The Committee on the Education Bill was opened on Thursday,
but in spite of great clearances of amendments effected both by the Speaker in relation to "instructions" to the Committee, and by the Chairman of Committees, Mr. J. W. Lowther, in relation to amendments that were not in order, not much progress was made. Sir Albert Rollit wanted the municipal authorities of boroughs that are not county boroughs to be allowed to establish an Education Authority of their own, and Mr. Balfour accepted the amendment so far as boroughs of twenty thousand population or upwards are concerned, but this concession provoked a remonstrance from a discontented Conservative, and extremely little progress was made with the first clause. Sir John Gorat, however, intimated that the appointment of the new Education Authority is one of the essential portions of the Bill. A meeting of the Unionist party at the Foreign Office is summoned for Monday to confer on the subject of "lightening" the Bill, and the expediency of an autumn Session incase it is found impossible to carry the Bill before the middle of August. But one way or the other, undoubtedly the three main provisions of the Bill, decentralisation, assistance to the voluntary schools, and the religious provisions of Clause 27, will be adhered to.
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