§ COLONEL DYOTTsaid, he wished to ask the President of the Poor Law Board, with reference to a recent Correspondence between the Board of Guardians of the Lichfield Union and the Poor Law Board, in which the Poor Law Board decided that mayors and magistrates of boroughs were not entitled to be ex officio members of Boards of Guardians, and to a subsequent Correspondence in which 120 the Poor Law Board decided that mayors and magistrates of boroughs which are counties in themselves are entitled to be Guardians of the Union in which such borough is situated, Whether the Poor Law Board have been guided in their decision by the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown; and, if not, whether the Board will submit a case with the view to ascertain that opinion?
§ MR. GOSCHENsaid, in reply, that as far as the first case was concerned, the Poor Law Board had been guided in their decision by the opinion of the late Sir William Follett, when one of the Law Officers of the Crown, and they had subsequently taken the opinion of their standing counsel, that magistrates of boroughs which were not counties could not be ex officio members of Boards of Guardians. As regarded magistrates of boroughs which were counties, Sir William Follett's opinion was that they were entitled to act as ex officio Guardians. It was doubtful whether that was the intention of the Legislature, but the wording of the Act did not exclude such boroughs.