HC Deb 19 March 1875 vol 223 cc102-10
MR. P. A. TAYLOR

, in rising to call attention to the case of Luke Hills, an agricultural labourer, sentenced by the Cuckfield Magistrates to three months' imprisonment, on a charge of breach of contract; and to move— That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to grant a free pardon to the prisoner. said, the case reminded one of the highhanded proceedings of the magistrates of the last century, and was such as he would rather have expected to have read of in the novels of Fielding or Smollett, than to meet with as an actual occurrence in the 19th century. The case raised a question as to whether justice could be properly administered by an unpaid magistracy. It appeared that in November, 1874, Hills entered the service of Captain Hyde; that in February last he gave a fortnight's notice to leave; and on that notice being given, the latter intimated to him, for the first time, that his engagement was of a permanent nature, the only written evidence being a memorandum said to have been made by Captain Hyde's son in a pocket-book at the time of hiring. He was thereupon brought before the magistrates on the charge of leaving his employment, and was fined £5, in addition to £3 18s. 2d. costs, or in default sentenced to imprisonment for three months. Now, Hills, who was 50 years of age or so, and who had obtained a good character from his last master, was simply ruined by such a sentence, for if he remained three months in gaol the stigma of being a gaol-bird would attach to him, and he would find it difficult in future to obtain employment. There was some dispute as to the amount of costs; but he could only say that the answer of the magistrates, given through their local clerk, did not say that £3 18s. 2d. was incorrect. There was, he might add, no pretence that there existed any written agreement between Hills and his employer; and the man and his wife had declared that not only had no memorandum ever been read to them to the effect that there was a yearly engagement, but that no such engagement had never been entered into. The magistrates had before them the statement made on the one side and the statement made on the other, and he knew no reason why the word of a working man of good character should have been utterly disbelieved by the Bench any more than that of his employer. But it was determined that the man should be convicted, and the magistrates accepted the employer's own estimate of the damage he had sustained through the man's leaving him. The man was a carter, and when he left his employer had only to get a new carter. What damage the master sustained it was difficult to see; but he nevertheless declared it to amount to something like £10, and Hills was sent to prison for three months. As to the legality of that decision he was informed by a magistrate and a lawyer that there was no summary jurisdiction in justices of the peace or petty sessions to determine questions of contract under the Master and Servant Act, except under the provisions of a former statute of George IV., and that that only applied to contracts in writing that were signed by both parties, which was not the case in the present instance. But, however, it might be legally, he unhesitatingly said that that decision was an act of gross oppression and tyranny. When Captain Hyde took Luke Hills before the Bench, composed as it was, he took him to a foregone doom. Hills was not tried by his peers, but by men who, if not aliens to him in blood and religion, were at least aliens to him in their interests, sympathies, and associations. They were employers—not employed. Six men taken entirely from the locked-out workmen in South Wales to try a dispute between their own class and their masters would be as fair a tribunal as that which tried that poor labourer. The case had excited considerable feeling in the neighbourhood, and a memorial, signed by some hundreds of the inhabitants, was sent to the Home Office praying for the release of Hills, who had been one month in prison. Pressure had been applied to prevent people from signing such a memorial, and he feared that those who had interested themselves in the matter would have reason to regret that they had done so. The memorialists received no answer from the Home Office, beyond a bare acknowledgment of the receipt of their memorial, and he thought the matter was entitled to greater attention from that Department. On the 9th of March the Home Secretary informed him, in reply to a Question, that he had had an answer that morning from the magistrates, but that he had not yet had time to read it. The magistrates, he thought, should have been requested to send an earlier answer. On the 8th of March a communication was sent from the Home Office to Brighton, saying that the right hon. Gentleman had thoroughly examined the case, and had come to the conclusion that he could not interfere. The right hon. Gentleman said he was not aware of that letter; but there ought to be some inquiry how it came to be sent, for it looked as if there was somebody behind the right hon. Gentleman greater than he was in his own Department. On the 11th the right hon. Gentleman endorsed the decision of the Bench, saying they had acted with perfect justice, benevolence, and kindness; but as the Labour Law Commission suggested that there should be no criminal punishment for simple breach of contract, the right hon. Gentleman recommended that the man should be freed from the rest of his sentence. On Monday, when asked if Hills had been released, the right hon. Gentleman said there had been some hitch, or he would have been released; but that from the form of the committal there was some doubt whether the pardon of Her Majesty would run. He, however, hoped it would be the opinion of the House that means should be discovered for liberating that poor man, and for removing the stain which at present attached to his character. The hon. Member concluded by moving the Amendment.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to grant a free pardon to Luke Hills, an agricultural labourer, sentenced by the Cuckfield Magistrates to three months' imprisonment, on a charge of breach of contract,"—(Mr. P. A. Taylor,)

—instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. GREGORY

thought that, although there could be little doubt as to the legality of that decision, as there were, in fact, two statutes, either of which would warrant it, its propriety was another question, and might be a fair subject of discussion. As one of the Representatives of the county the case had come under his notice, for he had received a statement referring to it, but previous to coming to an opinion upon it, it occurred to him that there might be two sides to the question. He accordingly put himself in communication with the magistrates' clerk, and there had been no delay in forwarding him an answer on the matter. The version of the story that had reached him was somewhat different from that put forward by the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Taylor), and in laying it before the House, he would say that, as the hon. Member had referred to two eminent novelists, he (Mr. Gregory) would refer to another novelist of a more modern time, the late Mr. Thackeray, who laid down this great principle—that there was not a piece of mischief in the world without a woman being at the bottom of it. Captain Hyde swore that the man in question had entered into a contract with him for a year's service at 18s. a-week, and he was corroborated in that statement by his son, who produced a minute made by himself at the time to that effect, and, therefore, unless these two gentlemen were guilty of wilful and corrupt perjury, their account of the transaction must be taken to be true. It was further proved, in corroboration of this, that Captain Hyde had been to some trouble and expense in moving the goods of the man and of his family from a distant part of the country to his neighbourhood. It was true that the man's wife had declared that no statement was made at the time that the hiring was to be a yearly one; but both Captain Hyde and his son swore that the woman was not present when the contract was made, and the man himself declined to be put upon his oath, and to give evidence in support of his wife's story. Under these circumstances, what were the magistrates to do? Were they to believe the evidence upon oath which was before them, or were they to act upon the mere statement of the woman which her husband refused to confirm upon oath? As they believed the evidence of Captain Hyde and his son, the case resolved itself into one of more damages. Captain Hyde satisfied the magistrates that through the breach of contract on the part of the man he had sustained damage to the amount of £9; but as he had only claimed £5, they limited their order to that amount in addition to the costs, which were 18s. 6d., and not £3 18s. 6d., as stated by the hon. Member, and instead of issuing their warrant for the payment of the £5 18s. 6d. at once, they gave the man a fortnight to make up the sum or effect some arrangement. To this order the man made no objection at the time; but his wife having subsequently advised him not to pay the money, he unfortunately followed her advice, and refused to comply with the terms of the order. The magistrates upon that had no alternative left them, except to sentence him to imprisonment in default, but without hard labour, telling him, at the same time, that he could obtain his release from prison at any time on payment of the fine. The man, therefore, was now in prison for non-payment of the sum of £5 18s. 6d., and he could not help thinking that the hon. Member, and those petitioners who felt so much sympathy with the prisoner, would have done better if, instead of bringing the matter before the House, they had subscribed the necessary sum to pay the fine, and so have obtained the man's release at once; and at all events, he trusted that the House would not lightly interfere in a matter of this kind, where a man was suffering imprisonment for wilfully refusing to obey the legal order of the magistrates.

SIR HENRY JAMES

hoped that he should be acquitted of any desire to interfere with the course of justice or to throw any impediments in the way of magistrates discharging their important and often very difficult duties; but he could not help pointing out that the hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory) had altogether failed to answer the legal objection that had been taken to the conviction. He should, therefore, wish to ask the Home Secretary whether, in his opinion, the conviction of this man was legal or not? The hon. Member for East Sussex had said that some doubt existed under which of two Acts the conviction had been obtained, but he must know that the terms of the conviction itself must show under which Act it was obtained. The version of the story which had been given to the House that evening by the hon. Member varied in some of its details from that which had appeared in the newspapers; but the hon. Member had not informed the House that the contract in question was one that could never have been enforced in any Civil Court, it being, according to Captain Hyde's own account, for a year's service to commence on a future day, and not being in writing it was void under the Statute of Frauds. The prisoner, therefore, had been sentenced to imprisonment for the non-payment of damages for breaking a contract which could not have been enforced before a Civil Court. The Schedule of the Act of 1867—under which this conviction must have been made—set forth all the forms of contracts of service to which the Act applied, and he wished that the Home Secretary would point to the particular contract set forth in that Schedule which had been broken by the prisoner, so as to bring him within the operation of the statute. If the right hon. Gentleman was unable to do that, it would be a grave question whether the conviction was legal in any sense. It would, perhaps, be too late now to take steps to set aside the imprisonment, and he was afraid that, owing to the technical reason that the imprisonment was for the nonpayment of damages, the Crown itself had no power to grant a pardon. [Mr. ASSHETON CROSS assented.] Under those circumstances, where the legal question was involved in so much doubt, he did not think that the House would press the right hon. Gentleman to interfere in the matter. The case, however, revealed a very sad state of the law, because it appeared that the doubtful decision of the magistrates, resulting in the unjust imprisonment of one of our fellow-subjects, was, for all practical purposes, final and irreversible, and that it was even beyond the power of the Home Secretary to sot matters right. The magistrates had found a doughty champion in his hon. Friend the Member for East Sussex, but what he had stated did not appear to have been stated by the magistrates' clerk who was present. That was comparatively a small matter; but when the hon. Member said that this was the man's own fault, because he did not accept the alternative given to him, it must be remembered that that alternative was that his home should be broken up, and his wife and himself turned into the streets without shelter.

