26 May 1922]

[Continued

388. And I gather from that, you want tc assume an undertaking that it was to remain permanent? That is so.

389. That is your first step?—Yes.

390. Now, subsequent to that, the representatives of the local education authorities and representatives of the masters and teachers met together to try to agree a scale of salaries, and you had before you and in your minds-I do not think there can be any doubt about that-the provisions of the Superannuation Act, 1918?—Yes.

391. And with the influence of those provisions upon you, you arrived at an agreement with regard to the scale. That is your position, is it not?-Yes, up to that point.

392. Is there anything else since then? -Yes.

393. What?-Those scales were not operative, and could not be operative, until the assent of the Board of Education had been given to them.

394. I follow that; you are quite right. And at a subsequent date those scales were assented to by the Board of Education? And if they had not been assented to, they would not have been in operation. 395. Quite right. Now is there anything beyond that?-Nothing beyond that.

396. To put it in plain language, there was no express undertaking?-No, I quite

agree.

397. And the facts that I have just mentioned to you, you say amount to an implied undertaking?—Yes.

398. That is the position?-That is the position.

Colonel Stephenson.

399. I do not know whether it is worth while my asking a question I put to a previous witness; that is, if the two things were taken together, the pensions and the Burnham Scale, how is it that the Government equally pay grants to the local authority, who do not pay the Burnham Scale, where the joint results are not uniform ?-I am afraid I have not quite grasped the point of your question.

400. You are trying to make out a sort of organic connection between the superannuation scheme and the Burnham scale of salaries as approved by the Board of Education, on which the Board of Education say they would pay grants to local authorities ?-Yes.

401. If there is that organic connection in order to produce a joint result, how do you account for the fact that the Board of Education pay grants to the local authorities who do not recognise the Burnham Scale, who pay below it, and where the joint results are manifestly not obtained? I take it because the Board of Education have no mandatory powers with regard to local education authorities. 402. But you see that suggestion of an between organic connection the two breaks down?-No; there is an organic connection.

403. Is not that the whole point of the organic connection between the two: that one is dependent upon the other?-There is an organic connection, but there is no compelling power behind the Board of Education.

404. Then a breach of faith has already occurred in regard to 17 per cent. of authorities? Yes, but the breach of faith there lies with the local education authorities, in the first instance.

405. But they were the people who agreed to the Scale, and the Board of Education was only an approving factor in the matter?-The great majority have, but there are still a few in number, as Sir James Yoxall pointed out yesterday, who have not yet agreed.

406. But the whole of the scales was an agreement between the teachers and the local authorities, not between the teachers and the Board of Education?-The agreement was between certain associations and the local authorities, and those associations have no mandatory powers over all their members.

407. But the organic connection evidently was not present to everybody. That is quite obvious.

412. Yes? It is not evidence, but a request. I quite acknowledge the wisdom of the course you have now proposed, but it might be necessary for us to ask you to allow us to put in new evidence, not merely in the form of documents placed in your hands or questions for you to put to other witnesses; but when the witness is completely finished (not during the course of his evidence), it might be necessary to ask you then to hear us again upon some points that have emerged during the evidence of the intervening witnesses.

413. A request of that kind would of course be quite in order, and we should consider it; but we would see whether we

[Continued

can deal with the matter to your satisfaction on the procedure that I have suggested. I hoped that would be so; I only mention it now.

414. You understand that the first consideration in our minds is to do full justice to both sides?-We know that, Sir.

415. But the second consideration in our minds is that the House will adjourn on Tuesday, and that the Committee will probably not desire to have to make to the House a request that they might sit beyond the limits of this part of the Session. However, of course, the question of getting at a full presentation comes first? If you please.

Chairman.

