§ Order for Third Reading read.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."—(Mr. Assheton Cross.)
§ MR. RYLANDSmoved that the Bill be read a third time that day three months. He said he should not, under ordinary circumstances, have taken this course; but he thought there were several weighty reasons of expediency which would justify him in asking the House, even at the last moment, to reject 5 the Bill. In the first place, it proposed a scheme that next year would necessarily entail a large addition to the expenditure of the country; and, looking at the depressed condition of trade, and knowing that the revenue would inevitably undergo a consequent decline, while he saw no indication of any strong desire on the part of the Government to keep down expenditure, he felt bound to contemplate the probability of increase of taxation being voted to meet the increased charges. He thought it most objectionable for the Government to ask the House to increase the public burdens next year without, at the same time, putting before them an estimate of the Ways and Means by which that increase was to be met. Another ground on which he thought it inexpedient to pass this Bill at the present moment was, that there was a probability of a measure being passed before very long which would so change the character of our summary jurisdiction system as to lead to a great reduction in the number of prisoners committed by the justices of the peace. Notwithstanding this, the Prisons Bill proceeded entirely on the lines of the present demand for prison accommodation. Again, there was the prospect that, in a short time, the public scandal which now attended the detention of prisoners awaiting their trial would be abated; and to the extent to which the number of persons so detained was diminished, there would be a diminution in the number of prisoners in English gaols at any given time. He thought also the House should hesitate before it handed over to the Government every prison in the country — at all events, until it was assured that the prisons at present in the hands of the Government were well managed. There was a great question, indeed, whether the management of the convict prisons was such as to justify their handing over to the Government every gaol in the country. The Government had promised an inquiry into the subject of prison discipline, and it was impossible to say at present what the outcome of that inquiry would be. He wished to take the opportunity of stating that the course which the Government had adopted of referring great questions of administration to Departmental Committees was a most objectionable course, for persons placed on such Committees were not the 6 parties who had an interest in promoting administrative reform; but the fact that great doubts existed as to the management of convict establishments was a matter which ought to make Parliament hesitate before proceeding further in that direction. There was an important association called the Howard Society containing a number of hon. Gentlemen sitting on the other side of the House, distinguished for the ability, benevolence, and earnestness they displayed in the direction of improving our prison discipline, and they had come to the conclusion that the Government prisons were not conducted in such a manner as to promote the moral elevation of offenders. And he knew that the members of that association were beginning to doubt whether it would be a wise thing to pass this Bill. He was not one of those who would turn our prisons into drawing rooms, but he did hold that punishment awarded to prisoners should be administered with a view to raise rather than to degrade the character of the offender, and he believed that the Government had altogether failed in achieving this great object by their convict system. He, therefore, thought it would be a great misfortune if, by the passage of such a Bill, Parliament should take from the local jurisdiction of the magistrates all those prisons which at present might be made the vehicles of elevating the character of those who were confined therein, and hand them over to the cast-iron system applied by the Government to the gaols under their control. But there was another important consideration. The Home Secretary had promised to deal with the treatment of unconvicted prisoners; and everyone admitted that the treatment to which they had long been subjected was a scandal which ought to be removed; and he submitted that the House of Commons ought to have the absolute control over any rules which might be provided by the Home Secretary for that purpose, and that a Schedule of the proposed rules should have been prepared for the consideration of the House. The conclusion to which he had come on the question of expediency was this—that the Bill ought to stand over till next Session, even if any intention existed of proceeding with it. The long discussions which had taken place had not removed a single objection against the 7 Bill, and many of the arguments which had been adduced in favour of the Bill had been proved to be, to a great extent, delusions. He believed that an increasing dislike had been gradually growing up against the Bill amongst hon. Gentlemen opposite, and that if it should be rejected very little disappointment would be felt anywhere except amongst the officials in the Home Office. For his own part, he was not one who did not appreciate the advantage of having a House of Lords; and as this Bill fulfilled all the conditions requiring the exercise of their veto—inasmuch as it was a partial, crude, ill-digested, precipitate, and by no means a pressing measure—he hoped the Upper House would exercise its constitutional function and throw it out. Not one of the objections originally raised to the Bill had been removed in the course of the discussion. The vicious principle of centralization remained. The right hon. Gentleman had tried to salve over the wounded dignity of the local magistrates; but the effect of the Bill would practically be to disestablish the visiting justices. If these gentlemen attempted to assert themselves, they would be met by some Government official full of superciliousness and red tape, who would take care to let them know that he, in his official capacity, represented the concentrated wisdom and intelligence of the nation. The result would be that high-minded men would not accept the position of visiting justices. They would not submit to the indignity of playing second fiddle to a gentleman from the Home Office; and if the office of visiting justice continued to exist at all, it would be filled by men of an inferior stamp. It had been said that the magistrates were in no sense representatives of the ratepayers, and this was true to a certain extent; but it should not be forgotten that there was a strong tendency in favour of placing the management of county affairs in the hands of County Boards, on which the magistrates should have their due share of representation; and it should be borne in mind that if legislation proceeded upon the lines of the Prisons Bill there would soon be nothing left for County Boards to do, and the arguments in favour