§ Order for Third Reading read.
§ Bill re-committed in respect of a New Clause.
§ Bill considered in Committee.
§ (In the Committee.)
§ MR. LABOUCHERE (Northampton)I beg to move the insertion of the following clause:—
Where a returning officer has, pursuant to the provisions of the principal Act, required security to be given for the charges payable in respect of an election, he shall, on being paid the charges under this section, forthwith pay back to the person or persons entitled to same the sum or sums which have been deposited with him as such security.
§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCK (Whitehaven)I strongly protest against this clause; but before giving practical effect to my opposition I will wait until the Bill has reached its next stage.
§ Question, "That the new Clause be added to the Bill," put, and agreed to.
§ Schedule 2.
§ MR. RITCHIE (Tower Hamlets, St. George's)said, it was advisable that the Committee should reconsider the decision which the House had arrived at a few 1669 nights ago, and by which an alteration of the law was effected, throwing the cost of the Returning Officer's charges on the rates. The Bill, when originally introduced, never contemplated any such alteration of the law. Whatever the opinion of individual Members might be as to the desirableness of carrying out this alteration, he thought there would be but one opinion that such an alteration ought only to be carried out after thorough deliberation by the House. No such deliberation had been exercised in this case, and he now moved that the 2nd Schedule be omitted.
§ Amendment proposed to omit Schedule 2.—(Mr. Ritchie.)
§ Question proposed, "That Schedule 2 stand part of the Bill."
§ MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)observed that a great deal of time had been spent on this question, and he believed there was a considerable agreement on both sides of the House with respect to it. He hoped the House would not agree to the Amendment. It had received the support of Her Majesty's Government, and was not by any means a new principle. Mr. Fawcett, in 1874, introduced a Bill similar in its character to the present measure.
§ SIR JOHN GORST (Chatham)said, he must deny that there was any agreement on both sides of the House on this question. If this provision was allowed to pass, Her Majesty's Government must take the sole responsibility of its passing. He had always been in the main favourable to the principle of the constituency paying the necessary expenses of the election; but he never dreamt of suggesting that that principle should be hastily adopted by Parliament in its expiring days. The persons most affected by this proposed change in the law had had no opportunity of expressing their opinions on the matter. It was desirable that the ratepayers should have an opportunity of considering the question, and Parliament should wait until it had a clear statement on the part of the ratepayers that they were willing to accept the burden.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR (Donegal, E.)said, he believed that the Government would not feel their responsibility in this matter overwhelming. On a question of Order, he asked whether, having passed Sections 2, 3, 4, and 5 of 1670 the Bill, it was now competent for an hon. Member to move to omit this Schedule? If the Schedule were omitted and nothing proposed in substitution, the Bill would be reduced to an absurdity.
§ MR. SPEAKERsaid, there was nothing contrary to Order in moving the omission of the Schedule, because another Schedule might be brought up in substitution, or if the Schedule was struck out consequential changes might be made in the portions of the Bill to which the hon. Member called attention.
§ SIR TREVOR LAWRENCE (Surrey, Reigate)said, that if the country was going to be, as seemed probable, subjected to the trouble of elections closely following one another, a heavy burden would be thrown on the ratepayers. He protested against this provision passing into law in the closing days of an expiring Parliament.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes 97; Noes 65: Majority 32.—(Div. List, No. 132.)
§ Bill read the third time, and passed.