A promise had been made, but, at the beginning of March 1902, it was by no means certain that it would be kept. ‘Ferula’ conceded that, with the Boer War still in progress, the toga was likely to yield to the sword. No bill had been tabled and Mr Balfour only ‘hoped’ to table it before Whitsuntide. Nevertheless, the King's promise and Balfour's hope had been sufficient to prevent the moving of an amendment to the Address:

Macnamara made clear what the NUT intended in an article in the March New Liberal Review. He began by claiming that if the Bill lived up to the promise of the Speech from the Throne, it would have no more ardent supporter than himself. The duplication of educational effort by boards and county authorities was wasteful, overlapped and failed to provide coordination. What the Government would attempt to do was to insist that the municipal councils would be the Education Authorities in each locality. But what would happen to the school boards?, he asked.