The Education Bill was read a second time in the
House of Lords on Friday week without a division, the Opposition leaders expressly reserving their right to insist on such amendments as they consider vital when the Bill reaches Committee stage in October. The debate, which was conducted throughout with dignity and moderation, Was specially remarkable for the speeches delivered by the Bishops of Hereford and Bir- mingham, by the Lord Chancellor and Lord Lansdowne. In what the Times describes as the best speech delivered during the debate in the Lords in favour of the Bill, the Bishop of Hereford made good that omission in the Archbishop of Canterbury's speech which we felt obliged to comment upon in our last issue, and vigorously condemned the violent and unjustifiable denunciation of the Bill indulged in by the extreme denominationalists, especially by "exceedingly good clergymen with narrow views." Such utterances, he contended, defeated their object. Instead of damaging the Bill, they were turning the opinion of the country in its favour, and doing a vast amount of harm to the English Church.
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