LEAVE. FIRST READING. (Hansard, 8 May 1860)

LORD NAAS

said, he rose to move for leave to bring in a Bill to provide for the 884 uniform registration of births, deaths, and marriages in Ireland. The good effects of the kindred system of registration which had been established in England since 1836, were now fully appreciated, and he would remind them that the noble Lord who introduced the Bill in that year (Lord John Russell), was asked whether it was intended to extend its provisions to Ireland. The noble Lord said he was aware of the great importance of the inquiry, but he would rather wait and see the effect of the English Bill before he proposed to extend its provisions to Ireland. A quarter of a century had elapsed since that time, and therefore he (Lord Naas, hoped he might bespeak the favourable consideration of the noble Lord for the present measure. In Ireland the want of a system of registration of births, deaths, and marriages had been daily felt. For sanitary and medical purposes it had become almost indespensable; and was of no less importance for the elucidation of questions relating to the descent of property. The opinions of Mr. Armstrong, as cited in the Registrar General's third annual Report, of Mr. Howell, the inspector of factories, and finally, of Dr. Farr, who had considered this subject probably more than any man in England, were unanimous as to the inconveniences experienced in all these respects from the absence of such a system in Ireland. As, too, we were on the eve of taking the decennial census, it became important that not a moment should be lost in entertaining this question. At the International Statistical Congress held at Paris in 1855, the very highest authorities expressed their opinions strongly as to the want of such a system. Its absence indeed seemed incomprehensible to some gentlemen there present, who thought it must be in consequence of some unconquerable antipathy which England felt towards Ireland, whilst others had gone so far as to gravely state it as another proof of the extreme oppression exercised by one country over another, and to allege that it was not allowed for fear lest the Irish should believe they were of much more importance than they really were. Of all the nations of Europe there were only five not possessed of this statistical information—Spain, Greece, Hungary, Turkey, and Ireland—and of these the first four were certainly not the most civilized, or indeed, celebrated for progress of any kind whatever. Even in the States of the Church an accurate account was 885 taken every year of the population. The want was the more remarkable, as in Ireland they had the most complete system of statistics upon every other subject of any nation in the world. There was, first, the Ordnance survey, then a property valuation giving the value and size of almost every tenement in the country, there were agricultural statistics furnished yearly, and criminal and police law statistics, conducted in the best and most accurate manner; and it really only required a system of returns of births, marriages, and deaths, to make the information complete. The means by which he proposed to carry out this system of registration were less expensive and more simple than the method employed in England. In Ireland the only registration at present existing was with respect to Protestant marriages solemnized by ministers of the Established Church, or of the Protestant Dissenters. He proposed to extend the registration to those celebrated by the Roman Catholic clergy. The registration of births and deaths he proposed to take in a different way from the marriages. As to them he availed himself of the present registration districts, and proposed to make the present registrars of marriages the registrars for the district. He also proposed that the Lord Lieutenant should have power to appoint the chief constable at each station of the constabulary an assistant registrar. Thus they would have 1,700 assistant registrars scattered over the whole country, there being about that number of constabulary stations in Ireland. The Registrar General would distribute the necessary books to these constables, with proper instructions for making the entries. It was not proposed that the constables should keep any papers of importance, but that they should forward them at intervals to the registrar of the district, who after taking transcripts should forward the original documents to the Registrar General. As to marriages, the Registrar General was to furnish the officiating clergyman of every Roman Catholic place of worship with the necessary documents for affording this information. These would all be filled up in duplicate by the clergyman, who was to retain them until they were filled up, when one of the copies was to be sent to the Registrar General, and the other to be retained in the clergyman's hands. Beyond that it was proposed that the Registrar General should furnish every quarter certified copies of the necessary statistical 886 information for the year, and that he should publish in the usual way the information which he had thus received. Then, as to the payments; he proposed that every Assistant Registrar, that is to say, the constable, should receive for every birth registered by him 6d.; the registrar for every transcript he made 1d.; for every entry of marriage sent to the Registrar General, 2d. Every clergyman authorized to register marriages for so doing was to receive for each the sum of 1s. These and other small fees would be defrayed to the extent of about £9,000 a year out of the Consolidated Fund, and to about an equal extent out of the local rates; the whole expense being under £20,000 a year. These were the main provisions of the Bill. There were also clauses providing for the registration of persons born at sea, and an important clause enabling persons already married, and where marriages were not properly registered, to become registered. He should be most happy to receive any suggestion that might be made for the improvement of the Bill. It had been carefully prepared by persons well acquainted with the subject, and he sincerely hoped that Ireland would not be left another year without a proper system of registration.

