80. hoped he might respectfully appeal to them to let Irishmen settle this question among themselves, and to remember that this Bill involved no wrong and no disability upon any human being of any class or party in Ireland. It simply <enabled three-fourths of the population of Ireland to enjoy the blessings of higher education from which, under existing circumstances, they were debarred. They did not for an instant pretend to infringe the religious liberties of any other persons. "They simply asked to be allowed to enjoy those liberties themselves in the only way in which they could conscientiously do He would ask hon. Members representing English constituencies to remember that there were matters on which they must agree to differ, and on which they must be prepared to allow that Catholics were perhaps the best judges of what it was permissible for them to do in the domain of conscience, and to trust the Catholic young laymen of Ireland to take care of the intellectual liberties of their Protestant fellow-countrymen if they should ever be attacked. So much for the sympathy with which they regarded the right hon. Gentleman's entrance on the path which he had chosen. He had been met with a great many intimidatory remarks by the hon. Member for North Armagh. He did not for a moment pretend that this was an ideal settlement. Was there ever an ideal settlement, or was there ever likely to be an ideal settlement as the result of their human struggles? Although those who represented Cork had to speak with certain amount of reserve, they all recognised, in the words of the Leader of the Opposition, that this was a sincere and courageous effort capable of yielding incalculable blessing to the future higher education of Ireland, and certainly it would be no fault of theirs if this great measure of intellectual emancipation was lost to the youth of Ireland. He was startled at the ingenuity of the hon. and learned Member for North Armagh in discovering a grievance in the new Belfast University. He only wished that they had been made to suffer from the same grievance in Cork, for certainly their patience had been tested in a somewhat severe way. Up to recently Belfast had not shown any opposition of the kind which the hon. and learned Gentleman had expressed. The pr poзal was a handsome piece of good fortune for Belfast, but the hon. Member condoled with the unfortunate people of the North of Ireland that the gift had been almost pressed upon them. It was one of the little ironies in the government of Ireland that Belfast should get a University it did not seek, while the University which Cork most earnestly asked had been refused. He did not complain, and the people did not complain. They recognised that it was no fault of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. They did not grudge the people of Belfast what they regarded as a very valuable charter, and they did not grudge the very substantial increase which had been made to their endowments, although Belfast was, from its wealth, better able to supplement State endowments than other parts of the country. Still less did they grudge or demur in the slightest degree, except as to its smallness, the provision made for the new University in Dublin and the University College with which it would be so closely identified. They recognised in the fullest manner that Dublin was the centre and reservoir to which the youth from the southern provinces would naturally go, and that it was entitled to such endowment and equipment as would enable her worthily to fulfil the function of building up what was required in the way of higher education for three-quarters of the young men in Ireland. Although in Cork they would be undoubtedly heavily handicapped in the race, they hoped they would be able to start under conditions which would give promise of success. For the people of the poorer classes in Munster, with whom he and his friends were principally concerned, a residence in Dublin, or higher teaching in Dublin, was out of the question, but it was not a bad sign of the intellectual alertness of the people of the South that they had declared themselves ready to tax themselves out of their own pockets in order to have a University of their own. They were ready to make a start at this great disadvantage provided they were not forced to start under conditions which would place Cork in the position of being completely overshadowed by the more wealthy institutions of the North. While they heartily accepted this ciated himself wholly with the view provisional arrangement they hoped of the Member for Cambridge University, that by-and-by, when Cork would and on the part of the people of the South have won its spurs, and had of Ireland he thanked him most cordially shown its metal, such a charter for his most powerful support. He of autonomy as they now started accepted his position that in the first with would be enlarged by the natural place they ought to have the right of process of affiliation by which con- shaping their own course of studies in stituent colleges in the north of England those special matters, such as the higher had evolved into Universities. He agricultural education, brewing, chemiswished to say that, without fuller con- try, schools of journalism, music, and sideration of the right hon. Gentleman's teaching generally of the higher stamp, proposals, he did not like to come to in which they could find careers any final decision on the subject. suitable for their own young people. So far as he could judge, the proposals of the Chief Secretary to give them a fair start very much depended upon the first Senate, but there was no concealing from the House and from themselves their apprehension that Cork would be left at a very grievous disadvantage in that respect. The Member for Cambridge University had said that the Cork Medical School-the Cork College was on a level with the Dublin School of Medicine, and that it would be to a great extent crowded out by Dublin under the present proposal. He was glad to hear the Chief Secretary say that on all these questions his mind was open, and that there would be plenty of opportunity, hereafter, for discuss ing them in a friendly way. As to matters of income and the local governing powers that were proposed to be conferred upon Cork College, he wished to say a word. He quite shared the protest of the hon. Member for East Mayo as to the monetary provision for the Dublin University, but he must candidly admit that as to the other provisions allocated to the Cork College, it did not seem to him a serious grievance even against the English