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THE EDUCATION BILL.

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THE EDUCATION BILL. The Rev John Divies, Llandiù, on rising to submit a resolution on the above, &aid that the Government aimed a b'ow at the very founditiou o the building of education in Wales so well completed. The one object was to destmy Noncon- formity and pre- ant any progress being made by the present School Board s)s-e,n, IIj would prefer an Education Department for Wale", but. in its absence, a County Co'iimhtee directly elected by the people, and the rerao»i: g of the lirult ¡?r'mt of 17* *6d without public control *as most unfair, as was ""Ut p also the special grant of 4s to Voluntary schools. As ar-pucd to WaleA, this would mean £ >0,000 for the Voluntary schools and a iittlo under =t3,000 for Wales, of which oter £ 2,000 would go to Swansea Bopid. As to the religious clanse, there wa* a difference of opinion. If piesad Nonconformists would avail themselves of its provisions and go to the schools and look after their c! ildren, but he considered that excellent work wns done in their Sunday schools. Finally he moved- a resolution protesting against the Bill, which was carried. Z, REP RESET ATION OF THE WELScl NATION A L FEDEIl Al ION. The following gentlemen were elected the repre- sentative; ctthe association at tha meeting ot the Federation: —The ne*ly elected chiirman (Mr Levis J P., itavi J II itlei (Pemb'ev); Towyn Jenet3 (Garnant); J Davies (L'andiio). REGISTRATION. The Rf:V Towyn Jones th?n spoke on this matte-, and uTecfive means ot remedying a matter much negltcted in the district. It was ubi'nately decide:! that Mr T II Powell, solicitor Lla-.cldo, be appointed »egistralion agent of the East Carmarthenshire Liberal Association. Mr Howell, solicitor, thought that the salaiv should be fixed, He did Lot know what Uiey were prepared to do, but it would be better if the amount were Everything amht be put down and a large bdl ;? costs sent iu. They would have to fix it sooner or latter. The Re? J Divies, Llandilo, proposed that the fixing of the salary be left to tha Executive Committee, which it was ultimately dscidei to do. VOTE OE CONFIDENCE IN MH. ABEL fHOMA. M.P. Mr Job Phillips proposed, and Mr T Williams seconded, a cordial vote of cor.lidc-nce in Mr Abel Thomas, M P., for the Divinon. A similor *ote was a'so pro;.o.-?ed to the Welsh members Messrs Lloyd George and Herbert Lewis for the etend which they made in the House of Commons the other evening in referenoj to the agricultural Bill, against which the essoeia- tion strongly protested. ADDRESS BY MR. ABEL THOMAS, M.P. Mr Abel Thomis was very warm'.y received on rising to udlicss the association. Whilst living in London lately he had heard a good deal about couna v uistiicts. lie had been told that all the farmers who had voted Liberal at the last election would aH vote Conservative at the next, because of the Agricultural Rating Bill (ironical laughter). One ot the reasonB why he went to Ammanford was because he wanted to explain to his farmer friends at that meeting that he thought they would be doing verv wrong indeed if they supported a Conservative Government in consequence of sucit a monstrous Bdl 33 the cno abo»e-mentioned (applause). There had been n'l greater pleasure to mm than knowing lilitt I-Aa.y of them there were farmer?, that they wfcie stiil sound in the faith of their forefathers, and that the miserable ijilt)e-it was nothing else—that was "iven by the Conservative party was not going to lead aw&v their hfarts from the faith in which they weie born and bred (applause). For a year or two this Bill would put some few pounds into the farmers' pocket'. There was no mistake about that. Finally it would all go to the landlord. Let them see what was rcaHv happening in this matter. The Bill was a very shoit cue lIe called attention to the fact that in man in the Ilouso of Commons during the whole progress of the Bill in Committee had spoken out triors clearly, more sensibl), and with"kss repeiilion of his arguments than one of the two who were suspended hiit Friday night. He referred to Mr Lloyd Gsovt;e (applause). He (the sneaker) was not there—he happened to be going up to E-md>n in the inaii tram-out he did not know that he would ha*e done whit Mr Towyn Jones said he would have donp, because he (Mr Thomas) was colder blooded than Mr Lloyd George but he believd that ahiioet cnr wan wh) woul.1 sit in the House" of Co. T" would hive done what Mr Llovcl George ard Mr Herbert Lewii did on that occasion (applause). t WJ. it i L- -t? t h s b i, I Wll going to do for East C-ar^narthenshiro, for instance, bc-ennse it was undouot: tliy en attempt en ths part of their