schools are to cease. Anyone who has any knowledge at all of human nature can foresee that in that period of five years you give a very ample opportunity for the reopening of the floodgates of controversy, which we all desire not to see reopened, but which we all desire to close.

First, I suggest then that you are disturbing the basis of the compromise, and, in the second place, I desire to point out that the fact of the existence of these fee-paying schools does not in any way interfere with the right of free education which has been established and which we all desire to extend by this Bill. That right of free education was procured by the Act of 1891. Any parent desiring free education for his children can claim it and obtain it as a right, and it is only a minority of parents who for one reason or another—not only for the reasons adumbrated by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Runciman), but for many other reasons very much more complex in some cases—prefer to pay and to make use of these fee-paying schools. May I remind the Committee that by the 14th Section of the Education Act of 1902 the local education authorities have full control over the fees charged in these non-provided schools? That is a point of very great importance which ought to be emphasised. Power is given to them to continue or discontinue such fees, and there is given to them under the same Section a limited power of dividing with the managers the fees so received. As a matter of fact, only a small proportion of fees are actually returned to the managers—about £14,000 out of £67,000. The amount which is so returned to the managers of non-provided schools is expended by them on the improvement of the premises and on equipment. All the money, therefore, which comes back to the managers is spent by them for the benefit of the children in their charge. That being so, I ask myself in whose interest is it that this change is proposed in Clause 22. Cui bono?

4.0 P.M.

Is it in the interests of the parents? They do not seem to think so. Parents, many of the best, most thoughtful and most considerate parents, feel themselves, and, in my opinion, rightly feel themselves, insulted by the proposal in this Bill, a proposal which I beg the Committee to observe is to prevent the parents from exercising a choice between free and fee-paying schools. I have received an enormous amount of testimony on this point. Some write to me to say that the fees are paid willingly. They are paid by that class of parent who can afford fees, such as foremen in works, small tradespeople, coachmen, gardeners, publicans, railway guards, and so on. Such parents welcome the fee-paying schools, because they know that their children will not have to associate with others whose homes are less satisfactory than they believe their own to be. These fee-paying schools are alwaysfull. In the majority of cases which are known to me the schools are not only full to overflowing, but there is in some cases a waiting list for admission to these popular schools that you propose to abolish. There are some districts, and here I am speaking of the South of England, where parents send their children a considerable distance by rail, bicycle, and so on, to obtain what they believe to be, rightly or wrongly, the benefits of these schools for which they are called upon to pay fees. I suggest, therefore, that it is not according to the wishes and it is not in deference to any claim of the parents that you are proposing this change. Are you proposing it in deference to the ratepayers? These non-provided fee-paying schools at the present time bring in a not inconsiderable revenue in relief of the rates. I think the hon. Member for Birkenhead told us that in Birkenhead alone since 1902 some £17,000 have been paid in relief of the rates. After that statement I think I need not pursue that point. Is this change desired by the local education authorities? If it were, they can adopt the change themselves. They need not come to this Bill for the power. The whole power is vested in the hands of the local education authorities. They can do what they please. It is for them to permit or to refuse the establishment or the maintenance of these fee-paying schools. They are entirely the masters of the situation, without any further legislation. And when they give permission let me remind the Committee they give it in deference to the very strong wishes of the parents. In Manchester, for example, the fees amount to something between £4,000 and £5,000 a year; in Liverpool the amount is £12,000 a year, and in Chester, a relatively small city, more than one-fifth of the whole of the children on the books are to be found in the higher grade schools of the city, and one-third of these, although in fee-paying schools, pay no fees. That is another point which should be borne in mind. In some cases a considerable portion of the accommodation in these fee-paying schools is by agreement with the local authority reserved for the free admission of children qualified by competitive examination to enter from other schools. So strongly do the local authorities realise the attractions of these fee-paying schools that I have heard of cases in which they have asked the permission of the Board of Education to charge fees themselves, in order to meet the competition of the fee-paying schools. If I had no other claim to urge on behalf of this Amendment it would be found in the parallel provision in the Education Bill for Scotland. I observe that in the seventh Clause of this Bill, Sub-section (a) of Section 1 runs as follows:

"A scheme for the adequate provision throughout the education area of the authority of all forms of primary, intermediate and secondary education in day schools without payment of fees, and if the authority thinks fit for the maintenance or support.…of a limited number of schools where fees are charged in some or all of the classes."

