THE ENGLISH EDUCATION BILL

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 25, 21 June 1906, Page 3

THE ENGLISH EDUCATION BILL

WHAT A LAWYER SAYS

A SCHEME OF WHOLESALE CONFISCATION

In a recent issue of the • Catholic 'Times 'Mr Augustine W a tts, M.A., and a well-known lawrar, has a star tiling la-rticii} on the English Education Bill Mr Watts brings out two vital points— the first is that the Bill practically makes all voluntary effort impossible, and the second that all the Catholic colleges are at the mercy of schemes which the Board of Education may despotically make on the application of the local-autho-nties. For. every .statement he has made the writer has the authority of eminent barristers, as well as the sound basis of his own knowledge. Mr. Watts writes as follows :—: — f few ,f acts in connection with the legal consequences of the Bill may be useful to the masses who have either not read tho Bill at all, or are unable, if they have read it, to make head or tail of such a host of carefully masked technicalities. If the effects of the Bill supposing it becomes an Act, were understood, any jury' I will not say of Anglicans, or Catholics, but of respect^ able Nonconformists, might be depended upon to give it short shrift. It is so astutely drafted as to deceive not only the electors but the elect. Most people, my own numerous Nonconformist friends among them, imagine that under the Bill it is open to Catholics, or the adherents of any other dogmatic Faith, to decline any Government grants, or any assistance from local rates, and to continue to keep their schools open, to retain their endowments, and to pull along somehow, as best they can. The Bill allowt nothing of the kind, and the root principle of the Bill is to shut up absolutely, with or without consent, every existing denominational elemerttarv school in the country, and to prevent the opening of new- ones. Another impression which prevails is that the Bill touches only elementary education. As a matter of fact, with the exception of the Universities, and some public schools— namely, Eton, Winchester, Westminster, CharteT house, -Harrow, Rugby, and Shrewsbury— every training college of every, denomination, every educational establishment of whatever rank, and every endowment connected with them, is at the mercy of this Bill, which provides simple, expeditious, and most effectual Machinery for Confiscating the Lot. We Catholics can realise at once what a calamity the loss of our training colleges would be, if that were all ; but is it not staggering to be told, as I . now tell the readers of the * Catholic Times, 1 that Ampleforth, Beaumont, Douai, Downside, Stonyhurst, and Ushaw, all pur colleges and schools, clerical and lay,

for boys and girls, men and women, are under this Bill at the absolute mercy of schemes which, on the application of Local Authorities, the Board of Education may. despotically make, schemes which would, in fact, abolish, as a general rule, the special religious or other features of those establishments and devote them, locic, stock, and barrel, to public educational purposes as defined by the Bill. The same applies to ©very now-Catholic school or college in the country, religious or non-religious, to any school or " college which is not a constituted part of a University or <ne of the seven excepted public schools enumerated above. The Crushing of Voluntary Action. Under Clause 8 of the Bill it is in the power of any local authority, after Ist January, 1908, to apply to the Commission, set up by Clause 0 of the Bill, to make a scheme with respe'et to the mode in which the trusts of any Voluntary scfaoolhouse, not then handed over to the Local Authority, are for the future to be carried out. The Commission has power under Section 4 of Clause 8 to frame such scheme, as it . thinks fit, without appeal to any Court of Justice, subject, however, to two directions, one negative and the other positive. The ncgathe direction is that no proposal to continue the schojoilhfouse as an elementary school shall <be entertained unless the trustees of the sehoolho-use can give 'suificiont guarantee ' for the ' effective continuance ' of the school for a period of at least five years, which means that tbe ttfustoes will have to satisfy the Commission that they have funds settled and secure, of sufficient amount to conduct the school on a scale in every way equal to the provided schools in the neighbourhood, equal in respect of space, buildings, equipment, drainage, ventilation, and such expensive accessories of every kind as may be dictated from time to time by the Local Authority, or the Beard of Education. So much for what I call the negative direction given to the Commission. To come now to the positive direction. If the Commission think, as they always will, that the best way to deal with a good schoolhouse is to turn it into a provided school, they may make an order to that effect, with such conditions as may "be agreed to by the Local Authority, and if the Local Authority wiil agree to no conditions, then, as an inevitable legal consequence, without conditions. Comprehensive ' Charitable Trusts.' If now I am asked what about schoolhouses not perhaps quite up to date, which the Local Authority do not choose to. use as and for a prodded school, I answer that these buildings will bo treated as ' held under charitable trusts ' whether there are any expressed written trusts relating to them or not — and consequently will be dealt with .as property held to be applied or which ought to be applied to ' educational purposes.' and will fall under the clauses next to be referred to, which capture in their minute meshes all the educational endowments of the country, outside the Universities and the seven privileged great public schools. The Bill contains no definition of the word ' endowment,' but a comparison of one ' tricky ' phrase and clause with another will convince anyone who knows anything about the construction of the Charitable Trusts Acts that in the Bill the word ' endowment 'is not confined to the narrow meaning of income of settled funds, but embraces all kinds of property, an old desk, or inkstand, no less than land, buildings, stocks, shares, finds, cash, or property of any other conceivable description. ' Educational Purposes.' The expressed object of Clause 14 of the Bill is to render*' ' educational endowments as serviceable as possible for the educational purposes of the time,' and schemes may be made ' under this Act varying or adding to the trusts of any educational endowment. 1 Under Clause 15 the Board of Education • may make such schemes as they think fit,' and that without apr peal. In Clause- 24, Section 2, the question whether any endowment is held for, or ought to be applied to 'educational purpeses ' is left to the Charity Commissioners,' who for this purpose under the Board of Education Act 1899 and subsequent order in Council are the- Board of - Education themselves. Clause 33, Section 2, defines 'educational purposes' as 'the providing or aiding the provisions of any training or instruction of any kind whatever, and any like purpose ■which the Board of Education determine to be an ' 'educational purpose.' Clause 16 provides that in making a' Scheme ' regard shall he had primarily to the '•* educational advantages " " to be derived from the scheme, and as the Board of Education 1 will be the sole judges of what are educational advantages, and .as these advan-

tages, whatever they may be decided to be, are laid down as the primary consideration, a man. with half an eye can see that the whole structure of Catholic education, and of every other system of denominational education, and of every system of education unfettered by insulating red tape, must fall to the ground, and every boy and girl -in the country will be turned, as I said at Hanley, into a mere standardised tool of power. Why All Appeal is Cut Off. As a mere cold fact I state that all appeal to any Court of Justice in the land is cut off by this Bill because its framers and backers know that any Chancery Jmige in the land would make short work of the sort of schemes provided for under it. Any Qhancery Judge would see at a glance that the effects of the Bill were confisoatory and oppressi\e, at the bidding of a section which, for the moment, happens to be in the ascendant. The rents or money payments apparently offered to school trustees whose schools are taken over will obviously be 1 educational endowments,' and as srch be as open to confiscation as anything else under the Bill.