416. Lord Burnham, it is extremely good of you to come, because we all feel that if it had been possible for the House of Commons to remit the decision of this question to one single person, not a Member of their own House, they would have wanted you to be that person, because you were accepted by both sides in negotiations in regard to salaries as a most acceptable Chairman, you stood outside any question of controversy between the two panels, and for a considerable time, at any rate during two or three years, you have had these matters very constantly in your mind. Therefore I am going to rely upon your help, if you will be good enough to give it to the Committee, more perhaps than you may think strictly fair, and I am going to ask you to consider the teachers' case. You have

read the evidence given on the first day? -I have.

417. During the week-end I have been trying to boil down that case into certain propositions. If I may go through these think points I it concentrates the teachers' case, and if you will give us any views that occur to you on the different points, it will be of the very greatest possible service to us. With regard to some of them you may say, quite naturally, that you were not concerned or do not care to express an opinion. I think that the teachers' case is not that there was an express pledge given really, but that a pledge was implied by taking into consideration an accumulation of facts. It is fair, in the teachers' interests, to lay before you really their case as it was made. Might I, only by way of preliminary observation, tell you in one word

as to the character of these Joint Committees over which I presided? They were, as the Committee knows, not Departmental or advisory Committees at all. As stated in the resolutions of the 12th August, they constituted a central organisation to secure the orderly and progressive solution of the salary problem, and it was understood that they were independent bodies. The other point is that they were expert bodies. Every member of either panel was well versed in all the features and conditions of the problem submitted. No witnesses were called or examined, nor was it necessary to do so, because every member had the fullest knowledge of the state of things existing in our educational system. As an independent Chairman I was not expert in the true sense, but I was so well informed as to the state of things that I too did not require to be specially posted up by any witnesses. As has been said in the evidence, they partook of the nature of Whitley Councils. In our procedure the custom was for a motion to be brought forward on the general principle at issue; and then on the several points which arose, and after the leading re⚫ presentatives of either panel had spoken, the debate was perfectly free, but was not as a rule prolonged, from the very fact that everybody present was fully seized of the various aspects of the problem. In custom I often summed up the discussion, sometimes made my own recommendations, but always drew attention to the principal points at issue.

The

panels then retired for separate conference. Communications took place between them, sometimes I myself had the advantage of seeing the Chairmen. The panels would then return, either that day or at the next meeting, to the committee room, and after further debate resolutions were adopted which were later on put into form and incorporated in the draft reports, the series of reports that from time to time were presented. There was no need to bring out the facts in regard to any of these matters, the Superannuation Act or any other, because they were common knowledge of both panels. As a rule, the endeavour was to limit the debate as narrowly as possible to the practical issues. There was no attempt at rhetorical display, and the business was entirely conducted on the lines of doing our job according to the way it had been remitted to us in the first instance by the general conference

[Continued

which was held in August, 1919. I venture to put that before the Committee, because it may explain to those who might imagine that we were conducting an inquiry on the lines of a Select Committee of this House or of a Departmental Committee, why there was not constant reference to matters which were, if not determining factors, at least essential factors in the problem. The truth was that we were all equally informed, and there was no need to do so. When Mr. Fisher attended he did so at our request to clear up points at issue. We had the advantage of the presence in the Committees of the leading officers of the Board of Education, but it was perfectly well understood that they attended at our request. They advised us on technical matters as they arose, but they were quite free either to take part or not in the proceedings, and it was understood that they did not, by anything they said, commit the Board. They were there for our advantage and at our request, and everybody felt at the end that their services had been very beneficial and material, as they naturally were. think perhaps it is well to explain the question of procedure, because I notice that there seems to have been a little confusion or doubt in the minds of the Committee as to what the conduct of the Committees actually was in practice.

I

418. That is most helpful and it will be very useful to us. Running through the arguments made by the teachers, I have only summarised the first three which I have noted down, because they deal with the Pensions Act, which really was before your Committees began to sit; the first being that there was a certain element of consideration given by teachers in return for the non-contributory pensions, which, it may be argued, constitutes or suggests the element of bargain. I will not go through the things which are suggested.