This includes, of course, secondary schools, but it is not confined to them. I suggest that you are legislating for England and Scotland on two different lines. You are proposing to prohibit these schools in five years' time in England, and you are going to permit their maintenance in Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman who spoke just now suggested that those of us who are moving on this Clause are not actuated by educational motives. I frankly admit that all fee-paying schools do not stand on precisely the same footing from the educational point of view. I quite agree with my hon. Friend who moved this Amendment that much the strongest case is that of the schools of the higher grade type, in which fees of 3d. per week or more have been charged. These higher grade schools are at this moment full to overflowing. The President perfectly well knows that, and it is ample proof, therefore, of their popularity. So far as I am aware the President of the Board, in the course of these Debates, has never said a single syllable to justify the Clause which he is now putting to the Committee. I think that that reticence on the part of the right hon. Gentleman is characteristic of the tact and skill with which he is piloting this Bill through the House of Commons. But the time for reticence has now gone by, and this Clause must be justified on its merits or it must be deleted, as I hope it may be. There may be something to be said from the point of view of administrative convenience and expediency. I do not for a moment deny that, but I cannot believe that that and that alone is the motive which has inspired the production of this Clause. What is the motive? Is it educational?

The hon. Member is now speaking to the Clause.

I intend my speech to be in support of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Birkenhead.

But the hon. Member is speaking about leaving out the Clause, whereas we are now on an Amendment. It is all right if we are not to have the speech twice over.

I can assure you the Committee will not have the speech twice over, but I thought it would, possibly save time if I now said all I have to say on the point. I was asking if the motive which underlies this Clause was an educational motive. If the President of the Board of Education will get up and say that, in his deliberate opinion, the sacrifice of these fee-paying schools is called for in the interests of educational efficiency, I will at once reconsider my own position in the matter. But I do not believe that he will do that. Then, if the motive be not educational, what is it? Is it anti-denominational? Is it a covert attack on the religious compromise? I hope not. The President has been most careful and most scrupulous to avoid raising, in any shape or form, this controversy, and by so doing he has earned the respect and gratitude of everyone who shares his own pure zeal for education. But I do not think he can expect those of us who believe as I believe, that in the end we cannot divorce religion from education, to take this Clause lying down. In its intentions it may have nothing to do with an attack on religious education, but I venture to submit that whatever the intention there can be no doubt whatever as to the result. After five years from the appointed day we shall have to surrender all the non-provided schools or forego those improvements and additions which are demanded, and rightly demanded, by the progressive claims of educational efficiency, or we shall have to reimpose the intolerable strain from which we were partially relieved by the Act of 1902. If the President of the Board of Education will repudiate the suggestion of motive, will he deny the effect? If the motive is neither anti-denominational nor educational, what is it? I can only attribute is, as previous speakers have done, to a desire for what I would venture to call pedantic uniformity—either that or a sort of inverted snobbery—a compulsory mechanical equality that no one shall be permitted to pay for education. How far are you going to carry that principle? Are you going to apply it to the rich? Or are you going to confine your prohibition to the poor, to the most honourable and self-sacrificing parents among the poorer classes? If that is the intention of the Clause, I venture to say it is class legislation of the most malignant type. It is not equality but sheer tyranny, and I for one will not be a party to its passing.