MR. ASSHETON CROSS

hoped that the House would be very cautious as to the course it adopted in this matter. The case was disposed of under the Act of 1867; but he did not intend at the present moment to enter upon the question of the wisdom or the non-wisdom of that Act, because he intended to bring the subject under the notice of the House shortly after Easter. He hoped that the House would also be very careful that it did not enter into a discussion of two questions which it was perfectly incompetent to enter upon—first, the question whether the conviction was or was not right in law; and, secondly, whether, upon the bare statements of two Members of the House, however honourable, they would venture to come to a conclusion upon a question of fact that had been already determined by persons who had heard all the evidence upon it. He thought if the House discussed questions of law or fact in such cases, except in very flagrant cases, it would be entering upon a very dangerous course indeed. His attention having been called by the Notice given by the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor), he went through the Papers, and thought that the case was worthy of grave consideration. In administering the law of 1867 as a magistrate he had always thought that the powers under the statute ought to be very leniently exercised. In the present case, the magistrates had before them the question of fact, whether this man was a yearly servant or not. He certainly thought that if he had been one of the magistrates, and if he had been aware of the unanimous Report of the Commission which sat to inquire into the operation of the Act, he should have administered that Act in a more lenient spirit. However, the magistrates had I not that advantage, and they dealt with it in the ordinary way. They found that Luke Hills was a yearly servant who had broken his contract, and he was not convicted, but was ordered to pay a certain sum for damages. He was a carter, and it was no doubt held that he might have caused considerable loss to his employer. As to the amount, the magistrates decided that question upon the evidence before them. Under all the circumstances, he should have advised Her Majesty to allow the man to be discharged if it had been in Her Majesty's power to do so; but, after consulting those to whom he looked for legal advice, he found that, as the order was for the payment of damages—whether right or wrong he would not discuss—the power of the Crown did not run, and that to release a person who was imprisoned for debt would be interfering with the rights of one subject as against another. There was, therefore, no course open to him in the way of interfering. As it was impossible for the Grown, if the Motion were carried, to exempt the man from the penalty, he trusted that the hon. Member for Leicester would not press his Motion to a division that would be futile.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

said, he thought that the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary were a perfect justification to his hon. Friend the Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) for bringing the question before the House, and if the conclusion were a right one upon that Act of Parliament, the House had lost that power, which it once possessed, in reference to the detention of subjects of the Crown. It appeared that if the Home Secretary could carry out his wish he would advise a free pardon, and that strongly justified his hon. Friend the Member for Leicester; and it was a strong opinion that they should not leave the Act of 1867 in the position in which it stood. He was glad that the right hon. Gentleman proposed to call the attention of the House to the operation of the Act soon after Easter, as should there be a repetition of these cases the operation of the law would be most disadvantageous to the community, for they could not take up a newspaper without seeing that broaches of contract were very frequent, and the damage which they occasioned to persons was much greater than the loss of £9 by Captain Hyde. In the case under notice this man had been sent to prison for three months because he had broken a civil contract, while hon. Members of this House could break civil contracts without any such consequences.

MR. MACDONALD

agreed in thinking that the hon. Member for Leicester was fully justified in bringing the question before the House. Cases of the kind were occurring daily, and he therefore trusted on that account the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department would bring in a measure after Easter which would allow a full discussion of the subject.

MR. M. D. SCOTT

said, he did not complain that the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) should have brought the question before the House, but he did complain of his having done so upon imperfect information of the facts, and he also complained of the hon. Member having used hard words against the magistrates who determined the case. He spoke from personal knowledge, and not from hearsay, and he could say they were men who did all they could for the welfare of their neighbourhood and their fellow-creatures, and who were beloved by all around them. They knew how to do their duty mercifully, but they were appointed to carry out the law, and it was unbecoming of an hon. Member who could know nothing of these gentlemen to stigmatize them as tyrants and oppressors. Such language was deserving of the severest reprobation.

MR. P. A. TAYLOR

said, it was no use pressing a Motion asking for a free pardon, which it would be impossible for Her Majesty to grant. He hoped, however, the discussion would do good, in the way of hindering the occurrence of similar eases, and in that view he would withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.