Page "Joseph Chamberlain" Paragraph 78

Balfour Education Bill was intended to promote National Efficiency, a cause which Chamberlain thought worthy.

However, the Education Bill abolished the 2, 568 school boards established under W. E.

Forster's 1870 Act, bodies that were popular with Nonconformists and Radicals, replacing them with Local Education Authorities that would administer a state centred system of primary, secondary and technical schools.

The Bill would also give ratepayer's money to voluntary, Church of England schools.

Chamberlain was aware that the Bill's proposals would estrange Nonconformists, Radicals and many Liberal Unionists from the government, but could not oppose it as he owed his position as Colonial Secretary to Conservative support.

Chamberlain warned Robert Morant about Nonconformist dissent, asking why voluntary schools could not receive funds from the state rather than the rates.

Morant replied that the Boer War had drained the Exchequer of finances.