§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTH, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, he wished to explain the position in which the question now stood. The registration of births and deaths rested on a statute of some antiquity which had been passed in 1836, and had not been amended as regarded England in any important respect from that time down to the present day. Measures had been introduced respecting Ireland and Scotland which differed materially from the law of England on the subject, registration being made compulsory in both these countries by the measures of 1854 and 1863 for Scotland and Ireland 275 respectively. In England registration I was not compulsory; but advantage was taken in the preparation of the present measure to introduce provisions from those Acts to make it so. The necessity of an amendment of the law had been brought under the notice of the Government by the Report of the Sanitary Commission, and Committees of this House had on two occasions urged upon the attention of the House and the country the necessity of providing for a compulsory system of registration of births and deaths. The Committee on Vaccination in 1871 and the Committee on the Protection of Infant Life both recommended the alteration of the law in this direction in the strongest possible language. In accordance with the recommendation of the last Committee, his right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Lyon Playfair) in 1871, introduced a Bill for the compulsory registration of births. This was considered to be an insufficient measure of reform by the then Government, who undertook to legislate on the subject, and in the last two Sessions a Bill was introduced into the House of Lords very similar in its provisions to that which he now brought under the notice of the House. He need not enlarge upon the necessity of accurate statistics on a measure of such vital importance; but he might be allowed to express his surprise that so many years had elapsed without those compulsory powers of registration which it was the object of this Bill to provide. No doubt the present system of registration was complete as regarded marriage, and a registration of deaths was provided in an indirect method by making it obligatory upon the clergy and others to notify the failure to produce a certificate of death on the occasion of funerals. There was, however, a want of greater accuracy in regard to the registration of the causes of death. The registration of births under the present Act was not intended to be compulsory, and it was estimated that from 20,000 to 30,000 births escaped registration every year. Not only did births escape registration, but there was reason to believe that many burials took place of children born alive who were represented as still-born, and that was a defect which would be remedied by the present Bill. He was not aware that any objections were taken in the House of Lords to the compulsory clauses 276 of the Bill, and it had been his anxious endeavour, in recasting the measure of last year, to show as much indulgence as possible to the persons concerned. Instead of the parents alone being legally qualified to give information concerning the birth of a child, the number of persons who could give information to the Registrars, as deputies of the parents, was increased. The next clause provided an extension of time during which a birth might be registered—namely, from six weeks to three months. Another important indulgence would enable persons having a birth or death to register to give notice to the Registrar, who might be required, on payment of a fee of 1s., to attend at the house of the parties. It happened, in many cases, that poor persons lived at a considerable distance from the Registrar, so that they lost half a day's work by going to his house. The Registrar could now be required to go to their houses on payment of this moderate sum. The Bill also provided an extension of the time during which births might be registered before the Superintendent Registrar. The process of registering the birth by the Superintendent Registrar was necessarily more elaborate, expensive, and onerous that before the District Registrar, and the time was extended in this case from six to 12 months. The fee to the Superintendent Registrar was also reduced from 7s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. The Act also gave power to parents and others to register a birth in another sub-district from that in which a child might be born. The Bill also gave increased facilities for registering the baptismal or other name which might be given to the child after the original registration of birth. These alterations would, he trusted, give satisfaction to a large number of persons. Another change proposed was that on the occurrence of a death it would not be necessary to make a complete registration of all the details before the funeral. The person whose duty it was to give information might send notice of the death to the Registrar, who might then give his certificate for the funeral, further time being allowed for the complete registration of the facts required to be given. Securities were taken that infants born alive should not be buried as still-born, and although the Bill might not be thought to go far enough in that direction, it would effect a con- 277 siderable improvement in the present system. It was important to obtain more accurate information as to the cause of death, and the Bill provided that when a medical practitioner attended the deceased he should be obliged to give a certificate stating the cause of death. This, to the credit of the profession, was now done voluntarily. It was necessary in the administration of the sanitary laws that the Registrar General and the sanitary authorities should know as speedily as possible what were the prevailing diseases in any locality, in order that they might direct their efforts for the amelioration of the health of that district. The Bill also made provision for erecting sub-districts where the present districts were too large. There was now no power to alter a district, and in many cases, where a district extended over an area of 10 or 20 miles, great inconvenience was felt by poor persons when it was necessary to attend before the Registrar. The Bill also provided that the Registrar should issue a cheap certificate of birth in cases where it was necessary, under the Education Act, to prove the age of a child. A long clause of a somewhat technical character had been framed, under the advice of the Board