Mr. Goschen, in a very remarkable speech, which wound up
the Government case against the instruction, showed that as a remedy for religious intolerance, "local control" would be perfectly futile. The "religious grievance" exists no less, perhaps even more, in the Board schools than in the Denomi- national schools, and he quoted Mr. Smyth's evidence of the mode in which his son was made a sort of public example of in a Board school for not accepting the religious instruction, —the aggrieved father admitting that he had never heard of any similar persecution of a child for declining religions in- struction in a Voluntary school. Mr. Fowler's instruction was ultimately negatived by a majority of 101, the Irish Home- rulers present voting against it. The numbers were,—for the instruction, 166; against it, 267.
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