On Wednesday the discussion of the Education Bill' in Committee
was resumed at the last subsection of Clause 12. The Government proposal made the education authorities in Wales the bodies constituted under the Welsh Intermediate Education Act, but Mr. Balfour, in order to secure uniformity with the English system, accepted the amendment moved by Sir Alfred Thomas on behalf of the majority of the Welsh party, deleting the subsection and substituting another enact- ing that the Welsh county governing bodies should cease to exist, and that their powers should be transferred to the local education authorities. On the Motion that the clause as amended should stand part of the Bill, Sir William Harcourt took occasion to reiterate the familiar objec- tion based on the alleged friction that must be set up between the Education Department and the local authorities, and Mr. Bryce and other members of the Opposition followed suit, but after two hours' debate the clause was carried by 259 to 138. On Clause 13, which throws the expenses of a Council under the Bill, so far as not otherwise provided for, on the local rates, Mr. Chaplin proposed an amendment providing that such expenditure out of the rates should in no case exceed one-fourth of the whole expenditure on education by the educational authority.
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