§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONI wish, Sir, with the permission of the House, to give notice of the course which the Government propose to take in consequence of the vote at which the House arrived last Friday 3 evening on the subject of Flogging in the Army. I feel sure that hon. Members on either side will not for a moment suspect the Government of any intentional disrespect towards the House when I say that, whatever the merits of the ease 'may be, one way or the other, considering the importance of this question and the extent to which it affects military discipline, the Government cannot regard a majority of in a House of 215 Members as a deliberate expression of the opinion of the House of Commons. Sir, it is therefore our intention to insert the usual clause in the Mutiny Bill, giving the power of punishing by flogging in the army in certain cases. I wish to give this notice in all fairness to hon. Gentlemen opposite; and I shall leave it to the hon. Member for Chatham (Mr. Otway), and the other hon. Members who supported his Motion on this subject, to move to expunge that clause from the Mutiny Bill if they think fit.
CAPTAIN VIVIANsaid, he would beg to ask when the right hon. Gentleman proposes to go into Committee on the Mutiny Bill? The House, he thought, ought to receive due notice of that.
§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONI am not able at this moment to name the day, but due notice of it shall be given.
MR. OTWAYwished to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the clause he proposed to insert in the Mutiny Bill, authorizing the infliction of corporal punishment, was the usual clause in that Act, or—as he thought he gathered from his remarks—a clause restricting that punishment in some further sense than had hitherto been the case?
§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONThe course I intend to follow, and which I thought I had clearly announced to the House, is to insert in the Mutiny Bill the same clause on this subject which it has been usual to insert in it.