29 May, 1922]

461. Might I ask you, were you ever consulted either by the Geddes Committee or by the Cabinet Committee that considered the Geddes Report?-I was not consulted by the Geddes Committee, but I was consulted on the question of salaries by the Cabinet Committee.

462. After the Geddes Committee had made their, recommendations?—Yes. I do not know how far, Sir, I am at liberty to disclose what took place in the Committee of the Cabinet.

463. I do not want to question you about it. I am not putting it offensively in any way. I rather anticipated questions which might be asked me as to what took place there.

Chairman.] I do not think it would be right for members of the Committee to ask you as to what happened.

Mr. Spoor.] I do not press the point. I only wanted to know whether the Cabinet had actually consulted Lord Burnham.

Witness.] Yes, they did.

464. You say quite rightly, and I think all the Committee will agree, that the

[Continued

problem before your Committee, and before the Government really was to secure a more adequate supply of teachers. We have had evidence that the supply has been inadequate for some time. Supposing this policy which has been suggested was carried out, supposing this Bill that was introduced a fortnight ago actually becomes law, do you believe it will have a deterrent effect and interfere with recruitment in the immediate future? It certainly will not improve the chances, because to my mind the recruitment of the teaching profession largely depends on the teachers. In addition, to that, in the past teachers have not as a rule recommended their children to follow the same line of life. There are a great many who have, but there has been a tendency to diminish that wholesome influence. The teachers will feel a sense of grievance and I do not think it will improve the prospects of recruitment. Chairman.] Thank you very much indeed, Lord Burnham. We are very much indebted to you.

.

Chairman.

465. You kindly provided a memorandum which we had in our hands on Friday and Saturday, setting out, I think, the Board's point of view, but this morning you have asked us to take a further proof of evidence instead of the memorandum which you then submitted, which of course is entirely in order, and we are, of course, quite willing to do that. But it puts us, and me particularly, in this slightly difficult position, that whereas I had studied your previous 'memorandum and had had a chance of doing that very carefully, I have only received your new one when I took my seat. Therefore before we come to your new memorandum, which you will place before the Commitee either definitely as a document, or will present it orally, as you please, I should be very much obliged, and I think the Committee would be very much helped, if you would give me your comments on a certain summary of the teachers' case which I have tried to make after hearing their evidence for two days, as we did last week. You could do that, if you please, after going through your own memorandum or before; but I think, in order to clear the

Committee's mind, it would be very useful to us if we could have your comments on the teachers' case, summarised, as I have tried to summarise it, in a way which expresses it as fully as I can express it in a series of propositions. What do you feel about that?-Of coure I am in your hands. I will do what is the most convenient to the Committee. I have prepared this new statement in the light of the Minutes of the Evidence taken before the Committee, which I have read, and I should have thought that it would probably be the most convenient course if I put in my proof of evidence in the first instance, if I then went on to put in some observations upon particular points in the evidence as given which appear to me to need correction, and it is possible that after that, the number of questions you might desire to ask me would be diminished and that the labours of the Committee might be abbreviated. You might find that in anticipation I had answered certain portions of the case, or you might not find it.

466. On consideration, I think that is true: that we ought to allow you to put what you have to say in exactly the way in which you would desire to put it, in the first place, and then anything I wish

29 May, 1922.]

to ask you about would follow on from that, either arising directly out of what you had said or arising out of the

the

teachers' case as I conceive it to be.-I have read the Minutes of the evidence given before the Committee on the 25th May, but at the time of writing this I have not had an opportunity of reading the evidence given on 26th May. I have already furnished the Committee with a memorandum, which may be regarded as a preliminary proof of my evidence, and perhaps I may be allowed to substitute this paper as a revised proof of evidence directed more particularly to the evidence which has actually been given. Before doing this, however, I should like to make some general observations.

In the first place I should like to call attention to the very narrow point which is before the Committee, and that is, whether an undertaking was given or implied by the Government or Parliament. It is obviously necessary to allow very considerable latitude in the discussion of this subject, but I submit that many of the subjects which were discussed in the course of evidence are not really relevant to the consideration of the matter before the Committee.

