COMMITIEE. (Hansard, 15 February 1876)

§ MR. P. A. TAYLOR
appealed to the hon. and learned Member for Salford, who had charge of the measure, not to press the Committee stage at so early a period after it had been read a second time. Under another name this Bill was in reality the Infanticide Bill of last Session, which had been opposed, and many persons then absent from the House were not, he believed, aware of the identity of the two measures. Further time, therefore, ought to be given to consider its provisions. He objected to the measure because, by diminishing the punishment for a particular class of offence, it sought to make it more probable that juries would find guilty those who were charged with that offence, which in itself was an unsound and unsatisfactory mode of legislation. When women were charged with infanticide, it was always 332 a most painful and difficult task for juries to decide upon the case, as it was a well-known fact that women otherwise of sound mind might become absolutely irresponsible beings during and immediately after childbirth, and he therefore objected to the Bill on the ground of its too great severity, because it attempted to make juries find verdicts of guilty when they would otherwise not do so. He also objected to the Bill on the ground of its too great laxity, because when murder was proved it did not become a lesser offence when it was inflicted by a mother upon a child. He suggested to the House that it was altogether unusual that they should be asked to go into Committee upon such a Bill within a week of the opening of the Session.

§ SIR EDWARD WATKIN
also opposed the Motion for going into Committee. He objected to the Bill because its title was misleading, because it created a new class of offence, and because it was a cruel measure, totally uncalled for by any facts before the House and the country; and he did not consider that Parliament would increase its dignity by voting for anything of the kind.

§ MR. CHARLEY
said, that the Bill in its present form had passed through Committee last Session, and received the approval of the House and of the Prime Minister, who stated that it was a Bill which the House desired to pass. His reason for wishing to take the Committee so early was because it was most important that the House of Lords generally should have an opportunity of considering it fully. One of the Law Lords was to take charge of the Bill. The Bill was founded on the unanimous recommendation of the royal Commission on Capital Punishment—four of the Commissioners being Members of the existing Cabinet—the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Derby, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Secretary of State for War, and another being the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright). The report of that Royal Commission was founded on the recommendations of many eminent Judges. The Bill had been read a second time on four occa-times in this House without opposition, and the lawyers of the House, including the recorder of the City of London, 333 the Attorney General of the late, and the Attorney General of the present Government, and the hon. and learned Members for Durham, South Derbyshire, South Warwickshire, and Beaumaris—subject to certain Amendments—were unanimously in its favour. It was only towards the close of last Session that the measure, when it reached its final stage, experienced any opposition from the late hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. Vance), whose loss as an old and respected Member of the House they all deplored. When it was considered that out of 51 murders, 50 were infanticides, it would be seen that it was most urgent that the matter should be dealt with by law, and that could not be done except on the lines of this Bill. In his opinion, no social question was of a more pressing nature, or more deserving of the immediate attention of a reformed Parliament.

§ SIR EARDLEY WILMOT
failed to see that any such Bill as that introduced by the hon. and learned Member for Salford was recommended in the Report of the Capital Punishment Commission. The Bill would inflict punishment unnecessarily severe. The Capital Punishment Commissioners contemplated cases where the death of the child had followed the grievous bodily harm inflicted, but here no mention was made of any death. The Bill also proposed to add a count for felonious wounding to a capital charge, but it was not right to give the jury an alternative, by which they might release themselves from finding on the charge for murder. He should to-morrow ask permission to introduce a Bill strictly following out the recommendations of the Commission, and particularly that portion of it by which the crime of infanticide could be dealt with, and therefore he appealed to the hon. and learned Member to allow his Bill to stand over for the present.

MR. LOPES
also hoped that the Bill would not be pressed forward that evening, inasmuch as it would effect many alterations in the criminal law with respect to which further discussion was requisite. For his own part, he objected to piecemeal legislation on the subject of the criminal law. The chief object of the Bill was to create a new crime; but apart altogether from that, there were several of its provisions that were objectionable. One of its sections, for instance, 334 proposed to repeal a portion of the Criminal Consolidation Acts, and for this and other reasons he should certainly oppose it.

§ MR. MOEGAN LLOYD
supported the Motion for going into Committee on the Bill. The question had been frequently and fully discussed, and all the facts connected with it freely announced. In reality, the Bill was a very simple one, although attempts had been made to mystify it. Any one who considered the present state of the law could not fail to arrive at the conclusion that an alteration was, to say the least of it, desirable. The Bill proposed to repeal the proviso contained in Section 60 of the 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, which enabled a jury to find a woman guilty of concealment of birth upon an indictment for murder. Concealment of birth had nothing to do with the principal charge, and it was wrong to allow a jury to shirk the responsibility of deciding as to the offence to which the evidence pointed by finding the prisoner guilty of a different offence of which there might be but slight evidence. It was objected to the Bill that it created a new crime. But whether it were a new crime or a modification of a crime already known to the law mattered not, if it had the effect of getting rid of undue severity of the law on the one hand, and the uncertainty of conviction on the other. It was only the further development of a principle already known in the administration of the criminal law, by which a prisoner indicted for an attempt to commit a felony was not entitled to an acquittal because the evidence proved not only that he had been guilty of the attempt but also of the actual felony. At present, if on a charge of malicious wounding, the evidence proved not only that the wound was inflicted, but also caused death, the prisoner must be acquitted of that charge, but might be again indicted for murder; but under the present Bill the jury might convict of the malicious wounding though death might have been caused thereby, and the prisoner could not again be indicted for murder in respect of the same facts. That he believed to be a real improvement in the law. It lessened its severity, and rendered convictions more certain.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
joined in the appeal made to his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Salford 335 not to press on the measure at once, but to allow time for its consideration. His opinion was mainly in favour of the Bill, which, he thought, might in Committee be made a very useful measure. The subject with which the Bill dealt was of a very subtle character, and it required an intimate knowledge of the criminal law to enable hon. Members to understand it thoroughly. He believed if his hon. and learned Friend would yield to the appeal made to him from both sides of the House, he would find in the course of a short time that hon. Members would become well acquainted with the subject, and they would then see that the Bill was not deserving of the epithets which the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) had used towards it. He therefore joined in the appeal for a postponement.

MR. CHAELEY
said, he had no desire to press the Bill with undue haste. His reason for bringing the measure forward so early in the Session was that last year it was kept in a state of suspended animation for two months, awaiting the third reading, and was at length dropped because there was not sufficient time left for its passage through the other House. In consequence of the appeal which had been made to him he would willingly postpone the Committee stage.