I hope the right hon. Gentleman will resist the appeal of the hon. Member who has just spoken. No one recognises more than I do the hon. Member's enthusiasm and sincerity for education, but I cannot help thinking he has been living in a rather secluded atmosphere, and has got out of touch with the general desire of the population in reference to education. I think myself that this Clause is essential to carry out the purposes of this Bill, which has for its object the establishment of a national system of education, and as long, as we have these isolated survivals of the old system of special schools cut off from the general national system, so long are we prevented having a really national system of education. In London in 1904, when the Education Act, so far as it affects London, came into force, the county council had to face this problem, and there was very strong feeling, just as there is in some areas at the present time, that these schools should be retained. There was a campaign amongst certain interests for retaining them. However, the London County Council, under the guidance, I think, of the Member for Derby, took up a strong line and determined to abolish fees, and that course was taken. There was considerable discontent at the time, but I think I am entitled to say after fourteen years' experience there is now general acceptance of the principle and that those who were loudest on the insistence of the dropping of fees are now generally agreed that on the whole they have been fairly met, and that the children who attend their schools are placed on an equality with those who go to the schools provided by the county council. Therefore, I think that the fears which have been expressed are groundless, and in practice it will be found not only to be popular but to the general interests of the school which will be affected by this Clause. The President has, indeed, made a very generous provision to ensure that these schools shall be let down lightly, and I think the hon. Member for Oxford City will agree that the financial considerations are not considerable. Although the schools may now give some relief to the ratepayers in most parts of the country, at any rate the relief is infinitesimal. The hon. Member mentioned the case of Liverpool, which he suggested was deriving £12,000 from this source; but obviously in a large area like Liverpool that is not a matter of very serious consideration.

These fees really are a survival of class divisions, and the hon. Member who last spoke in fact admitted that when he cited the cases of the publicans and railway foremen and other people who claim class superiority and prefer to keep themselves apart from their fellow workers. I know there are a certain number of black-coated working men who do not like to have their children associate with the children of the so-called working classes. What we want to build up is a national system which will appeal to all classes, bring people together, and make them realise that they belong to the same nation and have the same interests. To bring that about we want most of all to avoid the ideal of class war, and the notion that the interests of the various sections of the community are opposed. The Member for the City of Oxford spoke about hardship. He said that many of the parents want their children to go to these schools, but in many towns I have reason to know that the present system causes hardship. It is necessary often for the parents to send the younger children to the nearest school. The dangers involved in crossing the roads make that essential.

I can assure the hon. Member that wherever that happens they have the right to call for free places.

The question of distance is a very vexed one. We have the same problem in London. Even where there are schools the natural instinct of the parent is to send the child, even though it involves some cost, to the most adjacent school, so as to save the child from the danger of crossing the road. In practice it does compel parents to send children very often to a fee-paying school. The Member for Oxford City who stated that these schools were not confined to the North of England is perfectly right. They are scattered about various areas all over the country. That makes it much more objectionable. If you had one national system providing for all types of schools, on the one hand, schools of entirely free places, and, on the other hand, a certain number of schools requiring fees, that could be defended. But the very fact that this system does not work out uniformly all over the country, but depends on the accident of local elections, and whether there should happen to be such schools provided by some private benevolence or some church or institution, makes the system unsatisfactory. The working man finds that one area is provided with this sort of school, and that in the next area, 20 or 30 miles off, owing to the policy of the education authority, no such schools are allowed and fees are abolished. If you are going to have a new national system, the Board of Education must take a firm line, and insist that the same system shall apply throughout the country. It will not appeal to English Members to be told that because Scotland is reactionary in this respect, England must necessarily follow that example. I admit that in many things Scotland leads the way, but sometimes it is penny wise and pound foolish, and in reference to the retention of school fees, I am certain that its parsimony is mistaken. We need not look to Scotland in this matter. Let us rather look to the Colonies, and the Dominions beyond the seas, where they have gone in for what is, in America, called the common school, where all children go irrespective of class, with the result that you have there a true democratic feeling. You do not have that class consciousness which survives in this country, and which, if in some respects good, is certainly a harm to our education system. We want rather to apply the principle of the old grammar school, where all classes worked together, and you had the squire's son and the labourer's son getting the common benefit of the same education. I hope that the President of the Board of Education will resist not only the proposal to omit the Clause, but also this rather subtle Amendment, and keep the Clause as it stands in the Bill.

