LEAVE. FIRST READING. (Hansard, 3 March 1869)

§ LORD ELCHO
, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the Game Laws in Scotland, said, the Bill he proposed to introduce was one which was brought in during the last Parliament, and referred to a Select Committee upstairs. The Bill came down from that Select Committee in an amended form in the Session of 1867. There were two Bills before the Committee, one of them being the Bill of his hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgowshire (Mr. M'Lagan), and the other that which had been introduced by himself, and which was accepted as the basis of the Bill framed by the Committee. He had now to ask leave to re-introduce and re-print that Bill. The hon. Member for Linlithgowshire had already obtained leave to bring in a Bill, which, he believed, was practically identical with the one he brought in 1867. He (Lord Elcho) proposed in his Bill to print an Amendment, which would have the effect of bringing the Bill to a certain extent back to the position in which it stood when it went before the Committee, so that the House would be in a position to legislate upon the subject with a full knowledge of what was done by the preceding Parliament in the Session of 1867.

§ MR. KINNAIRD
said, although he believed it was perfectly true that the Bill, for the introduction of which the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire had moved, was the result of an inquiry which took place before a Select Committee, he thought it was hardly fair to describe it as the Bill of that Committee, seeing that the provisions it contained were only carried in that Committee by a small majority. He did not rise to oppose the introduction of the Bill; but he thought it only fair that he 587 should state that the Bill did not represent the views of the whole of the Committee any more than it could be said to have represented the feeling of all who had an interest in the question with which it dealt.

§ LORD ELCHO
said, he trusted to the courtesy of the House to be allowed to say a word in explanation of what had fallen from the hon. Member opposite. All that he meant to imply was that it was a measure which had been examined by a Select Committee, and that it was generally concurred in and introduced as the result of the labours of that Committee. No doubt it was quite true that divisions did occur in the Committee; but still the result of those divisions led to the introduction of the Bill. With respect to any difference of opinion, all he could say was that if the measure did not represent the views of his hon. Friend, at all events it represented the views of the majority of the Committee; and he was, therefore, justified in the statement that it was the Bill of the Select Committee, and in that form he asked for leave to introduce it.