HC Deb 21 March 1861 vol 162 cc195-201

Order for Committee read.

House in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Clauses 1 to 21 agreed to.

Clause 22,

MR. WHITE

said, he rose to move the omission of this clause, which gave courts-martial the power of inflicting corporal punishments. He could not help thinking that as they were debarred from entertaining the question of Parliamentary or organic reform, they could not do better than consecrate the Session to social and administrative improvements; and that amelioration which he had the honour to introduce to the House was, of all others, the one which he believed the public were most anxious to see consummated. He did not arrogate to civilians a monopoly of humanity; on the contrary, he admitted there were many officers in the British army who were as distinguished for their humanity as for their gallantry. But still he maintained that many signal improve- ments in the administration of the army had sprung from the efforts of civilians. He regretted he had Dot on that occasion the valuable assistance of the hon. and gallant General the Member for Westminster (Sir De Lacy Evans), the cause of whose absence they all deplored. That gallant General on the Commission of 1836 had pronounced emphatically his opinion that corporal punishments were not only useless and inefficient but absolutely detrimental to the best interests of the service. Their tendency was to degrade and harden but not to reform the offenders, while they disgusted spectators and outraged public opinion. Besides which, doing full credit to the ameliorations introduced into the army by the illustrious Duke, the Commander-in-Chief, he was sorry to find that corporal punishments were on the increase. From a Return he held in his hand he found that in 1847, 42 men were flogged, and the number of lashes was 2,200; in 1852 there were 55 flogged, the number of lashes being 2,250; in 1858, including Militia, Royal Artillery and Engineers, there were 218 flogged, with 9,338 lashes; in 1859 there were 512 flogged, with 22,665 lashes. The average number of lashes per man in 1858 was 42; in 1859 the average per man was 44 and a quarter. In 1858 there was no flogging in 65 regiments, while in 1859 there were only 34 regiments that merited that honourable distinction. In 1858 there were 33 regiments, in 1859 30, in which only one man was flogged. In 1858 there were 17 regiments, in 1859 54, in which two men were flogged. In 1858 there were 7 regiments, in 1859 15, in which three men were flogged. In 1858 there were 6 regiments, in 1859 10, in which four men were flogged. In 1858 there were 3 regiments, and in 1859 3, in which five men were flogged; and in 1858 there were 12 regiments, and in 1859 32, in which more than five men were flogged. When they were so chary of inflicting corporal punishment on criminals it was an obstinate and unreasonable adherence to custom to continue the lash in the army. The punishment of flogging did not exist in the American, Prussian, or French armies; and now that they had incorporated the East India Company's troops with the Royal Army, it was a most invidious distinction that they could flog the British soldier whilst they could not flog the Sepoy. The argument that the abolition of flogging would subvert all discipline was used when it was proposed to reduce the number of lashes from 1,000 to 300; and yet not only had that reduction been safely effected, but the number had since been diminished to 50 with beneficial results. When he remembered that at one time there were no fewer than 250 capital offences, and that Judges were horrified at any attempt to lessen the severity of the laws, he could not cast any reflection on military officers who dreaded a change in the present system of punishment in the army, although he denied the soundness of their apprehensions. The noble Lord at the head of the War Department had admitted that the steady and well-disposed rarely entered the army, and that it was recruited from the young, the thoughtless, and the wild; but if it was desired to raise the character of our recruits, the very best way would be to get rid of this brutal and disgusting punishment. The experience of the last few months had shown that there was a latent military spirit in the country which only wanted cultivation; and he was convinced that the number of volunteers into our army would he adequate if this punishment were obliterated from our criminal code. He moved that the clause be omitted, because he held that the practice of corporal punishment was alike repugnant to common sense, and common humanity, and Christian ethics.

MR. W. WILLIAMS

seconded the Motion. There was no flogging in the army or the navy of France, and would anybody deny their efficiency? In the United States flogging had been abolished several years. In the Crimea the French soldiers looked with disdain upon our men because they were subjected to this degrading system of corporal punishment. Public opinion would insist upon its abolition.

MR. LOCKE

said, he should not have risen to address the Committee had not the hon. Member for Brighton asked him to second the Motion, which he (Mr. Locke) had promised to do, and which he should have done with the greatest pleasure. Whenever the question was brought forward, they were met by the argument that discipline in the British Army was better preserved than in other armies. He believed that arose from the circumstance that the British Army consisted of such excellent materials as it did. That, however, was no reason why such excellent materials should be flogged. He felt certain that the punishment was held in the greatest abhorrence by the working classes of the country by whom the army was recruited. It was a monstrous thing that this punishment, which was inflicted upon no criminals except upon convicted felons and children of tender years, should be employed against the gallant defenders of this country. The argument was that the discipline of the army would be destroyed. But was not the discipline of the army improved instead of lowered by the reduction of the number of lashes? Lord Eldon said he had long felt great doubts about Sir Robert Peel, but when he found him bringing forward measures for the reduction of penalties for criminal offences, he felt satisfied he was no longer to he trusted. But had the security of life and property in this country diminished by such reduction? On the contrary, it had greatly improved.

