COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 11 April 1859)

§ MR. AYRTON
said, he did not know whether the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had been called to the language of this clause. In his opinion the offences to which it referred were defined in very vague and general terms, and every person who entered a railway train with a return ticket would be liable at any period of his journey, under the loose wording, to be apprehended and imprisoned by officers of railway companies. He would move as an Amendment to the clause that any railway company should issue any ticket for the purpose of being used by any person named thereon, with the words "not transferable," and that any other person who should use such ticket, or should sell or transfer it for the purpose of being used, or should alter the name thereon, should be guilty of the offence. It would be most improper to clothe a railway company with so large a power as was proposed, and allow their servants to seize any poor person travelling on the line and lock him up as they pleased, especially when it was remembered that a person thus treated would have no redress, unless he could show that the company had no reasonable ground for seizing him.

§ MR. SOTHERON ESTCOURT
said, that undoubtedly the words of the Act were very wide, but the simple fact was that the offence of selling railway tickets had recently been one of continual recurrence, and it had been thought necessary that some precautions should be taken to protect the railway companies. At the same time it was very desirable they should not go beyond what the justice of the case demanded. Perhaps the best course would be for the hon. Member to give notice of and print his Amendments. If that were done, the Government would consent to postpone the Committee until to-morrow, in order to consider the substitution of the words proposed.

§ SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBY
said, there appeared to be a power given, not only to the officials and servants of a railway company, but to all other persons, "to seize, apprehend, and detain." That was a very extensive and extraordinary power, and he trusted the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General would consider the point with a view to its omission.

§ COLONEL FRENCH
said, he would appeal to the Government whether it was necessary that the Bill should pass at all, it haying been understood that only measures of an urgent nature should be pressed.

MR. EDWIN JAMES
said, he thought his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General could hardly have seen the provisions of this Bill. It was true that in one case it was discovered that a number of persons had conspired to procure excursion tickets at Brighton from persons who had gone down with them from London, for the purpose of selling them to others; but the case having been distinctly proved, the parties were very properly convicted and punished. If this Bill passed, however, a person who had innocently enough given his child, or relative, or servant, an excursion ticket would be liable to be seized and taken before a magistrate, and his name, probably, placarded all over the country, in the same manner as the names of parties who smoked in the railway carriages were. He certainly thought it would be advisable under the circumstances to withdraw the measure.

§ MR. HENLEY
said, the clause went further even than the hon. Member for Evesham (Sir Henry Willoughby) supposed. It empowered any railway servant or constable, or anybody else, to apprehend anybody charged with this offence at any time or in any place. Surely no one but a person connected with a railway could have drawn such a clause. Ordinarily, power was only given to seize anybody actually committing such offences, but railway companies under this clause might send a constable, fetch anybody out of this House, and lock him up as long as was convenient. There was certainly nothing in the Statute-book which could at all come near it. He trusted that the Bill would be amended in that respect, at all events.

§ LORD LOVAINE
said, he must agree that the terms of the Act were certainly very large, but it must be remembered the provisions by which the railway companies 1614 were to be guarded were the very same as those inserted in the 104th section of the Railway Clauses Consolidation Act. Of course, if the Committee thought the Bill had better be postponed, for the consideration of the clause of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, he should have no objection to the postponement.

§ MR. AYRTON
said, that in the Act referred to the offences dealt with were offences committed on the line of railway; but in the present instance the offence might be committed anywhere, because a railway ticket could he given away in any locality. As this was a Bill which had come down from the other House of Parliament he wished to treat it with every respect, but under the circumstances he felt he should be justified in asking the Chairman to report progress, in order to enable the Government to consider whether it would not be advisable to withdraw it.

§ MR. ALDERMAN SALOMONS
said, he objected both to the power and the penalty created by this clause. Was the principle to be carried further? Were gentlemen to be made responsible who gave away the tickets on coming out of the Opera? The proper course to deal with persons offending in this way was to compel them to pay full fare, or in default to hand them over to a constable. He was surprised that a measure so lax in its provisions should ever have passed "another place."

