352 



GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



able by clergymen on the tithe rent charge at- 

 tached to their benefice. The amount to be pro- 

 vided for the year was computed at 87,000. 

 The introduction of this subject afforded the op- 

 portunity to discuss what was called the crisis 

 in the Church. Sir William Harcourt, after 

 resigning the leadership of the Liberal Opposi- 

 tion, threw himself into the campaign against 

 the ritualists, devoting his controversial powers 

 and legal acumen to exposing breaches of eccle- 

 siastical law committed by the High Church 

 clergy and condoned or permitted by the epis- 

 copacy. The conduct of the extreme ritualists 

 was brought up for discussion several times, but 

 the ministers staved off debate. The primate 

 pleaded for more time to introduce discipline and 

 restore harmony in the Church, and the House 

 of Lords accepted this plea when, at the begin- 

 ning of the session, the Bishop of Winchester 

 called attention to the attacks made by Sir Wil- 

 liam Harcourt and others on the ritualists, and 

 his scathing strictures on clerical anarchy and 

 the apathy of the bishops who saw the rubrics 

 violated and their own authority ignored. After 

 the Easter intermission Mr. Gedge moved a reso- 

 lution of censure against the English Church 

 Union, which had issued a declaration practically 

 asserting the right to interpret the laws of the 

 Church independently of episcopal injunctions or 

 the decisions of ecclesiastical courts. His amend- 

 ment was withdrawn in favor of one deploring 

 the lawlessness of a section of the clergy and 

 recommending obedience to the bishops; yet to 

 this the house insisted on adding, by a majority 

 of 200 to 14, an affirmation of the binding force 

 of the law as laid down by the courts having 

 jurisdiction in ecclesiastical affairs. Mr. Balfour 

 condemned the refractory behavior of Lord Hali- 

 fax and his allies in the High Church party, and 

 urged that the true interests of the Church de- 

 pended on a policy of moderation and compre- 

 hension. The Protestant or Low Church party 

 favored a Church discipline bill drawn up by 

 some of its members, which affirmed the royal 

 supremacy over the Church, abolished the power 

 of the bishops to quash prosecutions, and sub- 

 stituted for imprisonment as a punishment for 

 ecclesiastical offenses that of the deprivation of 

 the clerical office. This bill came up for a second 

 reading, when the Attorney-General killed it by 

 an amendment declining to create new offenses 

 or to supersede the episcopal authority, while 

 declaring that if the efforts of the bishops to 

 maintain discipline were not speedily effectual 

 further legislation would become necessary. The 

 bill and the amendment were subjects of a heated 

 discussion, in which religious affiliations oblit- 

 erated party lines, except that Sir William Har- 

 court led the attack and denounced the bishops, 

 while Mr. Balfour was their apologist, though 

 accepting the view that it is necessary to pre- 

 serve the character of the national Church as 

 remodeled and purified at the Reformation. The 

 Attorney-General's amendment was finally car- 

 ried by 310 votes to 156. The attack on the tithe 

 bill was more vigorous and determined on account 

 of the passions raised by this controversy over 

 ritualism. Mr. Asquith and Sir William Harcourt 

 were its most vigorous assailants, and Sir Henry 

 Fowler and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman sus- 

 tained them in their contention that this gift 

 out of the imperial funds was tantamount to a 

 new endowment of the Church, and, like other 

 grants made by the Tory Government in relief 

 of local taxation, was a dole to the rich and 

 avaricious made at the expense of the general 

 body of taxpayers. One of the Liberal Union- 



ists, Mr. Whiteley, a member for Stockport, se- 

 ceded from the ministerial party and went over 

 to the Liberals on this ground. The bill was car- 

 ried to a second reading by 314 votes to 176, 

 debated in committee, and finally carried through 

 without amendment, after one long night session, 

 by a majority of 182 against 117. It had the 

 authoritative report of an investigating commis- 

 sion as its basis, and in the House of Lords the 

 Prime Minister overcame the slight opposition 

 that was offered by portraying the hardships 

 under which clerical tithe owners suffered and the 

 illogical system of which they w r ere the victims. 



The Board of Education bill was introduced in 

 the upper house by the Duke of Devonshire, and 

 when it passed the second reading in the lower 

 house it was referred to a standing committee, 

 a course that was taken likewise with the food 

 and drugs bill, the small houses bill, the Irish 

 agricultural and technical education bill, and 

 other ministerial measures. The new Board of 

 Education created by this act is a body consti- 

 tuted like the Board of Trade, having a parlia- 

 mentary president and secretary. It has powers 

 of inspection and examination over secondary 

 schools of every kind, but they are mandatory 

 only in the case of schools under the endowed 

 schools act. In the case of schools maintained 

 for youth of the upper or middle classes of so- 

 ciety no grants will be made out of the public 

 funds. Registers of teachers are to be kept under 

 regulations framed on the advice of a consulta- 

 tive committee, representing the universities and 

 other teaching bodies. The aristocratic friends 

 of the public-school system, who feared that the 

 time-honored institutions in which the character 

 distinguishing the Englishman of birth and breed- 

 ing is largely formed would be revolutionized and 

 the education of all classes made to conform to 

 a modern and scientific but leveling and vulgar- 

 izing system, accepted the bill because it does 

 not interfere forcibly with the cherished tradi- 

 tional methods and customs of English higher 

 education. Thoroughgoing educational reform- 

 ers accepted it as a tentative measure, an initial 

 step in the right direction, after having drawn 

 from the ministers the admission that the bill 

 was not intended to be a final solution, but only 

 an experimental beginning. Some of the Con- 

 servatives took alarm at the powers committed 

 to the responsible minister, dreading lest the bill 

 should take away the safeguards now imposed in 

 the case of the Charity Commissioners, and place 

 the schools at the mercy of a partisan or inno- 

 vating minister; but their fears were not shared 

 by many, and were made light of by the Gov- 

 ernment speakers. Mr. Long's adulteration of 

 food and drugs bill, notwithstanding the exam- 

 inations and elucidations of the standing com- 

 mittee, was the subject of a long discussion, and 

 the restrictions on the trade in margarine and 

 all clauses imposing responsibility on retailers for 

 the purity and quality of their goods met with 

 strong opposition. The repugnance of British, 

 legislators to placing restraints on the -freedom 

 of trade and contract was shown also in the de- 

 liberations on the money-lending bill, which was 

 introduced in the upper house by Lord James. 

 The parliamentary investigation of the methods 

 of usurers revealed an enormous amount of pov- 

 erty and despair caused by the extortions that 

 professional money lenders practice under the 

 shield of the law. The bill placed restrictions on 

 their common deceptions and disguises, such as 

 doing business under several different names. 

 It also sanctioned the principle of limiting the 

 amount of interest and that of reopening and 



