 addressed to the Committee from hon. Members on both sides? Hon. Members opposite might imagine that they on that side were approaching the question in too polemical a spirit; but in view of the appeals which had been addressed to the Committee by the hon. Member for the 425 University of London and of the hon. Member opposite, was it not unreasonable to conclude that the wit of man could not devise some means of getting over their difficulties, large as he admitted they were. They had all advanced on the question of the Church party—with the exception of the small faction of thirty Members in the House, the importance of which he was inclined to think had been exaggerated in the country. The Church party, or if hon. Members preferred it, the Conservative or Unionist Party, had advanced a great deal as compared with their opinion a few years ago, and indeed even a few months ago. His Nonconformist friends had also made a very great advance on the question. The Nonconformists would themselves acknowledge that they could recollect the time when many of the most respected Nonconformists were not very anxious to see State interference in the matter of education. They were all approaching, he hoped, a settlement. This prayer was that they should now cease angry discussion, conclude the business of the session, and endeavour to arrive at an agreement before the House resumed in October. Let there be something like a round table conference in the meantime. He did not mean a round table conference consisting entirely of ecclesiastics, whether they were Church of England or Nonconformists. He did not wish to say anything about the round table conference which was arranged with the most excellent intentions by the Bishop of London, although he confessed he was rather alarmed when he heard it was to assemble, and he was glad to learn that it separated peaceably. He claimed that the education question was above all a question for the laity. There should be some attempt on the part of reasonable men on both s des to see whether, as the hon. Member for the University of London said, it was not possible to arrive at some agreement. In any event, the attempt was worth making. It might fail or it might succeed; but let them hope it would succeed. If the Clause were to be passed by the closure, if they were met by a no-surrender attitude on the ground that the question was insoluble, then, as his hon. friend the Member for the University of London said, the controversy might be nominally closed 426 in this House, but a far larger and more dangerous controversy would be opened in the country which would continue until it was ended by the victory of the principles they on that side of the House advocated. The victory for the moment might be with hon. Members opposite; but in the long run he thought it would be with them. He appealed, however, in the interests of the honour and reputation of the House of Commons, that some arrangement should be arrived at. It would be contrary to the dignity of the House to separate without accomplishing anything, leaving a legacy of hatred and ill-will to the people of the country.
§ Question proposed, "That the words 'a number of' stand part of the proposed Amendment."
I give to the noble Lord full credit for the spirit in which he has moved his Amendment—an Amendment which he has told us, I am sure with perfect sincerity, is not directed with any hostile intent against the policy of the Government. I think the noble Lord was guilty of some exaggeration when he described the present position of this Bill as one of confusion. It is a position of difficulty, simply because there is a very sharp difference of opinion on both sides of the House on a very important question. That I have sorrowfully to admit; but it is not really a position of confusion at all. The issues are perfectly plain. The drafting of the Bill as we propose it, is, I think, on perfectly sound lines; it does not throw any special difficulties in the way of our discussion, or any difficulties, which are not inherent in the subject; and it enables the issue to be taken in a convenient form. Therefore I do not admit that there is any confusion in our present position, and I do not see that if there were it would be remedied by deferring any further consideration of this Clause to the Autumn. If we are in a state of confusion at the end of July or 427 the beginning of August, we should be equally in a state of confusion in the middle of October. But I do not think the noble Lord gave us what was his main object in moving this Amendment. It was not to call attention to what he describes as the present confused position of affairs. He had a larger and more generous motive than that which would appear from the mere criticism of the form of the proposal which the Government have laid on the table of the House. What is the noble Lord's suggestion? It is that we should stop discussing this difficult question now until the second week or third week in October. What is to be gained by that? According to him what is to be gained is that in the interval some inspiration will occur to some one on one side of the House or the other which will enable an agreement to be come to on a subject which so far, does not seem to admit of any satisfactory solution by way of common consent. I wish I could think that there was the smallest prospect that deferring the discussion would make it easier. Remember this is not a new controversy. The battlefield has been trampled on over and over again by the contending forces. Those engaged in this fight know every kopje, every rise in the ground, every point of vantage, and every strategical and tactical position as well as those occupied in sham fights at Aldershot know that well-accustomed sphere of operations. The thing has been threshed out and threshed out until I do not think there is a single new argument that can be adduced on either side, or a single solution perhaps which has not been canvassed, considered, and finally rejected by either one or other of the contending parties. I have already earlier today given the Committee some of the reasons which have led me to this melancholy conclusion, but it is a conclusion to which I am bound to come; and why we should expect that the wisdom of mankind during the four weeks of August, the four weeks of September, and the first fortnight of October should enable us to do what we have never been able to do on this subject, I cannot imagine. Why something is to occur in the seaside retreat of hon. Gentlemen, or in the 428 course of their holiday trip abroad, which they have never been able to think of before really passes my understanding. May I make an observation to the House on a point to which the noble Lord has not referred, and of which perhaps indeed he was ignorant, which is that really the Government are not responsible for forcing this controversy on before the vacation. Some time ago there was one of those negotiations which occasionally take place, and often with much profit, between the authorised representatives of hon. Gentlemen opposite and ourselves as to the winding up of the business of this part of the session. I then proposed that Clause 7 should be passed, broadly speaking, in the form and on the lines on which it was originally put down in the Bill, that some other Government business should be got through, and that the fight should be taken upon Clause8. Well, that is very much what hon. Gentlemen now desire, but I proposed it and it was rejected. They refused to come into an arrangement of that kind. But now the noble Lord has suggested that it is all through our action that there has been imported into Clause 7 the detailed discussion of this question of management. If the noble Lord will refer to the notice paper as it was before I put this Amendment on the Paper, he will be entirely disabused of that notion if he ever entertained it. I should be very glad that the fight should not be taken on Clause 7, but that it should remain as it was originally intended to be, a sort of broad declaration of policy, and that the discussion should take place on Clause 8; and I was prepared, under perfectly reasonable conditions, to defer consideration of Clause 8 until after the holidays. But not only was that rejected, it became perfectly clear that no such proceeding on Clause 7 was possible. Every kind of alternative scheme was put down upon Clause 7 apart from Clause 8, and there was no method of preventing the discussion being held upon Clause 7. No doubt, as we had approached the Clause the fertility of invention of hon. Gentlemen opposite would have been stimulated, as it always has been on these occasions, and instead of two or three or four alternative schemes, we should have had 429 half a dozen or a dozen, or, for all I know, two dozen. It was, therefore, perfectly plain that there was no chance, except by agreement, of deferring the detailed discussion of this matter until Clause 8, and that was refused. In the circumstances, I do not think we are to blame for any evils, if they are evils, which have occurred from the course we have pursued. I do not know, indeed, that any serious evils have occurred.
I do not in the least admit the statement the right hon. Gentleman makes to be a correct statement, so far as my knowledge goes, and in the absence of my right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition.
Well, the right hon. Gentleman can give his version of the facts if he likes, but that is my recollection of what occurred. I do not say that it is particularly material What is material is that hon. Gentlemen would not allow us to escape discussion of this matter on Clause 7. That was quite clear from their Amendments.
Were not those Amendments put down before the stage of approaching that agreement as to Clause 7? So far as I remember, the great majority