of their establishment would cease to exist. Another objection to the Bill was, that it proposed to add 2,500 to the already 8 large army of Government officials, who were always making demands upon the public purse, and whose influence in various ways upon Members of that House, and on the public though the Press, to which many of them had unlimited access, was already sufficiently strong, and had doubtless had its weight in the action taken by the country against the late Government, whose Leader was disliked by these servants of the Crown, in consequence of his expressed opposition to extravagance in the different Departments of the State. Besides that objection, the measure would tend to a great increase of the superannuation establishment. He also objected to the measure on the ground that the Government appointments would not be equal in character to the appointments made by the local authorities, and would probably be determined by political influence rather than by considerations of fitness and efficiency. The main arguments urged in favour of the measure had been proved to have been based upon insufficient grounds, and had been shown to be delusive. The Home Secretary himself must have been led to doubt the correctness of some of the reasons which he urged to justify the introduction of the measure. The great plea brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman in favour of the Bill was economy. How did the case stand in that respect? He had calculated that £50,000 a-year would be saved by the abolition of small prisons and by diminished cost under Government management. But in Committee the Home Secretary said there were "prisons and prisons," and he spoke of maintaining a certain number of small gaols for the detention of prisoners waiting for trial. The Home Secretary saw the injustice of sending unconvicted prisoners, perhaps 50 miles away, from their legal advisers and friends; but he urged that these gaols for detention of prisoners could be conducted at a very low expense, as there need be no arrangements for hard labour or other punitive discipline. Still, it would be impossible to keep up prisons of that kind without a certain number of officials and other expenses. But what about prisoners convicted, and sentenced to short terms of imprisonment with hard labour for 7, 14, or 21 days? Were they to be sent away, perhaps to a distance of 50 miles, when 9 there was a prison maintained at their very doors? But even granting that the Home Secretary would be able to concentrate the prisoners throughout the country in 50 or 60 gaols, which was very doubtful, the idea that there would be any economy in Government management was entirely contrary to experience. The present cost per head per annum of prisoners in convict establishments was £35, and the average cost in local gaols, with all the disadvantages of many small prisons, was about the same sum. But let them contrast a large gaol under local management with the cost of Government prisons. Take Salford, for instance. In the year ending September 29, 1876, the cost was only £15 12s. 5d. per head, or absolutely £20 per head below the average cost of Government prisons. The average cost for officers' salaries alone in the convict establishments amounted to £16 7s. 6d. for each prisoner, or more than the total cost of Salford gaol for all purposes, and the superannuation charges for retired officers of convict prisons—a large item— was not included in that account. It would be urged that Salford was an exceptional case; but the average cost of all the Lancashire gaols was about £17 per head, and these instances, at all events, proved what local management could accomplish. Other counties might, under proper management, and with facilities for closing unnecessary gaols, effect great economies, and in various parts of the country there were movements in that direction. County Boards, elected by the ratepayers, would naturally be alive to considerations of economy, and, if established for the management of gaols and other county purposes, would give every prospect of a general improvement. But there could be no expectation of such improvement from Government control. They would level up instead of levelling down; and in place of reducing the cost of other gaols to the Lancashire standard of £16 or £18, the Government officials would probably raise the cost of Lancashire gaols to their own standard of £30 or £35 per prisoner. He warned the House that instead of the 18,000 prisoners now in local gaols costing £50,000 less per year, they would be more likely to cost the country £100,000 more—and there would also be a large and increasing additional expenditure upon prison 10 buildings, which would be charged to the National Exchequer. Another argument urged by the Home Secretary was his expectation that £50,000 a-year would be obtained by the more profitable employment of prison labour, and in support of his views he made use of a most fallacious illustration drawn from the experience of the convict establishments. Because in local gaols the average earnings of prisoners were much lower than in the case of the inmates of the convict prison at Pentonville, he argued that he could bring the earnings of prisoners throughout the country up to the Pentonville standard of £9 per annum. His exact words were—
We have no reason to doubt that if all these prisoners were under the same discipline, and properly grouped together, the amount of money they earn would not be as large as is now earned in the best managed convict prisons, and we believe it would go on continuously increasing.But the manifest fallacy which lay at the root of this argument was that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cross) overlooked the great difference between prisoners sentenced for long and for short terms. In convict prisons the whole of the prisoners were under long sentences, and their labour could be turned to account; but in local gaols the large majority of the inmates were confined for very short periods, and no amount of "grouping" or "classification" could get anything out of them. The Home Secretary had apparently overlooked in his calculation the material fact that out of the 18,000 prisoners in local gaols there were about five-sixths who were committed for short sentences, from seven days to two months —the largest proportions being for the shortest terms. The great argument for the Bill was, that it would relieve local taxation. The farmers, who were not distinguished for political knowledge, were induced throughout the country to support the Bill by that plea; but the Returns just laid on the Table on County Rates and Expenditure showed that all relief of local taxation by subventions was secured by the addition of a much larger burden on the Imperial taxation, so that there really was no saving. On the ground of local administration, of economy, and in the interests of the prisoner himself, this was an objectionable Bill; and if it were to be sent to the House of Lords he hoped it would 11 go with such a strong protest against it that that House would exercise its constitutional privilege, and reject the Bill.