of Trade, providing a more complete registration of births and deaths at sea. As additional duties were thrown upon the Registrars, and as in certain cases their fees were reduced, it was necessary to give them additional remuneration. The Registrars would be expected to register births gratuitously for three months after the birth instead of three weeks, and they would be expected to remain at homo at fixed hours and issue notices as to the hours at which they might be found at their offices. There were many other provisions in the Bill of which the Registrars would have reason to complain if no compensating provision were inserted; but by one of the clauses they would receive additional remuneration, which would amount to about £4 10s. yearly for each Registrar. An additional charge of £2,000 a-year would also have to be defrayed for the cost of printing forms and expenses connected with the Superintendent Registrars. To the Bill itself there might be several classes of objections. The first would arise from the objections which some people entertained to any system of registration; but in that House he 278 believed that class of objection would find no representative. Then objections might be urged in the interests of the clergy; but the powers which that body now possessed would not be taken away by this Bill. Again, it might be said that the compulsory powers in the Bill were not sufficiently stringent. His opinion, however, was that there was no necessity for multiplying penalties, and that such a course, as was the case in relation to the Vaccination Acts, might be attended by considerable mischief. The indiscreet action of local officers in enforcing cumulative penalties against people who could only be regarded as monomaniacs, and not as persons desirous of breaking the law, had brought upon those Acts an obloquy which they did not deserve, and he was therefore anxious to dispense with engines of annoyance which might be made extremely harsh and oppressive. Another objection made to the Bill was that it would cause an additional burden to the rates; but it was the intention of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to propose next year—and the Bill would not come into operation before—a Vote which would be sufficient to meet this additional expenditure. He trusted that after these explanations his right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Lyon Playfair) would not, by dividing against the Bill, place any additional hindrance in the way of Parliament passing an efficient measure upon this subject.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed. "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Sclater-Booth.)
§ MR. LYON PLAYFAIRI am glad to say that after the speech of my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board, it will not be necessary for me to move the rejection of this Bill. I gave Notice to do so because I could not discover in the Bill any efficient compulsion for the registration of births and deaths; nor after attentively listening to his speech am I yet able to do so. But, as my right hon. Friend is prepared to admit the necessity for compulsion, there is no difference of principle between us, and our modes of securing the object may be discussed in Committee. My right hon. Friend believes that he has provided compulsory registration, but admits that if he has not, it should be secured. The whole 279 question is simple, and may be shortly explained. In 1836 an Act was passed for a system of civil registration in England and Wales. It was a tentative plan, and had to be introduced with care. Under the system of voluntary registration, which was administered with much ability by Major Graham, the Registrar General, the value of registration of births and deaths both to individuals and to the State became so manifest that Parliament, when it extended the system to Scotland in 1854, and to Ireland in 1863, rendered it a compulsory duty of citizens to register births and deaths. One Royal Commission and two Select Committees have within the last few years recommended that the registration in England should be made compulsory, as it is in the other parts of the Kingdom. The Sanitary Commission, presided over by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Charles Adderley), reported—
In our opinion the registration of births should he compulsory, as in the case of Ireland and Scotland.Again, the Vaccination Committee of 1871 said—A compulsory registration of births, such as exists in Scotland and Ireland, is needed, as the non-registered children are those most likely to escape the notice of the vaccinator.Lastly, the Infant Life Protection Committee report in the following strong terms—There is one point in which all agree, and it lies at the root of the whole matter—that is to say, that there should be in England a compulsory registration of all births and deaths.I believe that my right hon. Friend (Mr. Sclater-Booth) is prepared to accept their recommendations as authoritative, and to have his Bill tested upon them. He does not deny the necessity for compulsion. In fact, the Bill admits it by its first clause, which renders registration a duty; and speaking generally, although no penalty may be specifically attached to the default of a duty enjoined by statute, yet by common law neglect of duty may be enforced by indictment. But my right hon. Friend would not consider this cumbrous and expensive plan as in reality giving to us any real compulsion. He argues that the second clause of the Bill enforces compulsion. That clause enacts that any person who is applied to by the Registrar 280 for information in regard to a birth, must give it under a penalty of 40s. I do not deny that both these clauses are improvements on the English Act of 1836, but they are far below the efficiency of the Scotch and Irish Acts. In Scotland it is the duty of the public to inform the Registrar of all births and deaths, and to go to his office to complete the registration. In Ireland it is the duty of the public to send a notice of the birth or death to the Registrar, who is then left to complete the registration by going to the house where it has occurred. But by this Bill no notice need be sent to the Registrar, who is assumed to be omniscient and to divine that births or deaths have occurred, to search them out, and register them as he best can. This is very different from the recommendations of the Commission and of the Select Committees, and also from the Bills sent down to us by the House of Lords in 1872–73. In these Bills registration