Tory friends. TO TEAr. TUF: VDTS of THE farmer* What it did was shortly this :-It said that only half of the rates raised in the past on agfic-uUurat land, pure and simple, should be paid by the tenant or the owner of that particular land. Of course, vou must see at once that there was some money that c .roe from somewhere, and that the rate would have to be made up, and tho rates would have to ta partly made up by the shopkeepers and tmplate werjicrs living in the Llandovery ar.cl Llauel'y dis'ri't. Tht-y were the persons who v-'onld finally k„r» to pay the two n.illions per annum—it was n million and a half new, hut it will be two millions I'.q;.t vsar—they were the nen who would have to put that amonno into the pockets of the landlords, or at all events, nearly the whole of it. He wanted 0f tlv-m who were f.= r»?ss to know what his Position was in regard to this Bill, bceou*e he wa. Li owner of land iu E <st Ciro-.nrtr,fushire, and cts r'-S were -all of th^ either owners of land or Urge farmers II" did not think he had got half p r. zen relatives in the world who wcrs not connectea w'i.h the lsnd, i he momy in que^tior, would, ther-, „0 irf' l-'ia pocket snd into their pockets, and the T>a-o"i he was trttiog them was becau?e he was 115 the same position, so far as that_ svas concerned as dti w landlord or tenant farmer in that hail. I hat was the reason he felt he was entitled to speak out in the matter (applaufe). It wfs one of Ue unfortuuate things of the legi'slitier. of this cour¡11\ that when you m3ke A LONG s'np BACKWARDS it was almost iropossilj'e to tuke the same step forward again at ¡he end of say, live year?, fnr which period he sail two millions would be wanted in cotinection with this EilJ. His own leeling was —and he was sorry to say it-that at the end of that te.P, when this But will have run out—the Government wee sure to piss it—that whoever is in power, though it be a Radical Government, it would be extieont^y cidicult r them tn rttiace the the backward S'ep that is being taken, and to put ba;k those icites or. the land from wi thty should never have been taken. So far as he had heard— and he had hea;d lieaily all debates on thE subject in the House cf Commons—act a sir gle leader en the whole of the Conservative side had besr-d his reason for voting for this Bill on the only found reason that they could have given, the m'v reason, if it had been true, which had been this — that laud was suffering from heavier ratea than other property in the country that, if it was true, was a good reason for having a Bill of this kind psss; d There had not been a single leader of the Conservatives that had suggested that that is the true fact of the ease. If so, what does it mean f It me;ns lioady taking money out of the pocket of the ma 1 who works and putting it into the pocket of Ills landlord. The tenant had a good many things to bear. Ho had, of course, tne rates and taxes. He supposed this was a shot of his own In Carmarthenshire they might get 2s or a little more in the & on tho land. The farmer and his farnily h. d to live on much less than the rent he paid fr the land. He had to pay for the labour cn it and wh-t h?d this great and glorious Government— whir h is going to give us all kind of good things, good time, coid all the rest of it, doner Tiny liad TAKEX OFF THE ^MALLE^T IMPOST on the tenant and maintained all the others. Heiven knew that nlthough in that Valley there had been bad times for farmers, they had been infinitely worse for tha tinplate worker and for the ruana- facturer, and he could not help thinking that it had also been infinitely worse for the village frhop- keeper, whm he found that the people who were buy113 tliiiigi at his shop couid not pay for them, and that he was on the ve:ge of bankruptcy him- self. This WHS the time when our noble fiiends, the owners of land, would talk and give, not out of the rents, ointher 2* in the C, but. would take half of the rates of the agricultural land, and make the tinplate woiker, the collier, aud the household proprietor pay for them. lie was pleiseu to find that in East Carmarthenshire the farm-.is had not been bamboozled by this wicked measure (applause), Tnn. greatest paupers in the country were the land- loru-i, who would take under this measure enormous gratuities from the people. He had no desire to malign the landlords of East Carmarthenshire, Many of them were extremely good, but at the same lime he believed they should be more generous to the tenant farmer, if the tenant farmer could not make a living and educate his children properly, The landlord had no right to take the rent if the taking of it made the tenant poorer and poorer, and reduced his wife and children to destitution. It was the