COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 29 April 1858)

§ MR. BIGGS
moved the insertion of the words "by which places under local Acts were included in the operation of the Bill."

§ MR. SOTHERON ESTCOURT
suggested that the title of the Bill should be 2002 altered to one more in accordance with the real objects which the measure sought to effect. The Bill was called a Poor Law Amendment Bill, a title which was calculated to cause some alarm; but persons interested would be surprised to learn that its only object was to preserve certain municipal rights to persons rated at sums between £6 and £20. He should hereafter object to the title of the Bill, and endeavour to give it one which would more truly describe its objects. It ought to be called a Bill to prevent certain parties from being disfranchised, &c.

§ MR. CROSS
said, he should be happy to meet the wishes of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the title of the Bill, he would state the reason for its being required. By an old Act of George III. parish vestries had power to rate the owners of all houses of the value between £6 and £20, instead of the occupiers. Then, by the Municipal Corporation Act, it was enacted that no one should have a vote whoso name was not on the ratebook, and who had paid his rates; 80 that persons who were the occupiers of houses rated between £6 and £20 under Sturges Bourne's Act had no vote. Then came the Small Tenements Act of 13 & 14 Vic, by which the same power was given to parish vestries to rate the owners instead of the occupiers of all houses below the value of £6; but on the last stage of that Bill a clause was brought up by the present Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, by which it was enacted that the occupiers of houses rated under £6 should be entitled to votes, notwithstanding that the owners were rated and not the occupiers. The consequence was, that when both these Acts were in operation, occupiers of houses under £6 value had votes in municipal elections, but occupiers of houses of a value between £6 and £20 had none. It was to remedy this anomaly that the Bill was introduced.

§ MR. SPOONER
said, he should wish to have an explanation as to the effect of the Amendment proposed. They were taken by surprise by the measure itself. Was he to understand the local Acts were to be overridden by the present measure?

§ MR. SOTHERON ESTCOURT
said, he approved of the object sought to be attained; but he thought that they ought to have had some notice of the objects of the Bill as well as the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman. He could assure his hon. Friend (Mr. Spooner) that the question 2003 raised by the Amendment was not one whether the present Bill, if passed, was to override the local Acts, but it was to remedy an anomaly in the existing law which they would all admit should not exist, and by which persons in a superior station were deprived of privileges enjoyed by those of an inferior station. It was his (Mr. S. Estcourt's) opinion that occupiers of property who did not pay rates should not be entitled to vote at all; but that was not the question before them.

§ MR. SOTHERON ESTCOURT
hoped that some little interval of time would be allowed to elapse before the next stage was taken.

§ MR. CROSS
proposed to take the next stage that day fortnight. He begged to state, that in the Bill as he introduced it, there was no mention of local Acts.

§ MR. SPOONER
asked for further explanation as to the Amendment. It appeared to him somewhat extraordinary how the local Acts got into the clause. The author of the Bill had not introduced them, nor the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board.

§ MR. BIGGS
said, he had suggested the addition, and his object was simply to make the Bill as general as possible. There were thousands of people in different parts of the country who were governed by local Acts, and who would, therefore, be excluded from the operation of this Bill if the words he moved were not inserted in the clause.