was also stated to be a duty, but a penalty was attached for the default of that duty. The 38th clause of this Bill enacts penalties for false information, but it omits the penalty for not giving information. The words which provided for this in the Lords' Bill have been struck out. This, in my eyes, renders the Bill of no value. If registration be a duty, as the first clause declares it to be, if is surely right that a summary penalty should be attached to its nonperformance. That duty is not laid by the first clause upon the Registrars, but upon the parents; and it is they who ought to be called upon to tell the Registrar that his functions are required. I do not ask, as the Select Committees have done, that you should legislate as heroically for England as you have done for Scotland, because it is well known to all practical legislators that the Scotch accept logical consequences of a legislative principle much more readily than the English. But it is, surely, not a heavy burden to put upon English parents that they should aid registration to the extent of sending a notice to the Registrar that his services are required. Without the co-operation of the public, I think that little would be gained by the present Bill. Conceive how hopeless it would be for a Registrar of a large district to find out in all cases the occurrence of births and of deaths, and the true causes of the latter when there is a 281 negligent or a fraudulent concealment. But if a few examples are made of those who decline to fulfil the duty, enforced by a penalty, notices of births and deaths will become a rule, and the labours of Registrars to discover cases of concealment will be brought within manageable compass. This has been the result in Scotland, where the manner of registration is much more rigid than is proposed in this Bill. In one or two sentences I think that I can draw attention to the importance of efficient compulsion. There is an active League, called the Anti-Vaccination League, which does not hesitate to induce parents to conceal births in order to prevent vaccination. This League will, unquestionably, be glad that this Bill contains no penalty for not giving information of births. Compare the infantile mortality among children in Scotland, where registration is compulsory, with that in England, where it is voluntary, and you will be convinced how much efficient registration has to do with repression of that loathsome disease small-pox. In the epidemic of 1871, 23 per cent of deaths from small-pox in the large towns of Scotland consisted of children under 5 years of age, while in England they were 33 per cent. The country of compulsory registration stood therefore 10 per cent better in regard to the infantile mortality from small-pox. I need not remind the House what startling revelations were made to it by the Committee on the Protection of Infant Life. The mortality among illegitimate children was proved to be frightful. Few mothers of this class of children voluntarily register their own shame, and, as the evidence proves, many of them are criminally negligent of the life of their offspring. As the Select Committee have told us, if we desire to protect infant life, compulsory registration "lies at the root of the whole matter," for it fixes knowledge and responsibility upon the parents. It is probable that there are from 40,000 to 50,000 illegitimate children annually born in England, and for each of these there is a motive to escape registration. To throw this duty upon the Registrar, and not upon the parent, as this Bill does, is a palpable weakening of administrative machinery. I have hitherto chiefly spoken of births; but the Bill is equally lax in regard to the registration of deaths. According to it, any person 282 may bury a dead body without a certificate, and then may, if he please, but only if he please, go to the Registrar a month afterwards and register the death. It is true that the minister or sexton must intimate within seven days to the Registrar the fact of the burial, and if he be an active man he may ferret out the causes of death before the month is out. But here, again, the public is relieved of a duty which is cast upon the Registrar. There are 8,000 or 9,000 deaths annually in England uncertified by any medical man or by inquest. The Bills sent down to us by the House of Lords contained a very proper provision that these uncertified deaths should be inquired into by a competent person, such as the Poor Law medical officer would be. But this Bill again strikes out this provision, and leaves the duty to the Registrar, who generally is as incompetent for such an inquiry as a man can be. I need not urge how infinitely valuable to public health and to the protection of life an accurate registration of births and of the causes of death would prove. Negligence in keeping such registers even now introduces serious errors in sanitary statistics; but wide-open loopholes for escape such as I have described will enable the criminal to increase his facilities for crime, and put in his way temptations which are even now too great. Had time permitted I might have referred you to the Registrar General's Reports, pointing out how such cases as the series of 20 murders in Norfolk, described by Sir James Graham in this House in 1846, and a similar series in 10 villages in Essex, in 1849, could not have occurred had the system of registration been effectual. I might, on the other hand, have pointed out how registration, imperfect as it is, has led to the detection of Palmer, Pritchard, and other criminals. But I prefer to base my arguments on the deliberate judgment of the Sanitary Commission and two Select Committees who have recommended to our attention compulsory registration, not as it is in this Bill, but as it is in Ireland and Scotland. In the earliest dawn of the English nation protection of life was held sacred, and the old Coroner's inquest indicates the desire to ascertain the discoverable causes of death. We shall only follow out the old traditions of England if we adapt sanitary laws to modern wants 283 and when we find by a long experience in one part of the Kingdom that compulsory registration has been attended with the most happy results, it is surely not unreasonable to wish to see that extended to England and Wales in a manner nearly, if not equally, efficient. My right hon. Friend desires this as much as I do, and when we come to Committee I am sure that he will give fair consideration to our arguments for improving the Bill which he now asks us to read a second time.