rent that should have gone first, and not THIS MISEKAHLE BIT Cf BELIEF from the rates (applause). He had heard it said that the tenant would get none of the relief—but he believed that for a time—and only for a ttme- the tenant would receive a portion of the relief. But how would it w0r out? Th3 landlord Y, ho had been giving 10 per cent deduction would now consider 5 enough, and eventually the whole of the relief would go into the pockets of the landowner. But it was not the landlord who had chiefly suffered, end there was no excuse for the subvention that would be made to that class under the present Bill. The Government had absolutely failed to justify the Bill in thd debste-i in the House of Commons. The objections of the Opposition were unanswerable, Th; arguments were always fresh and to the point. There was absolutely no repetition. But the Government refmel to answer they never tried to answer. lIe had never seen any Opposition in the House of Commons conducted more fairly and more honourably. The Bill did. not stop at the point to wlii-h hii had already taken them. There were some counties, &s th<_y kivow, where tqriii, which once fetched £ 7,000 00aid now coinmand no mere than £ 1,000 —land which used to let at 30s an acre wh.ch people would not tkü at all. But under this Bdl the rich land and the poor land were to be treated ahke. They had as they knew some rich land in East Carmarthenshire, and this land, as would all rich land, got three times, as much relief as the poorer portions. On that particular elau:e he voted with the Government, together with some other Welsh members, because he thought they migh get as much relief in East Carmarthenshire as possible. At the same time, however, the clause made the Bill more ridiculous. Not a syllable was heard during the campaign of this wonderful measure nothing was known of it until Mr Chaplin roea in the House of Commons to submit it, and he wa3 sure 110 one was more turprised than their Ccn3ervati«e friends. M iny had conae to him and said, Of course the Bill is bad it is bad in principle bad ir. its work- ing out." But they all voted for it, notwithstand- ing. That was how things were done. He did not wish to claim any particular virtue for the Liberal party, but he did believe they voted more strictly in accord mce with what they considered right than the other side. The Bill was nothing short of A LIKIBE TO CHEAT TUB LIUEU.IL FAKMEKS out of their allegiance to th principles of justice and freedom. (Applause) As to the Elueation Bill, it was a briboto the Cnurch party. It was a Bili to (,,ii IoNv re'ic,,iou-; i:i truetion and disendow School Boards. The NonsonforauslH had no more than ju«iioe in 1870 They did not get justice, but the whole of the work of 1870 was now to be thrown to the wind. The schools were to be Church-ridden, priest-ridden. The dnire of the 0 cut was to get as many Nonconformist children IS possible into. Church schools. He hoped that in East Carmarthenshire they wonld unite to fight this ohj.-iciionable and monstrous 27th clause. He bilioved In was j'i*t:fi d in stating that there never had he 1l a .Ministry in power in this country more d'sh-»i>est and more dishonourable than this (applause) Ile (liii n) believe that Mr Balfour would approve of eithtr of 11u Bdls with which he had dalt. Mr Billour however happened to be one of the men you over meet. He rarely lost his temper, and rarely said a disagreeable word",but lie va» a -trong enough ruan for the pnitiou He believed that if Mr Balfour had thought out the Bill they would have heard very little about it. But Mr Balfour unfortunately would not take tha trouble to do that kind of thing. Ever since he (the speaker) ha taken any p Ht in politics he bad never felt more ashamed of the legislative forces of this country—because the frauurs of these Hills were their own cauinyr.en—than he did to-day. Another of Mr Balfour's lieu'ensnts was Sir John Gorst, who wit-, he was afraid, a vain man as -xc-ll as a clever mall, for heappeiredto have a desire to place the educational system of this country on an entirely new foundation, and the worst of it was that the mischief now bsing done coukl not be repaired for a very long time 'o come. Here, in East Car- marth nshire, however, he was glud to find that his constituents were ah.'o'utely sound, that the bribe contained in the Agricultural Rating Bill had not been taken, and that tiny would oppose with all their energies the iniquitous proposals of the Education Bill (loud applause). After deciding to support Liberal Associations of Women in the division, the u-sual votes of thanks terminated the meeting. +-

MYDBIM.

! ! Eisteddfod at Llandovery.

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