The House of Commons on Thursday and Friday week discussed
in Committee the Education (Provision of Meals) Bill, which bad come from a Select Committee. Mr. Harold Cox moved as an amendment to the first clause that Poor Law Guardians should take the place of the local education authorities as the administering power, on the ground that they alone were in a position to make proper inquiries. The amendment was resisted on the plea that the Guardians would be obstructive in their policy, and rejected by a large majority. On Friday the Government adopted an amend- ment of Mr. Masterman's sanctioning the provision of meals at other times than midday. The whole policy of the Bill was then raised in an interesting debate, in which Mr. Harold Cox nut the common-sense view of the case, and was but ineffectively answered by Dr. Macnamara. A measure which, in Mr. Cox's words, turns local education authorities into refreshment contractors, and which relieves parents of their primary duties, is rightly described as "pauperising legislation." We do not deny the hardness of certain cases, but we maintain that hard cases make bad law, and that no legislation can attempt to deal with this evil directly without engendering greater evils. It is the worst type of Socialistic measure, where sentiment and bad economics are equally mingled. Mr. Cox deserves the thanks of all thoughtful men, and, indeed, of all who desire to see the moral strength of the nation maintained unimpaired, for his plucky and persistent opposition,—an opposition offered, remember, to his own party. On Thursday the discussion was continued, and the Bill read a third time.
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