The Bishop of St. Asaph has alluded to the question of the teachers' religious liberty. I think his argument is unanswerable. The teacher's religious liberty is the due complement of the other theory of the teacher's freedom from tests. There must be liberty both ways. As it has been put, we decline to take off the fetters merely to put on the muzzle. We who know teachers in intimate daily intercourse and in our schools, whether council or voluntary, know how careful we ought to be to safeguard their liberty of conscience, and we know the keenness many of them feel about giving religious teaching. The old theory that all teachers are competent to give that teaching if it be teaching of a simple kind has been entirely upset by the changes which have recently come about in the system of training colleges. People say we ought to be perfectly satisfied that the average teacher can give religious instruction, because we have seen the system work well for a great many years. But the conditions have changed. Formerly almost all the teachers were people who had been trained under direct religious auspices, though not always denominational. Now a vast number of teachers are every year going forth into our schools who have never from the time they were themselves little boys and girls had any official teaching in religious matters or any training which would qualify them for that most difficult of all tasks-the giving of religious teaching adequately. The Day colleges are secular colleges almost entirely, and as long as that remains true the danger we speak of is a very real one indeed. The number of teachers who rightly would rather not give such teaching is undoubtedly large. The number who have had no training whatever for the purpose is undoubtedly large. I should desire that such men and women should be excused from giving religious teaching, not by having to come forward and claim to be excused, but should be excused merely because they did not come forward and volunteer to give religious teaching. That seems to me to be fairer to the teacher and much safer in its results in the schools. Those are what I may call the merits of the proposal before us.

Let us look at the other side. What does the Bill leave out? Most obviously it leaves out the fact that there are some schools in England which cannot possibly come within such a provision as this. There are Roman Catholic schools, Jewish schools, some of the Anglican schools, especially practising schools attached to denominational training colleges, and there are Wesleyan schools, to the best of my belief, to be considered. I do not wish to draw the line as to what number of Anglican schools would have to be included in this list, but there are a large number of schools which stand in an exceptional position for which some provision must necessarily be made. That provision must be made, whether it be by the somewhat awkward expedient of contracting out, or in some other way. That is absolutely essential to settlement that is to be a fair one all round for the voluntary schools of England as they are. There is nothing against that in the Bill; it simply leaves the question out. Undoubtedly it would have to be made perfectly clear what could be done. The question is a very difficult one. It needs thorough consideration, and, of course, the suggestion I am making is wholly different from the method now proposed in the Government Bill, which would suggest, if the schools are to obtain any privileges, contracting out, not by the dozen, but by hundreds and thousands. That is a proposition which seems to me to be absolutely unworkable in practice. Without the insertion of some such provision as I have spoken of I do not think the proposal now before us could be made fair or practicable.

Then there should be some clearer definition than I can now gather from the Bill of what is meant by the transfer of our buildings. I believe Churchmen at large would entirely agree with the opinion that the asset of our ownership of the buildings must be retained. Ultimate the transfer for school hours and for possession must remain ours even where working purposes to the local education authority is complete.

But far the most important of the difficulties that the Bill suggests is that it by one sweep calls upon the men and women all over the land

This proposal would allow both sorts of teaching in all schools; but it is urged by many that it is unfair that the one should be paid for out of the rates and that the other should not. I entirely agree; it is altogether unfair. But many things are unfair, and sometimes the best test of a man's earnestness is the fact that he is willing to suffer unfairness rather than abandon his principle. There is the question of money, and there is the far more important question of principle which lies behind. As to money, it seems to me palpably unfair in a country of religious freedom that some men should be called upon to pay twice over for the religious instruction which is being given to their children; that they should first have to pay a rate like other people, and that then they should have to pay extra for the religious part of the teaching to be given by teachers for whom they themselves would have responsibility. That is an unfair thing, but I do not say for that reason it is fatal to the acceptance of this principle.

But the question, not of money, but of principle is far reaching indeed. I have tried to show that such a plan as this would inflict hardship upon us in many ways. It would hand over during school hours not the use of our buildings only, but all control as to the appointment of teachers, and all security for what is somewhat vaguely called the atmosphere of the school. We should be paying for religious teaching more than twice over in places where our buildings were our own, and this would be true of two-thirds of the schools of England. That is an immense sacrifice to ask of us on the whole. I am still, my Lords, prepared to advocate our making it if, and only if, by so doing we can, on reasonable lines, settle this difficulty and secure a firm basis for the future. But to do that we must definitely secure freedom of parental choice in all schools and freedom to the teacher to volunteer for denominational teaching in all schools. Without that, in addition to some provision for exceptional schools, the fabric of the arrangement would at once fall to pieces in our hands. And when I say I am prepared to give some support to the plan, I mean to the plan in its entirely; not the plan with one-half of it taken away.