The Committee will have observed that this Clause is subjected to a cross-fire of criticism. On the one hand it is attacked, as going too far. On the other hand it is assailed as not going far enough. Some Members have urged that fees should be abolished in secondary schools. Others argue that they should be retained in elementary schools. The Bill follows a middle path. It retains fees in secondary schools, it abolishes fees in elementary schools, and it provides for free education in continuation schools. In other words, it takes this line: Where education is compulsory it should be given without charge to the parent, but where it is voluntary, where the parent has the option whether or not to send his child to a particular type of school, there the parent shall be at liberty to pay fees. But it is from no desire for mechanical uniformity that the Government has proposed this Clause. The consideration of the question of fees was forced upon us by two circumstances. In the first place, the Committee will have observed that in Clause 38 we are proposing the consolidation of the elementary school grant. This involves the abolition of the fee grant. The foe grant, which was established in 1891, is the instrument which enables the Board to put pressure upon a local education authority who may desire to charge exorbitant fees. It is to sanction from time to time the regulation of fees in those schools which continue to charge them, and consequently it follows that if you abolish the fee grant you are compelled to consider in what way you should deal with the fee question. It brings the fee question up as a necessary consequence. Then there is a second reason, that in the Bill we are proposing very greatly to improve higher elementary education. We are proposing to make higher elementary education and practical education in the higher elementary schools mandatory upon the authorities. In other words, we are proposing to ask the local education authority to make such provision for higher elementary education as is now generally made—not universally—in fee-paying schools, and generally regarded as a consideration in respect of which fees are charged.

dissented.

I am not arguing the question. Those are, at any rate, two circumstances which appear to me to necessitate the consideration of the question of fees. As has already been pointed out, this question is a comparatively small one. There are at the present moment 437 elementary schools in the country, out of over 20,000, which continue to charge fees. It seems to be assumed that they are all denominational schools or schools of a particular denomination. That is not so. There is no denominational question involved. There are ninety-five council schools, thirty-one denominational schools, forty-one Wesleyan schools, one Congregational school, one Presbyterian school, fifteen Roman Catholic schools, and some 250 Church of England schools in which fees are paid. There, again, I think that the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Bigland) was under the impression that, in raising the question of fees in this way, we were tearing up a solemn treaty contracted in 1902. I admit that if you could satisfy me on this point, I should be the last person to desire to press this Clause. But what has happened since 1902? My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford City, who is so well versed in this question, knows very well that under the settlement of 1902 it was within the discretion of the local education authorities to require the surrender at any time of this power of charging fees. In pursuance of that power a very large number of schools which charged fees in 1902 have ceased to charge fees now. For instance, in 1902, 610,000 children were being educated in schools which were charging fees exceeding 10s. a year in 1891, whereas in 1913–14 that number had sunk to 128,000. This means, as the hon. Member has pointed out, that without legislation, and simply in pursuance and in execution of the powers confided to local education authorities by the Act of 1902, fee-paying schools are constantly being converted into non-fee-paying schools. My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford City seemed to assume that at the end of five years the Church of England schools—I think he was referring principally to them—which at present charge fees, would be extinguished as a result of the action of this Clause, but there is no precedent in the past and recent history of our schools for the extinction of fee-paying schools as a result of the action of the local education authority in withdrawing the power to charge fees.