§ MR. P. A. TAYLOR,in seconding the Amendment, again raised his voice against the punishment of flogging, which had been abolished by all other civilized nations, but which was now to take a new lease in this country. It was a brutal and a brutalizing punishment, and it was impossible to deter men from crime by treating them as brutes. All the delegates at the Prison Conference repudiated it. It distinctly tended to increase the brutality which it was intended to stamp out. It was not only persons abroad who took that view, but all our Governors of gaols also adopted it, notably Mr. Frederick Hill and Mr. Shepherd. The excuse given for the use of the lash was the phrase that "discipline must be preserved;" the same excuse that the Dey of Algiers gave for retaining the punishments of impaling and burning. He denounced flogging as a punishment for which reason, justice, and Christianity had nothing to say. It had been avoided in the convict ships. There had been a panic with regard to garotting, and in 1863 an Act allowed flogging for the offence; but the offence had ceased before the Act. Robberies with violence, however, which were also floggable under the Act, increased in number, and crimes not floggable decreased. In the 10 years previous to 1863 there were 3,261 floggable cases, and in the 10 years after 3,380. Although in those 10 years the total number of offences against property with violence—but short of violence which could be punished by the cat—had decreased 762. The attempt to stamp out violence by corporal punishment was a miserable piece of legislative quackery. People had as yet had no opportunity of expressing an opinion on the Bill, but at the next Election they would have the power. He implored the right hon. Gentleman to make a system for the communication of prisoners with the outside world. He had seen the prisoner whose letter he had read to the House the other evening, and had asked him why he did not communicate with the Governor or the visiting justices. The man said—"No visiting justice ever spoke to me, or asked me how I was treated." He concluded by thanking those Irish Members 12 who had exerted themselves to amend the Bill in that respect.
§ Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."—(Mr. Rylands.)
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, that, though few subjects came amiss to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), he had, apparently, not studied military strategy. If he had done so, he would have been aware that defeated Generals usually changed their tactics; and it would be better for the hon. Member, now that his views had been completely stated, not to insist on a division. With regard to the punishment of flogging, though he would be as glad as the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Taylor) if it could be abolished, he could not agree with him as to the absence of evidence for its efficacy. About 15 years ago there was a Frenchman in Petworth Gaol, who having deserted his regiment in France escaped to England, and was under sentence for a serious burglary. Although he was well treated and cared for, he commenced a series of the worst kind of conduct, and after doing everything he could to upset the discipline of the gaol he attempted to murder one of the warders. He was not flogged, but put into a dark cell, after which he again a second time attempted to take a warder's life. That man was brought before him and another magistrate, and they sentenced him to 25 lashes. He sprang at them and endeavoured to push them down, but was then told that when he recovered from his first punishment he should have 25 lashes more. The man was flogged; he might have been heard crying out at a considerable distance, for he was a coward; he need not say he was not flogged a second time, but he behaved afterwards as well as any man in Petworth Gaol; he learnt a trade and went out, to all appearances, a reformed man. Now, he would appeal to the hon. Member for Leicester, and ask him what he would do with a man who deliberately attempted every time he could to murder the warder in charge of him. Then with respect to the visiting justices. There must have been some misappre- 13 hension with respect to Holloway Gaol. At all events, if what had been alleged were true of it, it must be an exception. Speaking for himself, he declared that he always went alone into the cells of the prisoners when he was visiting. He heard any alleged complaints that might be made patiently, and if he thought there were any real grounds for them he did his best to provide a remedy. He protested against making use of an exceptional case to attempt to establish a wholesale charge against the justices. He frankly confessed that he objected to the Bill because it was based upon the principle of centralization; because it would confiscate county property; and because it would take existing power out of the hands of the county magistrates. Of course, if his right hon. Friend was to have the responsibility, he must have the authority now possessed by the magistrates; but he strongly objected to the responsibility being placed in his right hon. Friend's hands. His right hon. Friend had been tempted by the right hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) to place our county gaols under the same organization as the convict prisons. He hoped it would never enter into his right hon. Friend's thoughts to do any such thing, because he believed the system in the county gaols was at present better than that in the convict prisons. He again appealed to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Burnley not to divide the House.
