§ Mr. Bernalbrought up the report on the Municipal Elections Bill.
§ The Attorney-Generalproposed to omit clause 5. It was not that he disapproved of the clause—quite the reverse, but the introduction of it into the Bill would, he feared, have the effect of inducing the Lords to throw out the Bill altogether.
§ Mr. Hawkinssaid, he did not see the utility of leaving out the clause because the Lords were not likely to assent to it this Session. They would not be more 1214 likely to agree to it next session. After what had passed elsewhere last night on the subject of the Registration of Voters Bill, he took for granted that that Bill would not pass this session. He found that opinion confirmed by the hon. Member who had been the father of the Bill in that House. Now, if this clause should be struck out, and if no Registration of Voters Bill should be passed this session, half a dozen places in England would have no returning officer at all. As there could be no possible objection to the clause, it appeared to him that the proper course would be to send it up to the House of Lords, and let it take its chance there.
§ The Attorney-Generalsaid, that all this would be very well, and he would have no objection to such a course, if the Lords would merely throw out the clause, and pass the Bill. But his apprehension was, that if they sent up the Bill with a new clause in it, the Lords would not allow it to be read a second time and sent to Committee, but would throw it out; altogether. What would become of Ipswich, Sunderland, and other places, if that should be done? They should send it up like the Newspaper Stamps' Bill, without any alteration, and then the Lords could not fail to pass it. He would suggest to the hon. Member for Newport, that when the Bill was in the Lords, it would be in the power of any noble Lord to move that this clause be added, and if it should then be added, and the Bill came down again in that shape to the Commons, he need not say that they would most joyfully accept it. If they sent up the Bill, however, with new matter in it, he was under the greatest apprehension that the Bill would be entirely lost. He hoped, therefore, that the hon. Member for Newport would not persevere in his opposition to the omission of the clause.
§ Mr. Hawkinssaid, that of course he would not, but he was sorry to find, from the statement of the learned Gentleman, that the introduction of such a clause could possibly endanger the Bill elsewhere.
§ The clause omitted. Report agreed to. Bill to be read a third time.