§ MR. PELLobjected to the mode in which Registration Officers were paid. The Registrar General was appointed by the Government, and his salary and expenses were all paid out of the Imperial Exchequer. The Superintendent Registrar and the Ordinary Registrar were nominated by the guardians, but must be approved by the Registrar General, and held their offices during his pleasure. They were paid partly by fees and partly out of the local rates, but except their nomination by the guardians, the local authorities had no authority over them; and he hold that they should be paid out of the Imperial Exchequer, instead of taking £80,000 a-year out of the local taxation. Then the clause of the Bill which related to the combination of parishes introduced a new principle, because it proposed that the ratepayer should pay, not with regard to the value of his hereditament, but in reference to the amount of the population amidst which he lived. He admitted that some measure was necessary; but had the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lyon Playfair) gone to a division he should have voted with him, as he considered the Bill highly objectionable in several points.
§ MR. HENLEYsaid, he resided in a district in which some of the villages were six miles from the Registrar's office, and the provision in this Bill which allowed notice to be sent by post remedied a great grievance. He suggested that if it was made the Registrar's duty to go once in a month or six weeks to each parish on a given day, it would also be a great boon to the labouring population. He ridiculed the clause which provided that "the requisite information may be required of any relative," the word "relative" being defined as including relatives by marriage. It was rather a strong measure to compel 284 a sixth or seventh cousin by marriage to go five or six miles to give information in a matter in which he might be wholly unconcerned. He trusted his right hon. Friend would give these points his consideration before the Bill went into Committee.
§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURwas satisfied that this mode of making up the salaries partly out of the rates, partly by fees, and partly out of the Treasury, was a most mischievous mode of keeping down expenditure. He thought it would be much better, and more economical, if Government would defray all the expenses connected with the Registrars.
§ LORD ESLINGTONbelieved there was a strong feeling in the country that the Registrars were very much underpaid. The right hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) had suggested that the Registrars should make a sort of circuit periodically; but that would at once raise the question of further payments, because some provision must be made for their travelling expenses. At present there was often a difficulty of knowing where the Registrar lived. He begged to suggest that a list of Registrars should be kept at the police-stations. Such a list would be accessible to all, and would be a matter of great public convenience.
§ MR. STANSFELDsaid, he thought his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Edinburgh (Mr. Lyon Playfair) had very wisely determined not to take the sense of the House on the second reading of the Bill, as it was essentially a measure of clauses and details, which could be better dealt with in Committee. He was disposed to agree with his right hon. Friend that there was not sufficient compulsion provided for in the clauses of the Bill. He should be prepared to discuss that point in Committee, but not in any party spirit. All he desired was that compulsion should be sufficient without being unduly harassing. He also thought that no penalty ought to be enacted which was not actually necessary for the purpose for which it was proposed. It was quite an open question whether the Registrars should be paid out of the Imperial funds, or partly out of the rates; but he could not agree with the general principle laid down by the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Pell), because 285 it would lead to extravagant claims being made on the Exchequer.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Bill read a second time, and committed for Thursday, 4th June.