MR. T. G. BARING

said, he did not think that any exception could be taken to manner in which this Motion had been made, for the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Brighton (Mr. White) was a temperate one, and it was a proper occasion upon which to raise the question. But the matter seemed not to be generally understood, and certainly not by the hon. and learned Member for Southwark. What was the punishment of flogging ill the army at the present time? He (Mr. Locke) had dwelt on what he said must be the feelings of the working class, and their fear lest their relatives in the army should be subjected to so degrading a penalty. But the fact was that a soldier who had enlisted to serve Her Majesty could not he flogged for any offence he might commit, excepting for aggravated mutinous conduct, until he had previously been disrated from the first class. Now what were the offences for which he might be disrated? They were desertion, mutinous conduct, aggravated cases of insubordination and violence, drunkenness on duty or on the line of march, embezzling public money, stealing from a comrade, theft, designedly maiming, repeatedly making away with their arms, accoutrements, or ammunition, disgraceful acts showing vicious and unnatural propensities, and indecent assaults. Now a man found guilty of these offences was not for the first offence of that kind liable to corporal punishment, but he was put into the second class, after which, for a repetition of those offences he would be liable to it. And if the hon. and learned Member, when he next met his constituents, would explain that to them, he would find that the working men of his acquaintance were not afraid of their own friends ever subjecting themselves to the degrading punishment of flogging. The hon. Member for Brighton had read some figures and statistics on the matter. Those statistics naturally depended on the increase of the army, and on the circumstance that when a large and sudden increase of the army was made, many of the recruits would probably be of a worse description, and when there was a large bounty offered desertions would be more frequent. The statistics of the hon. Member, therefore, must not he accepted as showing that there was really an increase of flogging in the army; and the effect of that General Order which established the classification that he (Mr. Baring) had described, did not appear in the Returns quoted by the hon. Member for Brighton, having been in operation only a few weeks within the period they comprised. He could assure both those hon. Members that no one could be more anxious than Her Majesty's Government, and His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, to see flogging abolished in the army. He could not, however, admit that it was true that civilians had made all such improvements in the army, remembering as he did what had been done by Viscount Hardinge and the Duke of Wellington, to say nothing of that General Order of His Royal Highness to which he had referred. Her Majesty's Government looked with confidence to a diminution in the number of punishments of this nature, but they could not consent to the omission of these clauses from the Mutiny Act. There were great differences between the armies of this country and the armies of foreign nations; and it was the opinion of the most competent authorities that, if the power were given up, the discipline of our army might be seriously interfered with. In time of peace it might possibly be laid aside, but in time of active service those who were most conversant with the soldier believed that, without excessive severity in other punishments, and those alternatives to which the hon. and learned Member for Southwark had alluded, but which he did not specify, this power must be retained. He should, therefore, oppose the Motion.

COLONEL LINDSAY

said, one cause of the apparent increase in flogging of late years was not only the increase in the number of the army, but that several ticket-of-leave convicts enlisted and behaved badly. There were half-a-dozen of them at one time in the battalion he commanded, and one of them broke into his tent and stole his watch. He might further state, to show the feeling of the men on this question of flogging, that not long ago a soldier committed an aggravated assault on a non-commissioned officer. The officers who tried the offender did not sentence the soldier to the lash; and it came round to the officers afterwards, through the conversation in the barrack rooms, that there was general dissatisfaction among the men that one who had so disgraced himself should not have been flogged.

MAJOR HAMILTON

said, he wished to ask the hon. Gentleman opposite who talked of flogging not being used in the French and American armies, if they knew what punishments were substituted? When he was in Canada he occasionally crossed the boundary line, and there found deserters from the British Army serving in the American ranks, and they appealed to him to know if they could not return, as they had to endure far more severe punishments in the American service than ever they had done in the British. Flogging was the only punishment which could be inflicted on soldiers for misconduct on the march. A man might be flogged and allowed to march within a very few hours; but if he were punished in another way the army would lose an effective soldier. He should vote against the Motion of the hon. Member.

MR. CONINGHAM

said, he must protest against honourable soldiers being employed as public executioners to inflict the lash on the convicts at Chatham. The whole system of flogging was un-Christian and unnecessary, and this country would do well to imitate Russia, where the use of the knout had recently been abolished. [Cries of "Divide!"] He must enter his protest against this treatment. The right hon. Gentleman the leader of the Opposition had always given him a fair hearing, and had used his exertions among his supporters to obtain for him the same treatment which he had always extended to other Members. He had never done anything to forfeit his right to fair treatment. He did not trespass on their time. No one spoke more shortly, and he ventured to say few spoke more to the point. It was treatment which he did not deserve, and it was conduct unworthy of Members of that House.

Motion made, and Question put, "That Clause 22 stand part of the Bill."

The Committee divided:—Ayes 142; Noes 37: Majority 105.

MR. HENNESSY

said, he rose to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman in the Chair to a point of order. There was a clause in the Bill involving capital punishment, and he found in May's Parliamentary Practice a reference to a Resolution of the House passed in 1772 to the effect—"That no Bill or clause in any Bill do pass this House by which capital punishment is inflicted unless the same be referred to a Committee of the whole House;" and Mr. May observed that the rule had fallen into oblivion. He (Mr. Hennessy) wished to know the opinion of the hon. Gentleman upon the point.

MR. MASSEY

said, the Resolution of 1772 appeared to be a Sessional Order, and had never been made a Standing Order, and was contrary to the practice of the House for eighty or ninety years. In his opinion the Bill need not be sent to a Committee of the whole House.

Remaining Clauses agreed to.

House resumed.

Bill reported, without Amendment; to be read 3o To-morrow.

House adjourned at a quarter after One o'clock.