Then: "(2) That in bringing forward the School Teachers (Superannuation) Bill Mr. Fisher not only did not suggest that teachers might be asked to contribute towards the pension fund, but gave most cogent reasons why a contributory scheme was undesirable and impracticable, thus giving the teachers a right to anticipate that the basis of the scheme would not be changed.

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(3) That an Act of Parliament setting up a pension scheme is in its essence and according to all former precedent an Act which implied permanence so far as the

beneficiaries who come within its scope

are concerned " of course you can always start a different scheme if you are starting off with fresh beneficiaries"that such an Act must be held to imply permanence and therefore to be an implied pledge of permanence unless the contrary is expressly declared." Would you like to say anything about your feeling on those points before we come to the date of the setting up of your Committee? Do you feel that about a Pensions Actthat a settlement of pensions by Act of Parliament on an insurable basis must be held to contain in it a rather definite element of permanence ?—I do. It seems to me contrary to all precedent, and I am bound to say, looking at it from the point of view of morals a little shabby, to alter a scheme so enacted. It never, I think, entered into the mind of the President, of the Board of Education at that time, so far as I know, but he will speak for himself, of course, and certainly not into the mind of any officer of the Board or any member of the Committee, that there was to be a change or modification of the Act of 1918. Particularly does that apply, and obviously, to those teachers who entered the profession not on the strength of the Act but at least under the operation of the Act, between the date when the scheme passed in 1918 began to work and the notice given of the introduction of the amending Bill.

419. Then I will proceed if I may, although it is a good deal repetition of what you have really said to us already.

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what was called the period of peace.

course

no

If

I might make at this point a short statement, I would point out that when our Committees were set up, the whole of the education world was in a state of turmoil, and strikes were threatened in many parts of the country. It was held to be allimportant to secure a period of peace to enable things to settle down, with scales of salaries adjusted not only to the higher cost of living but also to the professional status of the teaching profession. As you have been informed, about 81 per cent. of the local education authorities have adopted the standard scales, but of been pledge has given that they are to be permanent, in fact it would be difficult to imagine any pledge from a local education authority, which is liable to the ordinary changes of elected bodies, being of great avail. The other point in our constitution was that there was a tremendous and growing dearth of teachers, especially teachers of the right quality. It is notorious that women teachers were coming forward if not in the necessary numbers at any rate in greater numbers than the men, and, if I may say so, on the average perhaps even better in their quality. There remained the great want of getting a sufficient supply of teachers for the existing schools, and of men teachers to take the boys' schools, and that shortage was in all probability greatly to be increased by the demands that would be made for the continuation schools under Mr. Fisher's Act. It me that this problem is considered in the wrong light, because it is put forward as partaking of the nature almost of a charitable movement on the part of the State, or at any rate a movement to do justice to the proBut the fessional claims of teachers. main issue from the point of view of the State is to secure an adequate supply of teachers. Not only was that not forthcoming, but there was every possibility of it diminishing year by year. So that, instead of improving the education system by extending it under different Acts, if you could not get the teachers, and teachers of the right kind, you were going to lower it. That was the way I viewed it.

That no

sions question by the Act of 1918 was thoroughly well known to both panels of the Burnham Committees, was at times referred to in their discussions, and must be held to have been a material element in the settlement of the scales. suggestion that the basis of pension could be altered was at any time made by anyone to the Burnham Committees, and that had it been supposed that a contribution of five per cent. of salaries would be called for towards pensions, the teachers' claim for salaries would have been greater, and would probably in part have been acceded to." Can you say at all as to that?-I can give no opinion as to what the ultimate result would have been if notice had been given as to the termination or the modification of the Act of 1918; but I must point out to the Committee that the teachers likewise had, and have, no assurance that the standard scales adopted by the local education authorities in consequence of our reports will endure beyond

420. As you have already made clear, the settlement of the pension question by a very recent Act was, of course, in the minds of both your panels very definitely? Yes.

421. And you say that you naturally cannot say what might have happened