I really think that my hon. Friend has exaggerated, if I may say so, the results likely to flow from the passing of this Clause. I merely mention these circumstances in order to clear the air of what may be called the denominational issue. I do not raise, and I do not think anyone wishes to raise, the denominational issue in connection with this Clause. In order to be perfectly frank with the Committee, I may say that I have taken into consideration this question without parti pris, and my instruction as to the drafting of the Clause was that it was to be drafted in a way which might preserve the fee in those schools where it could be proved that the charging of fees was attended by educational advantage. Closer inspection of the whole problem, however, modified my views, and I will give to the Committee, quite frankly, what the conclusions are at which I arrived. As the Committee probably are aware, there are three classes of schools which charge fees. There are, first of all, the schools which refused the fee grant in 1891. They stood outside. They are a very small number of schools, I think there are not sixty at the present moment; it is a small number, and is very rapidly diminishing, and it seems to me quite certain, with respect to this particular class of schools, that the Bill is only anticipating by a few years their extinction. Then we have a much more numerous class of school. Those are the schools which charged fees in excess of 10s. in 1891, and they were empowered to retain those excess fees after the Act passed. The fees charged in those schools have no educational justification, and they are merely the result of historical accident. I may inform the Member for the City of Oxford that I have carefully gone into this question, and the Board have never thought it fair to urge upon the managers of those schools that they should undertake any special teaching in consequence of the excess fees charged in 1891. Therefore, in regard to the 1891 schools, if I may so call them, there is no distinct educational justification for the fees charged.

We come to the third class of schools. Under Section 4 of the Elementary Education Act of 1891, it was provided under certain conditions relating to school accommodation, or educational benefit, that a fee might be charged in such schools provided that the ordinary fee did not exceed 6d. a week. Under this Section a considerable number of schools have in the past been allowed to charge fees, and in 1912 there were seventy such schools. When I began to consider this problem I felt that educational advantage should be the ground for such fees, and that if it could be proved clearly that educational advantage resulted from such fees, then there was a case for considering their retention. Fees are charged for two different reasons. In the first place, they are charged in certain schools that have a curriculum which is supposed to be superior to the curriculum provided in the ordinary elementary schools. I do not deny that in that class of schools there are several which have done excellent educational pioneer work in the higher grades. No one can deny that admirable service has been rendered by many schools in the district which the hon. Member for Birkenhead represents. In the second place, fees may be charged—I do not in any way deny their importance—in what are called the select schools. But when I began to balance the educational argument for the retention of fees, the case seemed to me to be thin—indeed, almost diaphanous.

Have the 1870 schools increased?

No, I do not think so.

I have myself called attention to several cases of an increase in these schools.

It may be that I am inaccurate; I am not quite certain.

The number is not very large; a few have been added.

I am dealing with what we may call the strictly educational argument for retaining fee-paying schools. The real educational difficulty lies in the fact that if you have fee-paying schools they are supposed to be, and ought to be, higher grade schools, and the higher grade schools are the schools which provide a more advanced type of education than the type of education provided generally in schools. I put it to the Committee, Is it desirable that the higher type of elementary education should be confined to the children of those parents who can afford to pay the fees?

Certainly not!

It is the opinion of the inspectors of the Board that the existence of fee-paying schools militates against the proper organisation of higher grade education in an area. In order to have higher grade education properly organised it is obvious that you want a system by which the cleverest children, irrespective of the means of their parents, may be given the advantage of that higher education. There is another difficulty. We find by experience that in these fee-paying schools education is very largely disorganised. The children attend the elementary schools until eleven or twelve years of age, and then the parents, in order to obtain some social advantage, pass the children on to the higher grade fee-paying school, with the result that we find it very difficult to organise. Further, the classification of children according to their abilities, which, after all, is a fundamental fact in school organsation, is made very much more difficult by the existence of fee-paying schools, for the reason that the children in those higher grade schools are there by virtue of the fact that their parents can afford to pay the fee, whereas in higher grade schools in a non-fee-paying area they are organised for children of a uniform level of ability, and consequently it is much more difficult to organise higher education.

