ACTS OF PARLIAMENT ABBREVIATION ACT REPEAL BILL. (Hansard, 16 June 1851)

§ MR. JOHN STUART
moved the Third Reading of the above Bill. It was impossible, he contended, to keep the Act which it was intended to repeal on the Statute-book. That it had signally failed, even the Acts passed during the present Session had proved. By the 4th section of the Act, it was provided, that all words importing the masculine gender should also be taken to include females; and all words of the singular number should also mean the plural. Now that section had excited the greatest alarm, and might be productive of the greatest inconvenience. It included all Acts, past as well as future. How would that section operate with respect to the Reform Bill for instance? On referring to it he found that every male person paying rent, and occupying a house of a certain value, should be entitled to a vote. According to the Act, however, which he was then asking the House to repeal, that clause should mean every female person also, and the consequence would be that females would be entitled to vote. Another singular property of the Act was this—it destroyed all distinction between private and public Acts of Parliament, and yet how many private Acts were passed, settling estates on the issue male of some particular person; and now by this Act, though contrary to the intention of the parties, female issue would be included. Could a more monstrous absurdity be palmed off on the House in an unguarded moment than this Act of Parliament? They had already passed Prison Discipline Acts with specific regulations for the different sexes; and how would the Act be applied there? Even this very Session one of the last Acts which had received the Royal assent—he meant the Income Tax Act—would be very materially and seriously affected if the singular word, "one" year, was to be taken to mean many years. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: Hear, hear!] The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to be pleased with that interpretation. Although the Act professed to be one to shorten the language of Acts of Parliament, he did not find it to have that effect, for the wording of Acts during the present Session was as long as on any former occasion. There were sections in the Act which did not seem to him calculated to shorten the wording of Acts of Parliament. On consulting 844 his hon. and learned Friend the Master of the Rolls on that subject, the latter had admitted that the Act might be objectionable; but as he had not time himself to consider its repeal, he had referred him (Mr. Stuart) to a learned Friend, with whom he had carefully gone over the Act; and that gentleman had also been sensible of the absurdity and inconvenience of most of the clauses of the Act. Were it necessary, he could show the House that Lord Denman, Justice Patteson, and Justice Coleridge, had expressed the strongest objections to this system of legislation, which affected to settle beforehand the signification of future Acts of Parliament. He hoped, if the hon. and learned Attorney General should attempt to legislate on this principle, it would be done with more care than had attended the Act in question. He would not detain the House at that late hour (past one o'clock) by going further into details. He was convinced of the good intentions of those who had introduced the Act; but he should say it was framed without care, and not even in a manner to carry out their views. In fact, no man could hereafter decide upon the construction of an Act of Parliament unless he had that Act by heart, or at least a copy of it in his pocket. He had received numerous complaints from many respectable legal friends of the difficulty which the Act caused them. Even if the principle of the Act were to be carried out hereafter, let it be so, and let it be done carefully and advisedly; but for the present he would ask them to repeal the Act by agreeing to the third reading of the Bill then before them.

The ATTORNEY GENERAL
must oppose the third reading of the Bill, which he believed to be one of a most mischievous tendency. The Act referred to had not emanated from the Government, but had been originated in the other House of Parliament, where it had the sanction of the highest legal authority. The Act appeared to him a most useful one as tending to abridge the verbosity of Acts of Parliament generally. His hon. and learned Friend (Mr. J. Stuart) had referred to a conversation he had had with the right hon. and learned Master of the Rolls on the subject; but so far as he could form an idea of that right hon. Gentleman's opinion, it would seem to be tolerably plain, 845 for the right hon. and learned Gentleman had a notice on the paper that the present Bill should be read a third time that day six months whenever his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. J. Stuart's) Motion should be brought on. On referring to the first four clauses of the Act, he found that they were of a highly useful character. As to the provision by which in terms meaning the masculine gender the feminine gender was included, and in the plural number the singular, this was a provision of almost invariable occurrence in statutes. It was really a most unaccountable supposition that this provision in the Act under consideration would enable females to vote at Parliamentary elections; and as to the alleged retrospective effect of the Act, its very terms were that it was to apply to future legislation. Then there was a provision that when an Act repealing other Acts was itself repealed, it should not ipso facto revive those repealed Acts. This section prevented a manifest inconvenience. The next was a provision relating to the same matter. Then it was provided that every Act should be deemed a public Act, unless the contrary should be expressly enacted. This was always inserted in all Acts, and the object of the Act was to prevent the necessity of perpetually inserting that provision. His hon. and learned Friend apprehended that this would tend to destroy the distinction between public and private Acts; but it would always be easy, when it was not intended to be a public Act, to insert a provision to that effect. This was also intended to prevent the necessity of perpetually repeating the usual clause in all Acts of Parliament. In short, he regarded the Act which his hon. and learned Friend sought to repeal as the first step towards improving the language of Acts of Parliament; and if there were any imperfections in it, nothing would have been easier than for his hon. and learned Friend to have brought in a Bill to amend it, instead of asking the House to repeal it altogether. He had also some reason to complain of his hon. and learned Friend, in pressing the third reading of his Bill at so late an hour, and in the absence of his right hon. and learned Friend the Master of the Rolls; and would therefore move that the Bill be read a third time that day six months.