I picture myself having to go to the man in the country town or large village who has with infinite care during the last few years raised the money necessary for building a denominational school. He tells me, "If this new plan becomes law, I have lost everything. I might just as well have kept my money in my pocket; other people who have been living here have not paid a farthing towards it and they will have quite as much advantage in the end as we who have paid the money. Is that fair or reasonable?" My answer is, "It is most unfair, most unreasonable, as regards the personal result upon yourself and your friends. But what has happened is this. By the sacrifices which you and they have made you have secured the assertion of that principle of the parents' right of a denominational kind in all the schools of the land. There is where the difference comes in. You have not gained all that you hoped for in your school, and you have certainly gained nothing for yourself, but you have gained it for the children of England; and that is something which has been worth making sacrifices for.

Of course, to any solution such as this an infinite number of practical objections could be taken. I have no doubt Lord Stanley of Alderley would be able, from his vast accumulated knowledge of the practical management of schools, to show us how entirely unworkable it is. Any and every scheme which the wit of man can devise for settling this question can be shown to bristle with difficulties whichever way we look at it. But we exist to overcome these difficulties; and in my opinion the difficulties can be overcome if we put our backs to it and strive for a settlement.

I come to the last point. I know I tread on very dangerous ground, but I am going to be perfectly frank with the House and with those who may read our words outside. We shall be told, I think, that by the preferential treatment allowed to undenominational teachingthe paying for it, that is, out of the rates when the denominational teaching has to be voluntarily paid for by people already rated-we are establishing and endowing a new form of religion, to which, for want of a truer nomenclature, the critics have given the name of "CowperTempleism a system anomalous,

Christian life, of a fundamental Christian

unity? Which of us but feels at such an hour that down in the deeps of life the things which unite us in our faith are larger and stronger than the things which sunder us? If we can let such thoughts bear fruit in the attitude and temper of mind with which we approach the education controversy, its settlement-my Lords, it anxious wish and prayer-on lines of large tolerance and of real liberty may be near at hand.

my

*THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The Earl of CREWE): My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I now intervene in order to state, as I hope I may be able to with at any rate a fair degree of brevity, what the view of His Majesty's Government is with regard to this Bill. I may perhaps begin by saying that at first sight there seems to be some analogy between the position of His Majesty's Government in regard to this measure and their position with regard to two measures relating to Scotland which came up at an earlier period of the session, when my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack and myself had to state on behalf of the Government that we were not able to take any part in the discussion. But I think a little consideration will show that the resemblance, so far as it exists between the two cases, is purely superficial. In the first place, the Bill of His Majesty's Government relating to Scottish land was, so to speak, knocking at the doors of your Lordships' House, whereas it will yet be some little time before the Government measure on education arrives here.

But there is another and a larger difference. The fact is that this education question is in a very special and peculiar position. It is, if I may say so,

VOL. CLXXXVII. [FOURTH SERIES.]

property than any other question which can be said to be before the country at this time. There is no consideration concerning it that has not been brought before Parliament and no point that has not been argued and re-argued both here and in the Press. And consequently my right hon. friend who presides over the Education Department cannot claim, so to speak, exclusive patent rights even as regards the other House of Parliament. A short the measure of which he has charge in time ago a friend of mine reminded me education Bill could not act more wisely that anybody who had to do with an than in following the example of a lady celebrated in a poem of some 200 years ago, who

I think that even

"In matters of conscience adhered to two rules

To advise with no bigots, and jest with no fools";

and he might have added-what he did not add-that attention to that precept would relieve anybody from studying, at any rate, the whole of the correspondence which appears in the public Press on this question of education.

That means that this question ought to be approached with gravity and with moderation. The office of the right rev. Prelate who is responsible for this Bill made it, of course, certain that the first condition would be fulfilled, though it might not be an absolute guarantee that the second would be fulfilled also. But, as a matter of fact, I think your Lordships will all agree that it is in a spirit of very real moderation that the right rev. Prelate has approached this question. I recognise also a similar spirit of moderation in the eloquent speech of the most rev. Primate to which we have just listened, even running through his full and most closely reasoned apologia for the system of Church of England schools in this country.

His Majesty's Government recognise in this Bill an honest attempt to come to a settlement of this question, and we recognise it all the more fully because we are aware that it is not the first time that the right rev. Prelate has made a similar attempt. He alluded to his action in introducing the Transferred Schools Bill in 1904. That Bill bore some resemblance to the present measure,

B