Then, again, I think it is very difficult for the Board to make a demand upon the local education authority to provide higher elementary education and to continue to sanction the existence of fee-paying schools. The case for the fee-paying school was that it provided exceptional opportunities for higher education, and if it is found that those opportunities are not exceptional, then surely the special case for fee-paying schools becomes very greatly weakened? It is said that the fee-paying school should be retained as a select school. There is a good deal of force in the argument of those who say, "Why should not parents be allowed to send their children to schools where they are certain of being immune from dirt or from bad language, and where they are likely to be with children from respectable homes?" In the first place, let me observe that ever since the establishment of the school medical service in 1907 there have been enormous improvements in the cleanliness of our schools, and, in the second place, you are giving security for the children being kept in more respectable homes. I am assuming—though it is not always true—that the children from the cleaner and more respectable homes are from the homes of the better-to-do parents; but, assuming it to be true, surely, then, you are losing one of the more important levers for social improvement if you take the children of respect able parents and prevent those parents from using their influence to improve the conditions in the ordinary schools? I do feel that there is a very great deal of force in that argument, but if we were to accept the Amendment we should be carried very much further than the hon. Member who moved the Amendment imagined. If we were to accept it we should be practically saying to the managers of these fee-paying schools, who at present have no vested rights in their fees and who might have their fees taken away at any moment by the local education authorities, "We are giving you a vested right, a statutory right." That is a great advance on the Act of 1902. The Mover of the Amendment accused me of having torn up the Act of 1902, but he surely is tearing it up on his side. The truth is that the abolition of the fee grant and the consolidation of our elementary finance does necessitate a review of this question, and I believe that any impartial mind, without a desire to advance either this interest or that interest, but solely actuated by a zeal for the progress of education, surveying the facts with the information which can be supplied by the officers of the Board of Education, would come to the conclusion to which I have come. As I have said to the Committee, I started without parti pris, but I have come to the conclusion which I have indicated as the right course to pursue, and I hope I shall carry the consent of the Committee.

I cordially accept what was put forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Runciman) in deprecating the introduction of the denominational religious element in the discussion of this matter at all. I regret it was brought in, and I think the matter should be settled without the intrusion of any such question. I may also say that I most fully agree that the case put forward by the managers of non-provided schools is neither a very forcible nor a very important one. The financial question is a very small question in dealing with this discussion, and I have no wish to appear as the champion of certain non-provided schools which by some circumstance in the past have retained fees or a portion of fees. I do desire to look at it solely from the point of view of education and of the advantage of the children attending the schools. I have followed the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education just now, adduced with his usual ability and forcefulness, but they have failed to persuade me, although my past experience enabled me to see how his mind was working in each step of his argument. He spoke of three classes of fee-paying schools—first, those who refused the fee grant in 1891; secondly, those who continued to charge an excess fee over the 10s. a year; and, thirdly, and they were the important class, the new fee-paying schools which were established because they were felt to be educationally useful. If they were not felt to be educationally useful, how could the Department over which the right hon. Gentleman presides permit them to be established? I think he will find if he looks into the matter that even since 1912 they have increased in number, and that does not look as if they were a useless or an unsuitable class of schools. It is these schools, and much more the social adaptation that they represent, to which I, from the educational point of view, attach importance. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the danger that these schools might represent in having educational advantage over schools in which no fees are charged. If the Board of Education has permitted or sanctioned fee-paying schools on the ground that they favour education of a higher type than that which was open to schools where no fees were charged, I say that they acted wrongly in condoning the action of the local education authority. There ought to be, and there is, in fact, in my own country, no educational advantage attached to the payment of fees. The fee-paying schools ought to be just as good as the others. The hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) was good enough to speak of my country and its reactionary tendencies as something which should be avoided as dangerous to England. I am not afraid of the reactionary tendencies of my country with regard to education, for more than once the Southern Saxon has taken some good examples from Scotland in the matter of education. We are not an anti-democratic country, and we are not likely to have to go to the hon. Member for Leicester to be taught the true doctrines of democracy. In the Scottish Education Bill, brought forward by the same Government—and surely the Government must be guided by certain broad general principles—these fee-paying schools are not only allowed but are expressly pointed out as one of the duties that may devolve upon the educational authority. They are to give maintenance and support "to a limited number of schools where fees are charged in some or all the classes."

