Sir William Harcourt delivered a vigorous fighting speech to his
constituents at Ebbw Vale on Wednesday night, the keynote being that the Government had given the Liberals a rallying. cry in the Education Bill. He deprecated "unauthorised manifestoes and self- constituted unrepresentative groups" which represented distinctions not of opinions but of persons ; and pointedly continued : "I was very much pleased to read what my friend Mr. Asquith said on the subject of the unity of the party. I greatly prefer his discourse to one I read in an adjacent column by his friend Mr. Haldane." Coming to close quarters with the Education Bill, Sir William declared that the Government had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Theirs was as bad a Bill as it was possible to have, its real origin was in the Joint Committee of Convocation, and its main and guiding object was the destruction of the School Boards, which had always been the favourite aversion of Tory denominationalists. Popular control of the voluntary schools was impossible when the denominationalist managers were allowed to elect the schoolmaster, and when conflicts between the local authority and the managers were to be decided by the education authority in London,—" the makers and promoters of the Bill." Such speeches do not invite argu- mentative comment. They are intended, indeed, rather as a call to arms than as a contribution to discussion.
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