COMMITTEE. LEAVE. FIRST READING. (Hansard, 1 March 1865)

MR. CLIFFORD
rose to move that the Chairman be directed to move the House that leave be given to bring in a Bill for the abolition of Fines for non-attendance at a place of Divine worship on Sunday. The hon. Member said, that the legislation on this subject dated from the time of Queen Elizabeth, early in whose reign a law was passed, providing that everybody should forfeit a small sum who did not on the Sabbath attend the parish church. A still more stringent measure was, however, passed in the 23rd year of the same reign, and was expressly revived in the reign of James I., the object being, he believed, to force the Roman Catholic population of this island to conform to Protestantism. After the Revolution an Act of William and Mary gave relief to the Protestant Dissenters, but it was not till the reign of George III. that a Bill for abolishing pains and penalties in the case of Roman Catholics was introduced into the House of Commons. That Bill, however, did not dispense with the penalties to which those who absented themselves from Divine service on Sunday were subjected by the Act of Elizabeth. Now, this being the state of the law, this subject had been recently brought before the public by the occurrence of two cases in which some very severe and stringent measures had been carried out against working people for not going to church on Sunday. He would deal fairly with the House, and at once admit that these persons were not convicted and punished under the Act which he wished to repeal. One happened at a place called Legh, in Lancashire. Some labourers had been discovered to have saved their hay on Sunday, and a fine was imposed upon them which it appeared they could very ill afford to pay—and indeed as one of them said, it would have been much better if the magistrates had relieved them out of private charity than fined them—and consequently their goods were seized under a distress warrant. The conviction was afterwards quashed in the Court of Queen's Bench, he believed on the ground that as the people were farming on their own land they did 947 not come under the description of labourers. The other case occurred at Driffield, in Yorkshire. A man named Isaac Watson was fined—not indeed for not having gone to church, though it was at first supposed that he was punished under the Act of Elizabeth; but it turned out afterwards, as the result of an investigation by the Home Office, that the conviction was under an Act of Geo. IV., and was founded on a contract between the man and his mistress (who was the tenant and manager of a farm) that he should attend public worship at church on Sunday. The Home Office were of opinion that if there was any special contract between the parties, the man was liable to be punished for having infringed it. It might possibly be objected to his Motion that upon neither of these occasions did any distress warrant issue under the Act he proposed to repeal, nor was any one fined under that Act. To that his answer was that in either case that course might have been adopted had the parties been a little more deeply read in the law. They might have been prosecuted under the Act, and as the magistrates would have had the lex scripta before them, however repugnant to their feelings it might have been, they would have had no alternative but to inflict the penalty. He believed that no portion of the community would deprecate the enforcement of the statute more than the clergy of the Church of England; but there was no security that the Act might not be put in force any day by a malicious or ill-disposed person; and he (Mr. Clifford) must confess he should deem it a very unfortunate thing if such an event were to happen, as it would naturally lead the uneducated to suppose there was one law for the rich and another for the poor. He trusted that for these reasons the House would assent to the Motion. The hon. Member concluded by moving the Resolution.

§ LORD HOTHAM
regretted that he had only just then entered the House, having been able only that moment to leave a Committee upstairs; but as he understood allusion had been made to the case of Watson, which occurred in his county, he wished to state what he understood to be the facts of the case. The apparent charge upon which the man had been punished was for not going to church on Sunday; but the truth was that the offence he had committed was a breach of the contract he had entered into with his mistress. It was the custom in 948 that part of the country for farm servants to be hired by the year, and it had been the habit of the lady occupying the farm in question to make it a condition with her labourers before she engaged them, that they should attend some religious service on Sundays. That was not an illegal condition, nor was it in his opinion an unreasonable condition. At all events, her labourers had the option of either agreeing to the condition or not. Watson did agree to it, but did not fulfil his engagement; and the lady accordingly took him before the magistrates. All that Watson had to say for himself was that he considered he had a right to do exactly as he chose on Sundays. He did not say he objected to go to church. The magistrates, as the engagement was not denied, felt that they had no alternative but to convict. They dealt with Watson, however, in the most lenient manner: they did not inflict a fine, and they only imposed the costs of the summons. He would appeal to the House, under these circumstances, whether this man had a right to complain of being had up for breaking his engagement.

§ MR. NEATE
confessed his disappointment at hearing the observations of the noble Lord (Lord Hotham). When the noble Lord rose, he (Mr. Neate) thought he was going to explain matters, and to repudiate on the part of the magistrates with whom he was connected any intention whatever of repealing this Act. Instead of that, the noble Lord had actually endeavoured to justify the conduct of the magistrates in the case referred to. He (Mr. Neate) wholly deprecated the course taken.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, he believed that what the noble Lord had stated was quite right—namely, that the magistrates! had exercised the jurisdiction conferred on them by convicting the man in question of a breach of engagement. He thought that the mistress of this man did not actually insist upon her servant going to church; but she was naturally dissatisfied at his refusal to go to any place of worship.

§ MR. LOCKE
thought the magistrates ought to have declined to have anything to do with the matter. The sooner Acts of Parliament like these were swept from the statute-book the better it would be. They were wholly unsuited to the present times—and indeed to any times—and the thanks of the House were due to the hon. Member who had introduced this Bill. Surely it was sufficient punishment 949 for a servant to be dismissed from service if he would not conform to the rules of the house and attend some place of worship on Sunday, without being liable to be fined and punished by an Act of Parliament. Such laws as these fell upon the poor people of the country, who had just as much right to think for themselves as any Member of this House. It was not because a man had contracted to be a servant that therefore he was not to be allowed to think for himself as much as any one else in a more favoured position in life. He contracted to perform certain services, and so long as he performed them properly, neither his master nor mistress had any right whatever to interfere with his religious opinions, whatever those opinions might be.