In the course of Wednesday's debate an important amendment to
Clause 7 was proposed by the Bishop of Man- chester and carried against the Government. This provides that all damage due to wear and tear in voluntary schools should be made good by the local authority. The Puke of Devonshire admitted that the burdens in certain cases would be extremely heavy, but strongly deprecated a proposal which would seriously modify the arrangement that had been made by the Government for regulating the financial relations between the local authorities and the managers. The fate of the amendment, which was carried by 114 to 88, was fore- shadowed by Lord Spencer, who urged that it contravened the rights of the Lower House in matters of finance. The Kenyon-Slaney subsection as amended by the Lord Chancellor was then discussed. The effect of this subsection, hepointed out, was that religious instruction should be given in a non-provided school in accordance with the tenor of the provisions (if any) of the trust-deed relating thereto, and, should be under the con- trol of the managers. He now moved to add a proviso that nothing in this subsection should affect any provision in a trust-deed for reference to the Bishop or other superior eccle- siastical or denominational authority, so far as such provision gave the Bishop or authority the power of deciding whether the character of the religious instruction was or was not in accordance with the provisions of the trust-deed. The sub-
section was not aimed at the clergy as a whole, but intended to restrain extremists who were disloyal to the Church to which they nominally belonged. The amendment having been agreed to, the Duke of Norfolk's Motion to leave the subsec- tion as amended out of the Bill was negatived by 114 votes to 25.
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