Mr. Chamberlain replied to Mr. Fowler in a very masterly
speech, proving that, at present at least, the choice lies between Local Control and Free Education, and that those who want the former must give up the latter,—a course of which the constituencies would certainly not approve. In such schools as those established by Roman Catholics, even Mr. Morley and Mr. Fowler are willing to waive, and know that they must waive, local control, and their object is to impose local control on Church schools while they leave other Denomi- national schools quite free. Mr. Chamberlain modified Lord Hartington's epigrammatic assertion that there is a party in
the House who hate religious education more than they love Free Education, into the assertion, which he believed to be strictly true, that there is a party which hates the Church more than it loves Free Education, and which does not care nearly so much to improve the schools as it cares to injure the Church. If they had not been afraid of their constituents, Mr. Chamberlain thought that they would have voted against the second reading of the Bill, and not tried to destroy it by this side-wind.
Previous page
