The Education Bill was read a third time in the
House of Commons on Monday. The three most notable speeches of the debate were those by Mr. Redmond, Mr. Perks, and Mr. Birrell. Mr. Redmond complained that he and the Irish Party were actually looking to the amendments made in the House of Lords for the safeguarding of their claims to justice. No one would be surprised, therefore, if the Irish Members enter- tained some bitterness of disappointment with regard to this Bill. The Bill meant starvation for five hundred Roman Catholic schools. The limits under Clause IV. must be altered and extended so as to include most of these schools, though he would make an exception for the single-school areas. If they were establishing an educational system for Protestant England, the exceptions designed to do justice to Catholics ought to be made a reality and not a fraud. It was his firm belief that the Bill in its present shape would never pass. He and his friends repudiated the Bill as a settlement of the education question, and resented and condemned it as an injury. Mr. Perks spoke almost as fiercely against the Bill from the Nonconformist point of view. Every Free Church in the country, be declared, had directed its censure against Clause IV. He was not sanguine of the Bill becoming law, and personally would not break his heart if it did not so long as Clause IV. remained in its present shape.