The questions whether the teachers anticipated that the School Teachers (Superannuation) Act 1918 would be altered; whether the result of the Bill will be to deter persons from entering the teaching profession; whether the of teachers induced representatives teachers to accept the Burnham Scales by referring to the advantages of the Superannuation Act, are really of no material importance. They may be very proper subjects for discussion on Second Reading of the Bill, and on the Second Reading Debate I should be prepared from my place in the House to deal with these points, but unless the Committee can find an undertaking given or implied by the Government or Parliament, the question referred to them must be answered in the negative.

the

The question before the Committee divides itself into two parts. The first question is whether an undertaking was given, and I think I am right in understanding that part of the question as meaning-was an express undertaking given that the provisions of the School Teachers (Superannuation) Act 1918, should not be altered while the existing scales of salaries remained in force?

If

an express undertaking was given, it

[Continued

must be embodied in some written document or recorded speech. I have carefully searched the evidence and I cannot find any statement that an express undertaking was given. I do not think it is seriously suggested by any oi the witnesses that there is any express undertaking. I think indeed it is admitted that there is not.

I

We come then to the question whether an undertaking was implied, and on this point I should like to make the preliminary observation that an undertaking is only implied when it is not contained in the express terms of an undertaking actually given. It is well known that the terms of any undertakings given either by the Government or Parliament are very carefully considered in such a way as to include everything that they ought to include and to exclude everything that they do not express. do not desire to say that nothing can ever be implied which is not expressed in an undertaking given by the Government, but I do say that there must be a very strong presumption that an undertaking is complete in itself and that it needs very overwhelming evidence beforea Committee can come to a conclusion that the Government is bound in honour, not by something they have said but by something which is supposed to follow by implication from what they said.

467. From what they said or from what they did? Yes. It is necessary therefore in the first place to examine the actual undertaking on the top of which it is alleged that a further undertaking must be implied that the School Teachers (Superannuation) Act, 1918, should not be altered. As far as I am aware there is only one material undertaking, and that was the undertaking given in my letter of 26th January, 1921, to Lord Burnham. On the 22nd January, 1921, Lord Burnham wrote me a letter of five paragraphs, of which I think only paragraph 2 is material. That paragraph is as follows:"That in respect of the particular work of this Committee they feel that it is essential for the continuance of that work that the Committee should now be assured that if on a review the Board is satisfied that the allocation of appropriate standard scales by the Committee is fair and reasonable, then the local education authorities which adopt those scales shall receive not less than three-fifths of the expenditure on teachers' salaries incurred thereby." And the material passage of the reply to that paragraph, in the letter

29 May, 1922.]

of 26th January, is as follows:- "I do not contemplate, subject always to the authority of Parliament, an alteration in the formula for the calculation of Substantive Grant by which 60 per cent. of the expenditure on teachers' salaries is taken as an element. If, on a review of the Committee's allocation of scales, I am satisfied that the allocation is proper and reasonable, I shall be prepared to regard expenditure by a Local Education Authority in accordance with the appropriate scale as expenditure in aid of which Parliamentary Grants should be made."

I think it is necessary to emphasise the exact effect of this undertaking. Firstly, it was not a guarantee by the Board that Burnham scales should be paid. The Board do not pay the teachers and they were not in a position to give any such guarantee; in fact the standard scales are not universally paid by Local Education Authorities. Secondly, the undertaking was an undertaking given through the Committee to Local Education Authorities. As a result of that undertaking, Local Education Authorities entered into certain engagements with the teachers. If the undertaking had been broken the Local Education Authorities would have had good cause to complain; but the engagement of the teachers was with the Local Education Authorities and the teachers were entitled to the salaries which the Local Education Authorities agreed to pay, whether or not the Board broke their undertaking.

It is out of this undertaking, because it is the only undertaking the Board gave, that any further undertaking by reference to its object and the circumstances material to its object must be implied, if at all, and it is at once apparent that the further undertaking which is said to be implied is an undertaking of an entirely different character. The express undertaking was an undertaking to the Local Education Authorities through the Burnham Committee representing promise of what the Local Education Authorities should receive in grant. The suggestion as to an implied undertaking is that an express undertaking to the Authorities to pay certain grants must be construed as involving an undertaking as to pensions which did not affect in any way either the receipts or the expenditure of the Authority and in which the teachers were almost exclusively interested.

a

[Continued

468. Let me just break in for a moment to suggest, as I think I shall have to put to you later, that is not the teachers' suggestion as to the implied undertaking. They, rightly or wrongly-and I think you comment on that later-put their case on broader lines than that the implied undertaking arises only out of the express undertaking of yours that, subject to the authority of Parliament, certain proportions of the Local Education Authorities' expenditure on salaries would be paid. But we will come to that later?-Yes. May I just, in advance, say I do not see any difference between the point you are putting to me and the point I have put; but, however, we will deal with that later. That is the case as I apprehend it.