§ MR. STANFORD
must say, that he had understood that the right hon. and learned Master of the Rolls was favourable to the Bill, and that he had supported it on the second reading. He therefore thought it was rather extraordinary that the Government should take the course now pursued. Something had been said about ladies having a vote under the present statute. For his own part, he did not apprehend such a contingency, nor, if it did arrive, would he fear it. He could not support the Motion of the hon. and I learned Member (Mr. J. Stuart), because he did share his apprehensions; but he must, in justice to the hon. and learned Member, confirm his statement of the inconsistent course taken by the right hon. and learned Master of the Rolls.

§ MR. JOHN STUART
, in reply, said, that the hon. and learned Attorney General had not satisfied the House upon the impolicy or needlessness of the measure he now proposed. No reason whatever had been advanced by the hon. and learned Attorney General to justify his opposition to this Bill, or to satisfy the House that the Act, for the repeal of which it was brought in, was one that ought to be suffered to remain on the Statute-book.

List of the AYES.
Barrington, Visct.	Miles, W.
Barrow, W. H.	Mullings, J. R.
Bennet, P.	Naas, Lord
Boldero, H. G.	Portal, M.
Dunne, Col.
Galway, Visct.	TELLERS.
Henley, J. W.	Stuart, J.
Hope, Sir J.	Spooner, R.

List of the NOES.
Baines, rt. hon. M. T.	Dundas, Adm.
Baring, rt. hon. Sir F.T.	Dundas, rt. hon. Sir D.
Bell, J.	Edwards, H.
Bellow, R. M.	Elliot, hon. J. E.
Berkeley, C. L. G.	Evans, W.
Blair, S.	Ferguson, Sir R. A.
Booth, Sir R. G.	Goold, W.
Brocklehurst, J.	Grey, rt. hon. Sir G.
Brotherton, J.	Grey, R. W.
Bunbury, E. H.	Hatchell, rt. hon. J.
Carew, W. H. P.	Hawes, B.
Carter, J. B.	Hayter, rt. hon. W. G.
Cavendish, hon. G. H.	Herbert, H. A.
Cayley, E. S.	Heywood, J.
Childers, J. W. G.	Hill, Lord M.
Cowper, hon. W. F.	Hobhouse, T. B.
Craig, Sir W.	Hodges, T. L.
Crawford, W. S.	Hollond, R.
Duncan, G.	Kershaw, J.

Labouchere, rt. hen. H.	Sidney, Ald.
Lewis, G. C.	Somerville, rt. hn. Sir W.
Martin, J.	Spearman, H. J.
Matheson, Col.	Stanton, W. H.
Muntz, G. F.	Thicknesse, R. A.
Norreys, Sir D. J.	Thompson, Col.
Paget, Lord C.	Tyler, Sir G.
Palmerston, Visct.	Wakley, T.
Parker, J.	Wilson, J.
Patten, J. W.	Wilson, M.
Pilkington, J.	Wood, rt. hon. Sir C.
Ricardo, O.	Wrightson, W. B.
Rich, H.
Salwey, Col.	TELLERS.
Scholefield, W.	Cockburn, Sir A.
Seymour, Lord	Wood, Sir W.