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL
said, that he thought the history of this Bill was not clearly understood. What had taken place was this:—Several lines of railway had year after year given the public greater facilities for travelling, in the shape of return and excursion tickets, and it was very evident that they must discontinue that kind of accommodation if it became a source of loss to them from the manner in which parties dealt with the tickets. Under these circumstances, one or two railway companies who came to Parliament this year inserted clauses in their Bills for the purpose of checking the improper use of these tickets; but it was objected by the noble Lord who had charge of such Bills in "another place," that as the matter was one which concerned the public generally it ought to form the subject of a general measure, and accordingly this Bill was introduced in the House of Lords. He agreed with the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets that it was impossible on any sound principle to allow any power of the 1615 kind asked for, except in cases where the tickets were marked on the back as not transferable. A party getting hold of a ticket so marked second-hand would at once know that he would be making an improper use of the ticket if he attempted to travel with it. He was therefore inclined to concur in any alteration which should confine this clause to tickets marked "not transferable;" but he thought if they went further and insisted upon having the name of the holder inscribed, it would be tantamount to saying that no excursion tickets should be issued by railway companies at all. As to the powers of apprehension, he admitted they were much too wide; but it must be remembered that, unless they gave the railway officials some power of immediate action, so as to enable them to stop a person on the spot, they would have but little chance of checking the abuse complained of. Under these circumstances he thought, after making an alteration confining the clause to cases of tickets "not transferable," and in some degree curtailing the larger powers which were given by the latter part of the provision, that it would even be for the interest of the public, as well as the railway companies, the Bill should pass without any further delay. With that view he quite concurred in the proposal to report progress, in order that the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets might be considered.

§ COLONEL FRENCH
said, the explanation of the hon. and learned Gentleman appeared to him to render it desirable that the Bill should not pass into law this Session. For any accommodation given by the railway companies to the public they largely consulted their own interests. By this Bill, however, if a person picked the pocket of another of an excursion ticket, the original holder, who was entirely innocent, would be liable to punishment. This was certainly not consulting the interest of the public. He thought the Bill ought not be allowed to go a step further.

§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTON
said, it was no doubt extremely desirable that the frauds complained of should, as far as possible, be prevented, and the offenders punished. He could not, however, help thinking that great difficulty would be experienced in proceeding in the matter as was proposed. Two or three hundred persons, for instance, might take return tickets to Brighton or any other place on the Saturday. James Thompson, or any other person, might re- 1616 turn on the following Monday, and might or might not be the same individual who procured the ticket at London Bridge on Saturday morning. How, he should like to know, were the railway officers to be able to identify him? Great inconvenience and uncertainty would, in his opinion, be the result of the passing of the clause in its present shape, and it ought therefore, he thought, to be amended and due notice given of such alterations as it was proposed to introduce into it. Let him take, for instance, the case of theatres. A person on leaving a theatre during the performance received a cheque which entitled him to readmission if he pleased to return; was there any law in existence, he should wish to be informed, which precluded the occurrence of frauds in that respect? For his own part, he believed that although the principle of the Bill was right in the abstract, yet it could not be carried out without considerable annoyance, and that being his view of the case he should prefer seeing the remedy for the frauds which were said to exist left in the hands of the parties immediately interested.

§ MR. AYRTON
said, railway tickets were issued generally to bearer, and not to any particular person, and, consequently, there could be no identity of any person. The railways were left free. They were not bonnd to do anything, or give notice of anything. He hoped the noble Lord who had charge of the Bill would review the clauses of it from beginning to the end.

§ COLONEL WILSON PATTEN
was of opinion that if the offences against which it was meant to provide were not of common occurrence, it was better that the risk of their being committed should be allowed to continue than that it should be sought to prevent them in the manner proposed. The case of theatres, which had been adverted to by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, he did not think at all analogous to that of railway companies, and he was informed that it was a constant practice for persons to take return tickets to Brighton and there sell them at a cheap rate, thereby defrauding the company to a considerable extent. If that were so, then Parliament was bound to make some provision against such frauds being committed. While these were his views on the subject, however, he could not regard the Bill under discussion as having been drawn up in a satisfactory manner, inasmuch as he concurred with his right hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) that un- 1617 der its operation, as it at present stood, anybody might seize on his neighbour, even at his own dinner table, on the charge of having committed a fraud.

§ ALDERMAN SALOMONS
said, he thought it was the duty of the House to protect railway companies from being defrauded. At the same time a Bill of this kind ought not to be forced through the House in such baste. The Bill was so closely worded that even in the interest of the companies themselves the noble Lord would do well not to persevere with it. In his opinion some means should be provided for dealing with cases summarily, so that persons should not be locked up all night.

§ LORD LOVAINE
said, the reason why the Bill had been introduced was on account of the frequent occurrence of the frauds it was intended to check, and he could not help remarking that a person accused of this offence would be in a similar position to any other person who was accused of an offence; it would be open to him to prove his innocence before a magistrate. As, however, it was certainly understood that no measures would be proceeded with except such as were of a pressing character, he thought it was inexpedient for him, under the circumstances, to proceed any further with this Bill. He would therefore consent to the right hon. Gentleman leaving the chair.

§ MR. AYRTON
withdrew his Amendment.