tention has been called to another acciIdent which has occurred on the Bristol and Exeter Railway, near the spot where the accident happened to the Flying Dutchman on the 27th of July last; and, whether he has taken any further steps in the matter?

SIR CHARLES ADDERLEY: My attention, Sir, has been called to the accident in question. It happened to a goods train, and no one was seriously injured, but it is important as happening so near the same place. The Company have not yet sent to the Board of Trade the particulars of this second accident. Captain Tyler has, however, been at once directed to examine the whole of the permanent way between Bristol and Exeter, now belonging to the Great Western Railway Company.

HERTSLET'S MAP OF EUROPE BY
TREATY-NON-EUROPEAN COUN-

TRIES.-QUESTION.

H.

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION BILL. [BILL 277.]

(Viscount Sandon, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Assheton Cross.)

FURTHER CONSIDERATION.

ADJOURNED DEBATE.

Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment [3rd August] proposed (on Consideration of the Bill, as amended) to the proposed Amendment in page 6, line 17, after the word "pay," to insert the words

"If the parent of any child who is resident in the district of a School Board is unable, by reason of poverty, to pay the fees of such child at a public elementary school, or any part of such fee, and if the School Board fails to make regulations, under Clauses twenty-five and seventy-four of the Elementary Education Act of 1870, for the payment of the same, it shall be the duty of the guardians, if satisfied of such inability, to pay the same in accordance with the provisions of this section,"-(Lord Robert Montagu,)

And which Amendment to the proposed Amendment was, to leave out the words "who is," in line 1, in order to insert the words "not being,"-(Sir W. Vernon Harcourt,)—instead thereof. Question again proposed, "That the words who is' stand part of the proAmendment.”

SIR DRUMMOND WOLFF asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the Foreign Office is prepared to submit to the Treasury the expediency of holding out to Mr. Hertslet some inducement to prepare a work on Treaties respecting Non-posed European Countries, on the same plan. as his recent work, entitled "The Map of Europe by Treaty?"

MR. BOURKE: Sir, I am sure my hon. Friend asks this Question with the kindest intention towards Mr. Hertslet. The Question raises many delicate considerations with which the Treasury may or may not be concerned. I am not surprised, Sir, that my hon. Friend should think that it is desirable to extend the scope of Mr. Hertslet's Map of Europe by Treaty. There are Treaties with China and other Asiatic countries. There are, again, other Treaties between European countries and the semi-civilized States of Africa which often give rise to complicated questions. The same may be said for North and South America. Her Majesty's Government will be glad to see the principle of Mr. Hertslet's last work extended; but I am sure my hon. Friend will see that his Question is one upon which it is not desirable that I should make any statement at present.

VISCOUNT SANDON said, he wished to communicate to the House the result

He

of the consideration which the Government had given to the question raised by the proposition of the noble Lord the Member for Westmeath (Lord Robert Montagu)-namely, to make it the duty of Boards of Guardians everywhereeven in school board districts-to pay the school fees for the children of parents whom they considered to be incapable of paying them-since the late protracted and somewhat heated opposition to which they were subjected last night. thought every hon. Member must feel that there had been considerable misapprehension on this subject, and it might be well that he should recall to their recollection what was the state of the law at the present moment as to the remission and payment of fees. The state of the law was this-In Scotland, according to the Act of 1872, passed by the late Liberal Government, the school boards had nothing whatever to do with either the remission or payment of fees for

poor children; but it was laid down in | bye-laws, in which the following reSection 69 thatmarks were made by the direction of the right hon. Gentleman :

"it shall be the duty of the said Parochial Board to pay out of the poor relief fund any reasonable charge for the education of any child whose parent is unable to pay the school fees."

By Clause 14 of the present Bill, which had nearly passed through the various Forms of the House, and to which the House had given its assent, it was provided that the parent of any child not being resident in the district of a school board

"who is unable by reason of poverty to pay the ordinary fee for such child at a public elementary school, or any part of such fee, may apply to the guardians having jurisdiction in the parish in which he resides, and it shall be the duty of such guardians, if satisfied of such inability, to pay the said fee, not exceeding threepence a week."

"With respect to Bye-law 6, in which provision is made for the remission of school fees at board schools in cases of poverty, but not for payment of fees at other schools under similar circumstances, my Lords are prepared to allow it. I am, however, directed to point out to you, that in the opinion of my Lords it would not be just to deprive a parent of his right to choose the particular public elementary school to which he will send his child because, while he is compelled by these bye-laws to send his child to school, he is unable from poverty to pay his school fee; but my Lords cannot doubt that the school board will see the justice of making use of the power they possess under Section 25 in favour of any such parent."

