I have tried to find out what the last few sentences of the hon. Member who has just spoken have to do with the admission of women to Cambridge University, and I am as perplexed as you were, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was equally perplexed with the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Warwick (Sir E. Pollock), because in the first part of his speech he argued that the powers that we seek to give to the Commissioners in this Amendment were already given to them by his reading of the Report with Clause 6, and then he went on to argue that these powers ought not to be given to them. He seems content to leave the Bill as it is, but it would seem to me that the logic of his remarks should have led him to give notice that he proposed to move at a later stage that the recommendations should be carried out except that relating to the admission of women to the University of Cambridge.

The principal argument advanced against the Amendment is that it interferes with the autonomy of the University. That was advanced with considerable vigour by the right hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson). It might be in the power of some hon. Members to advance that argument, but if there is one Member who ought not to use that argument I should have thought that it was the right hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University, because repeatedly this Session his name has appeared on the back of Bills which have been introduced under the Ten Minute Rule to interfere with the autonomy and internal working of trade unions. I notice that the learned Solictor-General laughs. I want to comment upon the different attitudes adopted by hon. Members on the benches opposite. It may, perhaps, be a further matter of amusement to the Solicitor-General to know that the Members on these benches who have given the whole of their lives to the building up of trade unions regard those trade unions with as much affection as the right hon. and learned Member and the rest of us who have been trained at the old Universities regard those Universities. The arguments that have been advanced as to interfering with the autonomy of trade unions apply with equal force to interfering with the autonomy of the Universities in order to secure the particular purpose which this Amendment seems to achieve. The right hon. and learned Member also said that it would be a very wicked thing on the part of this House to insert this Amendment if we afterwards found that the new governing body of the University of Cambridge would not have admitted women to the University. It would be a more wicked act if we left the new governing body of Cambridge the heritage of this ancient squabble, so that the first thing that the new governing body will have to do will be to settle this question. If we do that we shall be doing a more wicked thing than by inserting this Amendment. We desire the new governing body to start to deal with the work of the University, and to bring it more into touch with modern requirements.

The hon. Member for North Portsmouth (Sir B. Falle) said that one reason that women should not be brought into touch with the University of Cambridge was that Cambridge University was founded by men. He is a son of Cambridge, and I imagine that he has heard of the illustrious mother of King Henry VII who founded Christ's and St. John's Colleges, of the foundresses of Clare College and Sidney Sussex College, and other illustrious women who in medieval times founded colleges, not as the men did in order to escape from purgatory, but because they had a genuine and sincere enthusiasm for the cause of popular education in this country. We owe it in this day, when women are once again getting their right place in the intellectual world, that we should give them their rightful place in this ancient University. I hope the House will pass this Amendment. I have followed the Debate with the very closest attention and I have not heard any argument advanced, other than the argument with regard to dealing with the autonomy of the University, which in any way conflicts with the general principle on which we base our case.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University has said that the education of women at Newnham and Girton was not interfered with because the University was entirely governed by men, but surely the courses of study which have to be taken for the women's degrees, the examinations themselves and everything belonging to the educational side of the University are at present entirely in the hands of men, and I would as soon consult the Mother Superior of a convent with regard to the education of a man as I would consult the senior Member for Cambridge University about the education of a woman. After all we cannot get away from the first two sentences of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge Report where they say: The word 'University' has no necessary connection either with learning or with groups of colleges. It originally meant the totality or aggregate of persons associated by any common tie. We base our plea for the admission of women to the full life of these Universities on that definition of what a University is, and while you exclude the distinguished daughters of Newnham and Girton from the full life of the University, its Professorships, the Readerships, and all the other places of honour in the University, you are not admitting them to the totality or aggregate of persons animated by a common tie. We do not put the Amendment forward on any other than that general ground, and I think the argument with regard to interfering with the autonomy of the University is the very weakest that can be advanced. If during the 18th century this House had interfered with the autonomy of the Universities, when they were keeping the intellectual life of the country at a low standard, it would have been a good thing for the nation. We should have been a better nation to-day, and when to-day the people who happen to be in control at Cambridge keep the women out of the University at a time when we are bringing women increasingly into public life, we again shall be failing in our duty as representatives of the nation if we do not insist that this great opportunity for intellectual enrichment and comradeship is open as freely to women as it is to men.