Treasury. As to the local governing powers that were proposed to be conferred upon them, he hoped that they might work out practically in a system that would make the efficiency of the Cork students tested by their own professors instead of by strange professors which sometimes put students to a very serious disadvantage, although, to use a phrase employed in the fiscal controversy, they would have the advantage of a preferential tariff. Without that much of autonomy, it would be better to put Cork out of pain at once. On this subject he asso They must also have what the hon. Member for Cambridge University called an effective voice in the appointment of their own professors, and they must have it made clear that their own students would be examined at their own University centre by their own professors, subject, of course, to the appointment of an external examiner for the purpose of maintaining the standard of efficiency, so long as there was an interchange of external examiners all round. If they only got, as he was satisfied the Chief Secretary intended they should get, a fair initial start upon this basis they would not be afraid to face the music and to take their chance. They had sufficient confidence in the capacity and enthusiasm for learning of their young people, and he had sufficient confidence in the man who was at the head of the institution in Cork. They were quite willing to take their chance with the future. With this very modest measure of justice for their side they were most ready to join in obtaining the fullest possible measure of endowing scientific equiprent, and of teaching power for Catholics and Protestants in Galway or Cork, or in Dublin or Belfast. They would enter into competition with them without the smallest tinge of profes sional or sectarian jealousy. On the contrary, the more highly Ireland was educated, the better it would be for toleration and liberality of mind all round, for all religions and for higher education. He begged to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the speech he had made, and he hoped he would not think it presumptuous if he ventured to press upon him, having regard to the reception the Bill had had, even with the many English Bills in the way, he should take has a distinctly denominational chara firm stand to secure immediate acter. facilities for the passage of the Bill into law in the present session. MR. WYNDHAM (Dover): As one who has long wished to see some practical solution of this question of University education for Ireland, I wish to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the bold use he has made of a fair opportunity. I am persuaded that those who see the difficulties of this question, and they are great, will not get a return for the money justly devoted for those other reforms in Ireland unless Ireland has a proper system of education. All the credit and cash which have been devoted to land purchase and the establishment of new departments, to the many other projects which have been contemplated in the past or which may be undertaken in the future, will fail of their effect unless Ireland has an effective educational system, and University education is by far the most important part of it. It is not the roof to complete an edifice, but the foundation and source from which all fructification follows. On these grounds and claims I welcome this Bill. But welcome it also as a Unionist, because that will enable enable us to urge, as we have urged over and over again in the past, that this Parliament is willing to undertake any services for Ireland which any Parliament sitting in Dublin would be willing to do. I welcome this Bill because it will prevent that strong disparity between the existing opportunities for higher education in this country and those in Ireland -a disparity which must always be a source of deep concern to Unionists. I welcome this Bill because it is a conservative measure, and preserves existing institutions. I welcome it because it is an Imperialist measure (and I wish to see Ireland an integral part of the United Kingdom and of the Empire) and because it will enable Ireland to take her place side by side with Great Britain in competition with other countries in science, art, invention, and commerce. Of course there are difficulties, but to those who think them formidable, I would point out that at this moment we devote a great deal of money in respect to primary education in Ireland which There is the College of Maynooth with absolutely denominational teaching and clerical government. Those who fear the domination of the priesthood should be glad that there are to be other institutions in Ireland which have a denominational atmosphere and not a clerical control. It may be said that Trinity College and the old Queen's Colleges are open. So they are, but many Irishmen either will not, cannot, or at any rate do not send their sons to these institutions; and it is clear that some institutions must be opened to which they can send their sons. On these historical grounds of a political character and on modern grounds of a practical character I welcome this Bill. We know that Irishmen lost much of their property in the soil of Ireland by political views and that by fiscal views their commerce was destroyed, although the Party which which I am connected hope at some time to remedy the latter as it has done the first. I believe, however, that neither land purchase nor fiscal reform will avail unless an opportunity is afforded for the restoration of a University education to the youth of Ireland. On all these grounds I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the attempt that he has made to secure that. MR. CHARLES CRAIG (Antrim, S.) said that before the vote was taken he wished to put before the House the views which he and his colleagues from Ulster held on this question. He must admit, however, that that might seem a work of supererogation because those views had been placed before the House by his friends in a manner which he could not for a moment hope to attain. He was convinced that the House would agree that the view they had always taken had been put forward in the most admirable and moderate way by those sitting on that side of the House. The solution of this question rested primarily with the followers of the right hon. Gentleman and chiefly with the Nonconformists opposite. He desired to ask those Nonconformists whether they considered that if this Bill passed, the higher education proposed to be set up by it would not be higher education of a sectarian character. The right hon. liked: why