§ MR. HIBBERT,though agreeing with the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) in his objection to the Bill, must join in the appeal that had been made to him by his hon. and gallant Friend opposite (Sir Walter Barttelot) not to go to a division. He could not oppose the Bill on the ground taken by the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Taylor). There were strong reasons why the punishment of flogging should be retained. As a visiting justice, he had to inflict that punishment on a man who had been placed in solitary confinement, put upon short diet, and punished in every other possible way for refusing to work. When brought before him, the man told him he had been in prison almost since he was a child—he had never worked, and never would work. The man got two dozen lashes, and did not take the punishment at all amiss, and the result was, that he took an interest in 14 the man, and afterwards enabled him to go out to Canada. They must all give great credit to his right hon. Friend who had charge of the Bill for the patience and ability with which he had conducted it through the House. He was opposed to it, because he thought it very doubtful whether the change was a desirable one, and whether the prisons would be more economically managed by the State than they were by the counties. But he opposed it chiefly on the ground that it was unwise that these additional duties should be imposed on the Secretary of State and his Department. His right hon. Friend brought forward the Bill in the interests of uniformity of management, discipline, and punishment; and also, in the interest of economy. But while the cost in the convict prisons was £35 per head per annum, the cost in the county and borough prisons was only £28; and there was no ground for believing that the prisons, when transferred, would drop to that. At Pentonville the cost was £23, after deducting the value of their work. When the State paid the whole of the expense there would not be the same motive for economy as existed at present. He represented the almost unanimous opinion —in the proportion of 98 to 2— of the Lancashire magistrates, who were opposed to the Bill. With regard to uniformity of management, discipline, and punishment, that great good might be got by this Bill he was willing to admit; but there was no reason why they should disestablish all the county and borough prisons in the country merely because there existed a number of small and worthless prisons which did not deserve to be maintained. The Home Secretary ought rather to have taken powers to close those small prisons, and also to advise the counties in regard to erecting and establishing prisons under a proper system. By that means he might have kept the local management of the justices and also secured the interests of economy. In the county and borough prisons the justices had introduced various trades and obtained a large amount of prison earnings, while maintaining the prisoners at the lowest cost—matters in respect to which those gaols contrasted very favourably with the convict prisons managed by the State. Again, he objected to the proposed transfer, because it would impose a large amount of addi- 15 tional trouble on an already overworked Department. If the Bill passed, in England there would be 305 chief officers and 1,519 subordinate officers to be appointed, leaving out of the question the small prisons—some 50 or 60 in number; and in Scotland 77 chief and 176 subordinate officers—at least 2,000 additional officers. In the course of a few years the number of those appointments would, in all probability, considerably increase. He did not believe the Bill would effect a saving. On the contrary, he thought it would result in additional expense to the country. There was in Gloucestershire only one prison, and the magistrates would really be punished for reducing crime in their county. Mr. Baker had written a letter to say that he would rather see an empty gaol than a well-regulated one. Again, he thought that the expected total saving of £100,000 through the closing of small prisons and from prison labour could hardly be depended on; and he urged that the successful efforts which had been made by justices to reduce crime were ignored by the proposal to transfer the management of the county and borough prisons to the State. Dr. Wise, the leader of the prison reformation movement in America, had borne strong testimony in favour of the existing system in this country; but he (Mr. Hibbert) hardly thought Dr. Wise would speak so strongly with respect to our convict prisons, and would be surprised to hear that it was now proposed to transfer the borough and county gaols to the State. In conclusion, he warned the Government that it was embarking in a doubtful and hazardous experiment in taking away those prisons from the management of the local authorities. The reports of the visitors of convict prisons led him to believe that the duties of the visiting justices would not be very pleasant.