It seems to me that if we put the case at its highest, all we can say is that at the time when that letter of 22nd January, 1921, was written, there were two very important questions to be settled. The first was whether Local Education Authorities should receive grants on the scales which they promised to pay, and that question directly affected the Local Education Authorities. The second question was whether, if the Burnham Scales were given the to teachers, the teachers could be assured that the School Teachers (Superannua-. tion) Act, 1918, would not be altered to their detriment. That question concerned the teachers.

The first question was asked; the second was not asked. It is useless to conjecture. why it was not asked and impossible to conjecture what the answer would have been if it had been asked. It is certainly impossible to state with assurance that if it had been asked the answer would have been an unqualified undertaking that the Act of 1918 would not be altered while the. Burnham Scales were in force. The letter of 22nd January, 1921, refers to the present embarrassed condition of national finances, and before I could have given any unqualified pledge upon that subject, I should certainly have had to consult the Treasury, and I should have been very cautious before I pledged the Government with regard to the course of events over the next four years, having regard to that embarrassed condition of the national finances to which the spondence alludes.

corre

My point, however, is that no one can fairly say that the answer to the second question was involved in the answer to the first, and unless it can be proved

29 May, 1922]

that the answer to the second question, if asked, would have been an unqualified affirmative, no person has any right to infer from the answer to the first question that the answer to the second question would have been in the affirmative.

If, in fact, the non-alteration of the School Teachers' (Superannuation) Act, 1918, was so material an element in the matter as the teachers represent, the responsibility for not asking a question upon the point must rest entirely with the teachers, and I cannot accept any responsibility for an alleged undertaking which I certainly did not give expressly, and which, I contend, cannot possibly be deduced as a necessary implication from the undertaking which I did give. certainly never had any such undertaking in my mind.

I

To put the question in another form, it appears to me that the argument of the teachers is that salary and pension are inseparable and that any undertaking as to salary involves an undertaking that pensions will not be altered. If this were true, the converse would hold good, and any improvement of the pension system would entitle the Local Education Authorities to insist on a salary reduction. The argument might have some force if the award of pensions was in the same hands as the settlement of salaries, but the fact is that Parliament has treated the two things as entirely separable. The Local Education Authority, which fixes salaries, is powerless to deal with pensions, and the State, which fixes pensions, does not fix the salaries which the Local Education Authority contracts to pay to the teachers.

469. You know that several Local Authorities are now considering reductions in the scales that they have adopted. Do you not think that if Parliament were, in its wisdom, now suddenly to double the pensions, the fact that the pensions had been improved would be argued as a very material matter in justifying the decreases of salaries which are now going to come under consideration?-I am just going to deal with that point.

470. If you please?-Historically also the argument appears to me to be untrue. The Act of 1898 gave pension benefits which did not previously exist; in 1912 these pension benefits were improved; in 1918 a still more beneficial scheme was introduced. On none of these occasions was it ever suggested that the grant of these increased rights involved any re

[Continued

duction in salaries, and I feel sure that if at the present time it were proposed, instead of making the Act of 1918 contributory, to double the benefits given under it, neither the teachers nor the Local Authorities would ever have suggested that this of itself entitled the Authorities to readjust the Burnham Scales, and if the Authorities had claimed to do so, I have not the slightest doubt that the justice of the claim would have been indignantly repudiated by the teachers.

471. But knowing the general line of argument which members of Local Authorities are inclined to take now under the very heavy burden of rates, do you not think that the Local Authorities would, as a matter of fact, have been very prompt to suggest that if the pensions had now been doubled, it would justify a reduction in the salary scales ?-I think they would probably have suggested it. I think the claim would have been resisted by the teachers.

472. But you say here that it would never have been suggested that this of itself entitles the Authorities to readjust the Burnham Scales. I should have thought it would have been just the sort of excuse that many members of Local Authorities would only be too glad of to reduce the scales ?-I said "entitled." I can understand the excuse being urged; but the fact that the pension scheme has been altered does not affect the pecuniary position of the Local Education

Authorities. The Local Education Authorities do not pay the pensions.

