Sir Michael Rieke-Beach made a very interesting speech at Bristol
on Thursday, from which we are inclined to infer, per- haps mistakenly, that he individually favours the view that the denominational schools should be aided out of State grants, and not out of local rates. He put one point very powerfully, that if the rates were to be drawn upon in favour of these schools, there would be great difficulty in saying what local body should vote the rate. Would it depend on the vote of a School Board or a Town Council or any other elective body, which might grant the aid one year and refuse it the next ? If so, we should probably make the position of the voluntary schools more difficult than ever, and yet it would not be easy to say how the discretionary power could be given to any local body that could be relied upon to exert it in a manner that would really meet the needs of the voluntary schools. We con- fess that this seems to us to put an unanswerable difficulty in the way of Lord Cranborne's favourite solution. On general politics the Chancellor of the Exchequer said nothing eff
great importance, except that there is some fear that the Unionists are underrating the danger of the revival of tha Home-rule project which they have for the present defeated,
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