§ MR. T. CHAMBERSasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Medical Officer of the Privy Council has stated his opinion in evidence before the Vaccination Committee that the penalties of the Compulsory Vaccination Act are too severe, and that a nominal penalty first, and, in case of neglect, one penalty of 20s. is all that ought to be enforced; and, whether, in consequence of that opinion the Home Secretary has given instructions to magistrates to refrain from inflicting repeated fines or imprisonment on successive prosecutions for the neglect of vaccination in the same case, where parents have a conscientious objection to the practice?
MR. BRUCEreplied that the Committee before which the Medical Officer of the Privy Council was supposed to have given this evidence was now sitting. He had not heard that any such expression of opinion had been given by that officer, and indeed he had rather reason to believe that such was not the case. If, however, the statement were correct, he should consider it in the last degree indecorous to interfere with the magistrates in their administration of an Act of Parliament upon the mere opinion of the medical officer.