should it be wrong for him to do so in Ireland? He could not see why a totally different and a reactionary principle should be applied to Ireland than was applied to every other country in the world. They all knew the history of Roman Catholic Universities in other countries. Every one that had existed had sooner or later been suppressed and put down by Roman Catholics themselves. But now they were asked in the twentieth century to establish in Ireland a state of affairs which, having been founded in other countries two centuries ago, had been given up fifty or sixty years ago. Nobody, he thought, could deny that this proposal of the right hon. Gentleman was a retrograde and harmful step. Some reference had been made to the action of the Presbyterians in Belfast in accepting the offer or bribe of £60,000 or £70,000 in order to convert the Queen's College of that city into a University, but he would like the House to understand that the general body of Presbyterians in the North of Ireland were not in favour of that movement, not because Belfast was not large enough to support a University of its own, but on the grounds he had indicated. The Queen's College there was already partly stereotyped as a Presbyterian institution, but under the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman it would become absolutely stereotyped. Gentleman had carefully avoided that question, but it was the crux of the whole matter. Was the higher education to be afforded by the Chief Secretary for Ireland to be denominational or not? If there could have been any doubts while the right hon. Gentleman was speaking those doubts were set aside when they heard the speeches of hon. Gentlemen below the gangway, because they made no secret of the fact that this was an attempt to satisfy the Roman Catholic portion of the population of Ireland on the question of Irish education. They had admitted frankly that it was a University for Roman Catholics. If that was so, and he did not think the Chief Secretary would deny that that was the whole object of the Bill, he would like to know from hon. Members on the other side of the House, especially from the Nonconformists, how, in the face of their opposition to denominational education in this country in the past, they could bring themselves to vote for this Bill. He asked hon. Members on all sides of the House to believe that they opposed this Bill from perfectly pure motives and with absolute sincerity. They believed that in setting up a University to which Roman Catholics alone could go, the Government were perpetuating or tending to perpetuate a system under which they would separate the different religious bodies in Ireland into separate watertight compartments, and everybody admitted that that was not a policy likely to conduce to the welfare of Ireland. He had not heard MR. CHARLES CRAIG replied that any argument put forward in favour of its whole staff would be Presbyterian this Bill, but only the extenuation that from the head downwards. It would the Roman Catholics of Ireland had made become stereotyped for precisely the up their minds that they could not use same reason that the University they any existing University, and that being proposed to set up in Dublin would be a so it was the duty of the State to provide Roman Catholic University. The right them with a University of which they hon. Gentleman had talked about the great could make use. If the mere holding out, enthusiasm which prevailed, but there on the part of the Roman Catholics, for was none except in the immediate ena University of their own was to be a good tourage of the Queen's College itself. reason for granting it he asked why did The other inhabitants did not want it, not they grant this University forty because they recognised that in creating years ago. They had held out for fifty a University and making it a sectarian years, and he saw no change in the facts place of education they would deprive to-day as compared with fifty years ago. themselves to a large extent of the arguIf it was wrong to give this education ment they had always used against then it was wrong to give it to-day. In denominational education all over the this country the Roman Catholic was country. His colleagues and he inperfectly free to go to any University he tended, although he understood it was MR. BIRRELL: Why? a somewhat unusual course, to divide in Trinity College and everything has against the introduction of the Bill been done to try to get Roman Catholics for the purpose of entering at the to come into the college and share its very earliest opportunity their most benefits. That system has been pursued emphatic protest against setting up an for fifty years, and my hon. friend has institution in Ireland which they fi asked why now should we give what was believed was retrograde and could no refused fifty years ago. Why should possibly act beneficially towards Ireland as a whole. we not go on for another fifty years? Meanwhile are the youth of Ireland for that reason to be deprived of a University education? That is not statesmanship. The facts as they exist have to be faced and the situation relieved. So far as I am concerned, I have no fear of my Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, but I prefer them educated and highly educated to uneducated. By devolution of responsibility within the last few years, moreover, we have created responsibilities and offices which have to be filled by educated Irishmen. I join in the thanks expressed by my right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition to the Chief Secretary for having taken advantage of the opportunity and for having brought forward this Bill. SIR E. CARSON (Dublin University): I only desire to say almost a single word on this question, but as I spoke in favour of a somewhat similar proposal fifteen years ago and have done so almost every year since, I do not desire that the present occasion should pass without saying that I am still in favour of the view I have so often expressed. I am indeed glad that the opportunity has been found by the Chief Secretary to bring forward these proposals which I think have had such a good send-off today. I have always supported these proposals, because I believe they are the only possible proposals for Ireland. It is all very well to talk about an ideal system of all creeds mixing in one University. That system has been tried at Queen's College and Trinity College, Dublin, founded as a great Protestant institution. Tests have been abolished 24. Question put. The House divided:-Ayes, 307; Noes, (Division List No. 61.) |