473. No; but they would have been very quick, I think, to argue that in one respect the teachers had been made very much better off and that would justify that in another respect they should be made worse off, namely, by a reduction of salaries? Then if you admit that argument, you admit the converse, that is to say, supposing the teachers are made to contribute to their pensions, that is an argument against reduction of salaries.

474. Yes, I think that certainly holds : but whether, when you are dealing with an Authority which holds itself pledged to the scales, it is much of a consolation to the teachers that something has been done, namely, by making them contribute 5 per cent. of their salaries, which makes it less likely, as certainly it does, that the scales will be cut into, I do not quite know. I imagine most of the authorities will not go further, whatever happens, than saying, "We are pledged for a short

29 May 1922]

period of years to a certain scale of salaries"; but I quite admit that just as local authorities would, in my opinion, have felt themselves much more justified than they will now to cut into the scales had the pensions been doubled, 30 now the persons who argue for the teachers at the meetings of the local authorities will be able to urge that the State has already taken one cut (if it does), and therefore that it is rather unfair to take another. It certainly applies both ways?-The historical facts appear to be, not that pensions affect salaries, but that the State, after ascertaining what salaries are, decides what it is proper to do with regard to pensions. The Act of 1898 provided for a contribution from teachers, and it required the contribution to be increased if the average salaries of teachers rose, and decreased if they fell. The Act of 1912 recognised that salaries were then insufficient to enable teachers to make provision for their old age and that the pensions provided by the Act of 1898 were also insufficient. It accordingly, on a review of the then existing facts, in 1912 increased the pensions without any suggestion that the increase should react upon salaries. In 1918 the same thing was done; salaries were still low and pensions were adjusted to the then existing state of affairs. Salaries are now high, and that is a ground for the further readjustment of pension rights.

475. While you are dealing with the matter from the historical point of view, I think it right just to mention this. In the Report of the Departmental Committee for Inquiring into the principles which should determine the construction of scales of salaries for teachers in elementary schools, which reported in Volume 1, Command Paper 8,939, 1917-18, paragraph 20, says: "It is clear that those who have to arrange a salary scale for a long service calling must have some regard to the arrangements which exist for superannuating those who come under the scale. In considering whether a teacher's salary is adequate in relation to his or her needs, it will be necessary to bear in mind that until the present superannuation scheme is improved, teachers in most areas will have to make out of their salaries some further contribution for old age or disablement and some provision for the contingency of early death. Changes may be made in the present superannuation scheme, but we see no reason why the possibility of such

[Continued

changes should affect the principles which we recommend for determining the construction of scales." That is only an isolated paragraph in an isolated Report of a Departmental Committee, but, so far as it goes, I suggest it shows that in the minds of some of the persons considering these matters in an authoritative way, pensions and salaries had a very close relation to one another?-I am going to deal with that point.

476. I only put that in as a small point just to correct or slightly to modify your view of the history, that there was very little connection between salaries and pensions?—That was not exactly my point -that there is very little connection between salaries and pensions. It is quite obvious that salaries and pensions have a connection. Pensions under the Act of 1918 were determined by salaries, and we are faced by a fact which, so far is I know, is absolutely unprecedented in the history of British finance or British administration, that a very few years after the Pension Act is passed, the salary bill doubles, with the result that there is an enormous increase in the burdens thrown

upon the State. May I proceed?

477. Yes, please?-Next I should observe that some obscurity appears to attach to the question as to how far Acts of Parliament can be altered without a breach of faith. I do not think there is any real difficulty on the point so far as this matter is concerned. First, it is apparent that all Acts of Parliament can be altered by subsequent Acts of Parliament. Secondly, this Committee would not exist were it not apparent that in some cases the alteration of an Act of Parliament might constitute a breach of faith. Thirdly, it has been suggested in the course of the proceedings of the Committee that there can be no breach of faith where a question of finance is concerned, because all pledges and undertakings given by the Government and affecting finance must be regarded as subject to the general financial position and safety of the country. I will not say whether I accept this doctrine or not; I will only say that I do not think it is material to the present purpose. For the present purpose the Government have before them an undertaking to pay grants to local education authorities based on the salaries paid to teachers. That undertaking they were not prepared to break, and they cannot but regard it as a breach of faith to attempt to break it by Act of Parliament. If