That was the final delivery of the last Government, and the course laid down seemed to him to be a wise course to pursue. Upon this precedent the Department, under both the last and the present Government, had always acted, and had never committed themselves to acknowledging that it was right in a school only to remit fees in their own schools, and not to pay them in others which the poor parent might prefer. The Depart

So that for Scotland, and all towns in England not under school boards, there was one uniform law-that on account of the compulsion upon parents to send their children to school if they had not sufficient means to pay the school fees, and yet were not out-door paupers-pay-ment, however, in this, as in all other ment for their children out of the rates by the Guardians having been already provided for by the Bill of 1873 of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford-it was the duty of the Guardians to pay a moderate school-fee. What, then, was the state of the law in regard to districts where there were school boards? In all school board districts the school board had the power of either remitting the fees in their own schools or of paying them in schools which did not belong to them. Now, with regard to the action of the Education Department, the position taken up was this. The matter was raised as early as 1871 on the Wednesbury School Board case. The Wednesbury School Board wrote to ask the assent of the Education Department to their 6th byelaw, which provided that they might remit the fees of poor children in their own board schools. They did not, however, provide that they would also pay the fees in any schools which did not belong to them. On the 6th of December, 1871, the Department of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford was then Vice President, addressed a letter to the Wednesbury School Board on the subject of these

cases, refuted to give an interpretation of an Act, as their interpretation could, of course, have no binding effect. He was informed that it was not quite clear whether the course pursued by the Wednesbury School Board was legal or not, but the view taken by the Education Department of the then Government was that it was contrary to the spirit of the Act that they should only undertake to remit fees and should not at the same time say they would pay them, the position being that it was fully understood that the Act of 1870 was passed distinctly on the basis of the recognition as far as possible of the parental right to the choice of the school for his child. This was obliged to be given up in certain cases where there was only one school, but the Act of 1870 was based on the principle, over and over again stated in the discussions in the House by the Ministers responsible for that measure, that, where there were two, the parent was to have the right of choice. The House would see the justice of this, and it would also feel that in cases of extreme poverty it was bound to be just as careful of parental feeling as it was in the cases of more well-to-do persons. The

state of the case was this-We respected | and as it was so late in the Session, and the feelings of parents generally, but, everybody was so anxious to close the owing to the action of certain school consideration of the Bill, that he thought boards, if parents became very poor we it better not to accept the proposal of the subjected them to the injustice of saying noble Lord the Member for Westmeath -"We will oblige your children to go (Lord Robert Montagu), saying at the to school, but we will not give you the same time it was impossible not to admit choice of a school." The acknowledg- it was an important one. In fact, he ment made by the Educational Depart- should have been eating the words of the ment of the then Government was a Department if he had not acknowledged very valuable and important one, but that. [Mr. LowE: A blot was hit.] they did not feel sufficiently clear of Yes, he said it hit a blot in the Bill, their legal position to refuse to pass and in the Education Act of 1870. It these bye-laws; and from that time all must, however, be remembered that bye-laws which contained merely a provi- when identically the same proposal had sion for the remission of fees, without been made by his hon. Friend the Memany provision for the payment of fees, ber for North-East Lancashire on Clause had been sanctioned under this protest 14 in Committee on the Bill, he had by the Department. A correspondence then asked his hon. Friend not to open ensued with the Wednesbury Board, that important question on the ground of who said they could not accept the sug-time not allowing fresh matter to be gestion of the Department; and the closing letter of the Department contained this paragraph

"No addition to such bye-law was suggested, though my Lords thought it right to call the attention of your board to the power given them, independently of any bye-law, by Section 25 of the Elementary Education Act, by which power they will be relieved from the necessity of enforcing penalties against a parent who, though unable from poverty to pay a school fee, prefers that his child attend a public elementary day school selected by himself."

The Department thought strongly it would be a serious thing to enforce penalties against parents if you did not give them a choice of schools; that was the state of the case now, and it remained uncertain whether a magistrate would agree to convict a poor parent who could not afford to pay the fees at the school he preferred, and who refused, on conscientious grounds-as might likely be the case e.g. among Roman Catholics-to send his child to a secular board school where his fees would be remitted. It was a subject of considerable importance and for cool argument, and certainly the Committee would now see not of a Party character nor one of those matters which, when understood, should create excitement, or of those matters that should provoke a heated discussion of such a nature as that of last evening. He said last night, when the question was first raised, that, as his right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford did not seem prepared to support it which, of course, implied that hon. Gentlemen opposite also would not do so

added to the discussions on the Bill, which, even then, had been much protracted so as to endanger its progress; and as no interest was then shown by the House in the matter, the Amendment was withdrawn, on the very same grounds on which he asked the noble Lord yesterday not to press his. After he had used these words an unexpected amount of feeling was shown by hon. Members of experience on both sides of the House, which it was exceedingly difficult to answer by argument. Hon. Members representing Irish constituencies said they felt the grievance to be a very strong one in large towns in England with a considerable Irish population; and there was not a shadow of doubt that the class particularly injured was the poor in the large towns, which included a large proportion of Roman Catholics, to whom it was a serious grievance to be forced indirectly in this way to send their children to board schools, contrary, as he and the Department had always, under both Governments, held, to the principle of the Act of 1870. We must look at things as they really were, and, whether it was before an Orange meeting or any other meeting, he should be prepared to defend the position they had taken up with the most perfect confidence. The people of the country had the strongest sense of justice in these matters; and when a real and genuine case of injustice was made out, one which was not intended by the Act of 1870, as was admitted by the last Government, and the existence of