MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 1 March 1870)

§ MR. MAGUIRE
rose to move for a Select Committee to inquire into the operation of the Prisons Act and Prison Ministers' Act, so far as respects the re- 1078 ligious instruction provided for prisoners other than those belonging to the Established Church. There was a strong feeling that fair play was not done at present with respect to prisoners of the class to which his Motion had reference, and the best way of settling that matter would be to submit it to a fairly constituted Select Committee.

§ MR. NEWDEGATE
said, the hon. Member for Cork had been exceedingly brief in his observations, but he was not much surprised at that. He knew that the hon. Member was labouring under the difficulty of having no case to make out. That Motion was merely a phase of an agitation which had been carried on not only in that House, but also in the Middlesex Quarter Sessions, ever since the Act of 1853, the Prison Ministers' Act, came into operation. The object of the hon. Member was well known; and it was one that, if carried out, would throw serious difficulties in the way of maintenance both of discipline and of religious freedom in prisons. The object was to vest in the Roman Catholic Bishops the appointment of Roman Catholic chaplains to the English gaols absolutely, and to a great extent the treatment and discipline of the Roman Catholic prisoners. The magistrates were at present bound to provide the ministrations of a priest, whenever a Roman Catholic prisoner required his attendance, and the priest had a right, after a prisoner was entered as a Roman Catholic, to demand access to the prison. the Act as it at present existed was therefore based upon the most complete acknowledgment of the principle of religious freedom; that principle could not be more fully secured than by the present law. The reason of the hon. Gentleman's brevity in moving for that Committee was that he (Mr. Newdegate) believed, that he had not any one real case of religious intolerance on the part of the magistrates to adduce. No complaint had been made on behalf of any denomination but the Roman Catholics. The real object of the Motion was to take away 1079 the religious freedom of the prisoners, and the discretion of the magistrates. It raised a very grave question as to who—if the House should be pleased to give an unqualified right of access to the priest—was to be responsible for the discipline of the prison. The priest was directly under the authority of his Bishop, and if the Bishop required him to interfere with the discipline of the prison, who would be able to prevent him? He strongly objected, therefore, to the removal of the security, which the Legislature had provided alike for the freedom of religion and the discipline of the prison, by the interposition of the jurisdiction of the justices, or rather by the retention to them of the function of controlling the discipline of the prison and all concerned therewith. The present moment was moreover singularly inopportune for the raising of such a question. They knew that the Governments of France and Austria anticipated that decrees would emanate from the Council, now sitting at Rome, so intolerant, so arbitrary and subversive of the civil power, that it was believed they would forbid the publication of those decrees altogether. He asked the House whether, with these facts known upon the Continent, that was an occasion upon which it would be prudent to sanction interference with these securities for religious freedom which had been devised by the Legislature.

MR. BRUCE
said, he would not offer any opposition to the Motion, because it was unquestionable that there existed on the part of the Catholics an impression that they were not fairly dealt with. While in some instances magistrates had exercised their power to appoint chaplains where there was a large number of Roman Catholic prisoners, in others they had left prisoners to voluntary ministrations; and it was asserted, he believed with exaggeration, that obstacles had been thrown in the way of the performance of voluntary duties. The Government was not prepared with a measure of its own upon the subject, and, under the circumstances, he thought the question was eminently one which should be referred to the examination of a Select Committee.