Would these schools also receive rate support?

Certainly. They are established by the local authorities themselves. I remember in 1889, when I had charge of the measure by which free education was set up in Scotland—it was one of those lessons which we have given to the South, and it anticipated the legislation in England—there was then a small band of people, extremely fond of abstract opinions and allowing no deviation from them, who insisted that when we established in 1889 the right of every child to free education we should at the same time abolish the right of paying fees where the parents chose to pay them. There was a considerable fight over it. My own opinion was perfectly clear, knowing Scotland as I did, that it met a need and a desire of the country. We held out against the disciples of an abstract opinion, and we permitted certain fee-paying schools. After two or three years the cry for the universal abolition of fees absolutely died out, and I am perfectly certain now that if you canvassed Scotland all over you would find no such desire as has been expressed by Members of the type of the hon. Member for Leicester. Democratic as Scotland is, she knows there are phases—I am not going to call them genteel or social or select, or anything of that sort—but there are phases and differences between the various grades in the same class of society, and if you wish your schools to correspond to these and to be really national, you must make your system agree with these phases and gradations.

5.0 P.M.

I remember in the year 1889 there was a very prominent leader of the Labour party in Glasgow who was a very remarkable man, and one of the pioneers of the Labour party. I remember him coming to me and saying, "You must keep up these fee-paying schools. Remember that we working men have just as clear divisions between the lower and the upper grades of our class as there is between the highest aristocracy and the lowest in the country. If you are going to make your schools suited to the population of Glasgow, you must have a few schools to which we parents who are ready to to make a small sacrifice in order to pay fees to keep our children amongst the class to which we belong can send them." This whole question of social education, of genteel education, and of selection, is really a desire to make your education suit the phases of the life of the country as it really is. What would be the result of abolishing fee-paying schools in extending your national system? Do you think you are going to force people at the point of the bayonet into these free schools whether they will or not? The hon. Member for Leicester spoke of the decision of the London County Council to abolish fees in all their schools, but what was the result? It was that an immense deal of the elementary education and of higher grade schools in London are outside the scope of the London County Council altogether, and are in the hands of endowed managers or other independent bodies which can charge fees. We have not got that in Scotland, and we do not want it. We wish to limit this independence of managers. We know quite well that if we drive out the type of schools presented by the fee-paying schools we shall only drive the children into other schools and segregate them much more from those who come under the general public system. It is far better to have a public system with two or three different grades of schools, all of which are wide and comprehensive in their scope, than to say, "We will have only in our public system one narrow, strict, absolutely defined type of school in which we absolutely prohibit the paying of fees, and if people cannot stand that they can go elsewhere." Is there not more danger of the segregation of classes by such a system than by allowing your national system to adapt itself to the various phases of society, and if there are a small number of people who are prepared to make a small sacrifice for what they, rightly or wrongly, at all events in the exercise of their parental discretion, consider to be an advantage, why do you prevent them from doing it? It is, therefore, not on denominational grounds, not on social grounds, not on financial grounds least of all—because I think the financial ground is a very small one—but it is on purely educational grounds that I am obliged to differ from the President of the Board of Education, and that, pursuing, as he does, a strictly educational argument, I am led to the opposite conclusion which he has expressed, and must vote accordingly.

I am glad to learn that the President of the Board of Education is not prepared to accept the Amendment, and I venture to express the hope that the Committee will accept the invitation of the right hon. Gentleman to view and discuss this question purely and exclusively from the standpoint of education. I listened to the address of the Mover of the Amendment, and also to the speech that was delivered in support by the hon. Member for Oxford City, and I respectfully suggest that, in the course of those two speeches, not a single argument was submitted to the Committee on educational grounds. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities (Sir H. Craik) did say in his closing words that he approached this question from the standpoint of education, but I think that the arguments he used in the course of his speech were not educational, but that he at considerable pains laboured the suggestion as to the social conditions of fee-paying schools. The hon. Member took us back to the year 1889, and he referred to some gentleman whom he claimed as the leader of the Labour party in Scotland.

