§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ MR. VINCENT SCULLYsaid, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland would postpone this measure until Irish Members had an opportunity of consulting their constituents. [An hon. MEMBER: The Bill is merely a copy of that which was passed last Session for England.] He was aware of that, and he begged to say that the Roman Catholic Members of that House entertained strong objections to that measure, because it gave too great facilities to the county magistrates to proselytise the children who might be sent to the juvenile reformatories. He should have been very glad to have seen a Bill brought forward in common to both England and Ireland. Special clauses could then have been introduced to have met the case of Ireland. In England, Roman Catholics formed a very small portion of the community, but Ireland was an essentially Roman Catholic country, and it was not just to place such powers in the hands of magistrates whose religious opinions were, in the main, opposed to those of the great mass of the people. What would be the effect of the Bill in Ireland? He understood that, with the permission of the Lord Lieutenant, any person might open a reformatory school, subject to certain rules and regulations. He understood, too, that to carry out these reformatory schools properly, there must be Protestant, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic Schools; for if the principle were not based upon religion it would entirely fail. By the third section of the Bill, magistrates could order juvenile offenders convicted before them to any reformatory school, and the only protection there was against Roman Catholic children being sent to Protestant reformatory schools was, that the Lord Lieutenant might remove any juvenile offender from one reformatory school to another, which, 496 in practice, was no protection at all. Such a question would not be likely to arise in England; but in Ireland it was different, for the magistrates there frequently differed in religious opinions from the offenders who were brought before them, besides which, prejudice might have more sway in Ireland than it would be allowed to have in England. Altogether, he (Mr. V. Scully) thought that the Bill should not be pressed to a second reading, and the principle of it absolutely confirmed, before Irish Members had had time to communicate with their constituents on the subject. For these reasons, he must ask that the second reading of the Bill should be postponed.
§ MR. KENNEDYsaid, he wished to press upon those having the charge of the Bill the advisability of having an initiatory measure to reform the condition of the masses in Ireland with respect to industrial institutions. They should consider, that in these reformatory schools juvenile offenders were maintained and instructed in a better manner than those who had committed no offence could be in the workhouses or national schools; and such being the case, whether, in the present condition of the poor in Ireland, these schools might not hold out a premium to crime. He did not wish to impede the progress of the measure, but he thought, at the same time, that some adequate provision should be made for the industrial education of the general poor in Ireland.
§ MR. HORSMANsaid, that if he fancied that there was anything new in the principle of the measure before the House, he should not press the second reading of the Bill on the present occasion. The great principle of the Bill was, that there should be reformatory schools in Ireland. As far as he understood the objections of the hon. and learned Member for Cork (Mr. Scully) they were—that the Bill gave power to magistrates to send Roman Catholic children to Protestant reformatory schools, and vice versâ, and that the schools might be made instruments for proselytism. If that objection really existed, it would be as strongly felt by Her Majesty's Government as by any hon. Members of that House. When the House went into Committee on the Bill, the hon. and learned Member might bring forward that or any other objections that might reach him from Ireland, and suggest any plans to provide against the danger he apprehended, and the Government would do all they could to remove 497 any grievance that might exist. He proposed that the second reading of the Bill should now be taken, but, at the same time, he was quite willing to delay going into Committee upon the Bill for a fortnight, or even for a longer period, if it was so wished.
§ MR. MAGUIREsaid, he had little faith in the assurances of Government, but still he believed that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland was anxious to make the Bill as perfect as he could. The Bill itself was little more than a reprint of the Scotch and English Bills. The Scotch Bill was persisted in against the wishes of many Irish Members, who feared that its provisions might be turned into proselytising purposes. The Irish Members at last drove the Government into a corner, and the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate on the opposite side, with the late Mr. Lucas, himself (Mr. Maguire), and some others, entered into a solemn compact that a clause should be placed in the Bill providing against that danger. To his great surprise that clause was never introduced. In Ireland there was a great rage for proselytism, and religion and charity very often masqueraded themselves in that country in a very strange garb. He knew several people kind and good, and others perhaps not so, who made great sacrifices for the purpose of extending ragged schools. They could not break down the faith of higher and better fed people, so they picked up the very scrapings of the streets, and added them to the list of members of the Established Church. No doubt the Bill was necessary, and Bills of this kind were of the utmost service. The Government had done a merciful thing in bringing in the Bill, but he implored them not to throw a bone of contention amongst the religious parties in Ireland by pressing on the measure without the protective provisions he had referred to. Under these circumstances, the responsibility would fall on the Government if they did not adopt the suggestion of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. V. Scully), or frame a stringent clause to protect the religion of the children in these institutions.
§ Bill read 2°.