MR. BATiFOUR'S SPEECH AT MANCHESTER.
m. BALFOUR in his speech at Manchester on Tuesday made a defence of the Education Bill which, if the ears of the nation are not stopped with the wax of intellectual sloth, should. have an immense effect in restoring confidence in the policy of the Government. He showed clearly, and also with conspicuous fairness, what the Bill proposes to do, and how utterly different from what its assailants allege will be the results produced by it. But we do not believe that the nation's ears are stopped. They have had dinned into them for the last two months a great deal of abuse and exaggeration, and this has caused a certain amount of confusion and bewilderment ; but unless we are mistaken, this bewilderment will -now pass away, and the public will begin to realise the Bill as it really is. Mr. Balfour's speech dealt with wonderful lucidity with what may be termed. the "vulgar errors" that have accumulated round the Bill. The first and most erroneous of these is the assertion that the Bill is one for handing over the education of the children to the parsons. To judge from the words of the more noisy and fanatical assailants of the Bill, one would imagine that the Government were proposing to hand. over elementary education bound hand and foot to sacerdotal domination, and that they were inaugurating a system of priest-ridden schools. One would gather, indeed, from these diatribes that some great new departure was going to occur, and this entirely in the direction of re- moving elementary education from lay hands and placing it "under the heel ot clericalism." Yet in reality, though a great change is going to take place, it is entirely in the direction of minimising the influence of the clergy in elementary education. Instead of the clergy- man becoming more, he becomes less dominant in our elementary schools. At present there may be some excuse for saying that the parson has it all his own way in the Church schools. In future he will only be one in a Council of six managers, and of these six two will be chosen by a popularly elected. body.. To talk as if these five laymen and one clergyman, as they will in all probability be, constitute a. body soaked through with sa.cerdotalism, and only intent on propagating priestcntft in the schools, IS simply ridiculous. Unless we greatly mistake our countrymen, the malingers, though all of them should be Churchmen, and strong Churchmen, are not in the least likely to let the clergyman have everything his own way. We know of no body of Englishmen, whatever their views, who are willing to say " Ditto " to the Clergyman whatever he may say, and it is preposterous to imagine that the managers of the voluntary schools under the Bill will turn out to be of a different breed. But even lf we accepted the wild. hypothesis that the managers will be " priest-ridden " men, it would not follow that the elementary schools would be subject to clerical domination. And for the very good reason that the whole of the secular education in the schools will be under the control of the Borough or County Council. Their positive rights, including the right of veto on the teachers, will be very great ; and what is more, they will have all those indefinite powers which always go with the control of the purse. The fact that the local authority will provide the money will give them powers which, even when not defined in the statute, will be immense. At present a clergyman who can get sufficient subscriptions for his school, who can earn his grants, and who does not violate the Conscience Clause is no doubt supreme in his school, and with some show of reason it might be called his "close borough." After the Bill has passed it can under no possibility be his close borough any longer, nor can he possibly be said to dominate it. Not only will he be obliged to get the consent of the majority of the managers for his whole policy, but he will at every turn be obliged to satisfy the local authority, who will through the eyes, ears, and votes of the two managers chosen by them have full cognisance of everything that goes on in the school. It is all very well to say that they can be outvoted, but what reasonable man with any experience of administration will deny the tremendous influence that can be exercised by a minority of two in a Committee of six, and especially when those two represent not only the indirect power of the purse, but also the direct power controlling the greater part of the work of education,—i.e., the secular education ? Surely no more glaring example of a vulgar error can be found than the allegation that the Bill is one for the establishment of sacerdotalism in our system of elementary education.
Another of the vulgar errors successfully disposed of by Mr. Balfour's speech was that in regard to taxation and representation, and the plea that the most sacred prin- ciples of British freedom are violated by the Bill. Mr Balfour's answer was complete, and so clearly put that we cannot believe that henceforth men who desire a reputa- tion for clear thinking will find it possible to declare that the Bill produces a violation of the principle. We will quote Mr. Balfour's own words in dealing with the point, for they cannot be improved on. He had constantly heard it urged, said Mr. Balfour, that this Bill errs by dividing taxation and. representation. "In my judgment, nothing would tend more to divide taxation and representation than handing over the real control of the elementary schools in this country to any authority, call them managers or call them what you will, other than the County Council or the Borough Council. Who raise the rate ? Who pay the rate P The County Council and the Borough Council raise the rate. The constituency of the Borough Council and the constituency of the County Council pay the rate. Let them manage the schools ; let them have the real control over secular education." If, for example, in a country parish, Mr. Balfour con- tinued, you were to make the real controllers of the school the local managers, if you allow them to draw upon the funds of the County Council, "then, indeed, you would violate that Constitutional principle; then, indeed, you would divorce representation from taxation ; then, indeed, you would be open to some of the criticisms which, in my judgment, are most unfairly passed upon this Bill." Therefore, said Mr. Balfour, he hoped that the House of Commons—if it be anxious, as it ought to be anxious, to see that there is adequate popular control over secular education—would devote their attention "to increasing the really true and effective authority of the Borough Council or the County...Council, as the case may be, rather than merely manipulating the constitution of those who, so far as secular education is concerned, are merely servants and ministers of the Borough or County Council." In other words, to diminish the denominational or increase the undenominational representation on the Committee of Managers cannot make representation and taxation go together. This can only be secured by making effective the power of the local authority in regard to secular education.
With Mr. Balfour's suggestion that the strengthening of the control of the local authority over the secular education given in the voluntary schools was the proper and effective way in which to improve the Bill we entirely agree. To increase that control would probably also increase the efficiency of the education given, would encourage financial responsibility, and at the same time would not in the least interfere with the main principles of the Bill. To those main principles we are glad to see that Mr. Balfour recalled the attention of the country. They are, shortly, the placing of the control of all secular education in the hands of the Borough and County Councils in order to co-ordinate the higher and the lower education of the country, and to provide elementary and secondary education without overlapping, and the preservation to the voluntary schools of the right of continuing to give the de- nominational religious education which they now give. As long as those principles are retained intact there is not the slightest reason why the Government should not accept amendments which can be shown to increase the efficiency of their measure. Will amendments of this kind, amendments intended not to wreck the Bill but to improve it, be proposed by the Opposition ? Hitherto the efforts of the Opposition cannot be said to have been in the direction of improving the Bill. Instead, they have been in many cases inspired by a spirit of unfairness and misrepresentation which it is by no means pleasant to contemplate. A good deal of allowante may, however, be made for Vacation rhetoric and newspaper combativeness. There is no reason why these should not now be finally dropped, and the discussion of the Bill resumed in a saner spirit. If it is so resumed, the Government, it is clear from Mr. Balfour's speech, will meet the critics of the Bill fairly and openly on all points in which the actual existence of the Ministerial education policy is not involved.
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