Glasgow.

Or in Glasgow, and he told the Committee that his friend urged upon him the importance of keeping in mind that there were sections of the working classes who, because of social reasons, were anxious that their children should have the opportunity of attending a school that in the social sense would be just a little bit above the average of the rank and file of the children of the working classes. There are two comments I want to make upon that observation, and the first is to remind the right hon. Gentleman that, not only in Scotland, but in Britain as a whole, we have travelled quite a long way since the year 1889, and there are other Members in this House who will bear me out when I say that there does come a mandate from the organised workers in Scotland demanding from this House the right of a complete and an efficient system of free education. I venture to suggest to the right hon. Member—and I feel quite certain the President of the Board of Education has a knowledge of the fact—that, so far as Labour has expressed any opinion on this issue before the Committee this afternoon, it has spoken with absolute unanimity as to the desirability and the urgency of the abolition of that social dis-diction which, I think, has militated very much against education. If I may, I would just ask to be allowed to supplement one of the arguments of the President of the Board of Education, when he pointed out that, since the passing of the 1902 Education Act, by a natural process, the number of non-provided schools has diminished at, I think, a ratio of something like four-fifths or five-sixths, and that that process is still going on. I think I should be right in saying that but for this world War the number would be even much less than what they are to-day. Has that affected the standard of education in the districts or counties where that process of elimination of fee-paying schools has been going on? I think I am right in saying that in my native county of Durham that process has teen as pronounced as, or more pronounced than, in any county of England, and I would challenge the defenders of this fee-paying system, not only on social but on educational grounds, to question or dispute my statement when I say, speaking generally in Durham county, it is an admitted fact, even by those who are most jealous and sometimes hostile to the abolition of fee-paying schools, that the standard of education has been substantially raised as a result of that process of elimination that has gone on in Durham county, and did go on for seven, eight, or nine years after the passing of the 1902 Act.

There is one other fact that I think the Committee would be well to keep in mind in this connection, and that is that the physical conditions, the structural arrangements, in the provided as against the non-provided schools—not only elementary but higher elementary—is very much higher. I want to resent the suggestion that there is any volume of opinion amongst the working classes of this country for the continuation of the system of fee-paying schools. I would refer to one other point made by the President of the Board of Education which is very relevant, when he pointed out that the fee-paying schools in certain restricted areas were a real hindrance. I speak with some knowledge of this question, as I had the honour to be a member of the Durham Education Committee for some years, and occupied the position of vice-chairman of that important education committee for three or four years, and we had repeated instances in certain specific districts where, because of the existence of a fee-paying school of the higher elementary or secondary type, our desire to institute a provided, publicly-owned and controlled system of free education was very substantially hindered, and I have no doubt in my own mind that the policy which is expressed in the Bill is the wise policy, is essential to an efficient national system of education, and I sincerely hope that the Committee will strongly resist the Amendment that is now being considered.

No one who has listened to the Debate this afternoon can help realising that the matter brought forward in this Amendment does give rise to very sharp differences of opinion, and no speech to which we have listened this afternoon has been more emphatic than that just delivered by my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven (Mr. T. Richardson). But what occurred to me while listening to him was that if this strong feeling he began by asserting, on behalf of the working classes of Scotland, and subsequently for the wage earners of this country, does exist, and with the strength he asserts, then these schools, if they are allowed to continue, will die out of themselves, because if pupils do not go to them because parents are not willing to pay the fees, there will very shortly be none of these schools in existence.

I was very careful to point out that in my own county I knew more particularly that process had been going on, but I would observe that this Bill wants to give statutory right and power to the principles of fee-paying schools.