§ MR. CARDWELL

said, he was extremely glad that the noble Lord continued to take, in an independent position, the same interest in this subject that he did when in office. The noble Lord had had the honour of laying upon the table the first Bill that was ever proposed to remedy the great want that was now experienced of a registration in Ireland. He concurred with the noble Lord in regarding this as a matter of great importance, not merely in a scientific point of view, but as affecting the interests of the poor of Ireland, who might often be called on to prove the place of their birth in making out a title to legacies left them, perhaps in the Colonies or the United States of America. He was glad the noble Lord had introduced the subject, and he hoped the present Session would not pass over without some measure or other in connection with it being carried into a law. The subject had occupied a great deal of attention and consideration in Ireland, and two plans had been prepared. One was that of the noble Lord, which proposed mainly to effect a system of registration through the aid of the constabulary, and the other was somewhat more analogous to the system adopted in 887 England and Scotland—namely, to obtain the desired information by means of the services of the local authorities, the clerks of the unions, and medical officers employed in the various districts. Ireland possessed a system of medical relief more complete almost than that of any other country. It had more than 700 medical districts, and the total number of dispensaries exceeded 1,000. It was therefore a great question whether it would not be expedient to enlist, in the aid of the Government in collecting the statistical information necessary for a complete registration, the scientific knowledge of the medical profession. It was proposed that, ordinarily under the Registrar General in Dublin, the clerks of the unions should be the registrars; and the information with regard to births and deaths should be collected by the medical officers for each of the dispensary districts. As regarded marriages, it was proposed that the law should remain as it was so far as the marriages of Protestants were involved. With regard to Roman Catholic and other marriages, a machinery very like that proposed by his noble Friend would have to be introduced. He must say he did not think the employment of the constabulary would be so good a machinery as that to which he had referred. In the first place, he presumed that they would proceed in this matter on the basis of the system which prevailed in England—that whatever was paid for out of the Consolidated Fund in England, would be paid for out of the Consolidated Fund in Ireland, and that whatever was paid for by local rating in England, would be paid for by local rating in Ireland. If that was to be the rule, the largest portion of the expenditure would fall upon the local rates; and by adopting the machinery proposed by the noble Lord (Lord Naas), that of the constabulary, it appeared to him (Mr. Cardwell) that they would at the outset experience a difficulty in employing the constabulary, who were paid out of the Consolidated Fund. In the next place, he was not sure whether it would be agreeable that all information should be communicated to the police; and, thirdly, they were liable at any moment to be called away upon other duties. If, on the other hand, they adopted the machinery of the Poor-law medical officers, they would have the local funds paid to persons appointed by local authorities, and who were in constant communication with the ratepayers. It seemed to him that upon the whole 888 there were very great merits in both plans, but he was inclined to think that the preponderance was in favour of the plan for entrusting it to the local authorities. He would now give notice that in the course of the week, he would lay upon the table a Bill which had been prepared before the present Session, but which from press of public business he had been prevented from earlier introducing, and which was based upon the plan of local management and entrusting the working of the system to local officers. The House would then have both plans before it, and his anxiety would be that one or other of those plans in the course of the present Session should pass into law. If he should have reason to believe that the plan of the noble Lord met with more general approbation, he should have every assistance which he (Mr. Cardwell) could give him, in carrying that measure into effect. He sincerely trusted that the Session would not pass without having provided some means of keeping up, by detailed information, coupled with a scientific application of that information, a complete record of the whole movements of the population and the social progress of Ireland.