§ ME. NEWDEGATEsaid: Mr. Speaker, I was prevented, towards the close of the Consideration of this Bill on the Report, from being present in the House when the Amendment of which I had given Notice was, through the kindness of the hon. and learned Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Serjeant Simon), submitted to the House. That Amendment did not meet the question completely. The terms of it ought to have required the Home Secretary not 16 only to submit for the approval of this House the Rules and Regulation for prison discipline—which he will under this Bill be entitled to frame—but it ought also to have comprehended the "Orders" which this Bill entitles him to make. The difference between the Orders and the Rules, according to the Bill, is technically this—the Bill enables the right hon. Gentleman at once to take possession of every county and borough gaol in England and Wales; to displace the county magistrates from the possession of the county gaols, and the Councils and borough authorities from the possession of the borough gaols; and, by Order, he will be able to discontinue any gaol he may choose, and, as the Bill stands, without giving any information to either House of Parliament with respect to his proceedings in this very important matter; and he will be able also to change the appropriation of those gaols, and to say which shall be relegated to long, and which to short, sentences. Hitherto, according to the Common Law of this country, every criminal, except those under sentence of transportation or penal servitude, which is its equivalent —in fact, a sentence of outlawry—has been, of right, confined within the jurisdiction where he committed his offence. That great principle of the Common Law is to be swept away by this Bill, and the right hon. Gentleman, by way of effecting, as he has said, economy, and by way also of perfecting, as he alleges, the system of prison discipline, proposes to place the county and borough gaols, as to their ownership, and in other respects, upon the system of the Government convict prisons. He would thus obtain power to designate which of the prisons shall be appropriated for long, and which for short sentences; the power also to remove every prisoner from the site of his conviction, and therefore from the proximity of those who might assist the prisoner in his defence before trial, and to prevent those who are best qualified to judge of the application of his punishment, after he has been convicted, from easily reaching him. Let the House make no mistake; it is by this Bill proposed to import into England the system of prison discipline against which, before the abolition of transportation, the Colonies rebelled. Colony after Colony declared the system of constant Government interference entailed 17 by the existence of this system of prison discipline incompatible with free institutions, and that it interrupted their development. And this is the system which a Conservative Government— [Laughter]—yes, the Conservative Party —proposes to import into England and Wales. I know something of the origin of this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to me, when he introduced the Bill, to take a very shallow view of the whole subject. I did not at that time remember, but I have since then recollected, that although the right hon. Gentleman was a Member of this House from March, 1857, to March, 1862, he was not again a Member of this House till December, 1868. The right hon. Gentleman was therefore absent from this House when the debates took place upon the Bill introduced in 1862 by Mr. Pope Hennessy, entitled the Roman Catholic Prisoners Bill, and it is the principle of that Bill which you are now enacting. The right hon. Gentleman was not present in this House or a Member of it when that Bill was discussed; nor in 1863, when the Prison Ministers Act passed, the right hon. Gentleman was not a Member; nor was he present here as a Member when the Act of 1865 —the Prisons Act — was passed. And this diminishes my surprise at hearing the right hon. Gentleman constantly referring to the Act of 1865, as if this Bill was carrying out its principles. Now, the truth is this—this Bill is to reverse the principle of the Act of 1865. The right hon. Gentleman has skilfully made great use in Committee, and before, of his retention of certain details of the Act of 1865, as though he intended to preserve the principle of that Act; he has been careful not to inform the House that he was about to reverse the principle. I will show the House how completely he proposes to reverse these principles. My hon. Friends on this side of the House are adopting a measure which they may please to call Conservative, but which I cannot otherwise consider than as re-actionary, and not Conservative. There has been a disposition among hon. Members here to be careless as to the scope and object of this Bill; they seem to consider it merely as a Party measure; they knew that it was introduced by a Home Secretary of a Conservative Administration, and they concluded it must be a Conservative 18 Bill. But I must be forgiven for endeavouring to show them that their notions of Conservatism must have been very much changed within the last few years, if they can consider this a Conservative measure. It is re-actionary, and re-actionary in the worst sense. It proposes to reverse the system established in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, by which the gaols were committed to the care and management of the visiting justices; while the right hon. Gentleman goes still further back historically in his re-action by abolishing the responsibility of the sheriffs for the custody of the prisoners generally, and in both cases he proposes to substitute the authority of himself, a political officer, for the authority hitherto exercised by judicial officers. In these respects, I would impress upon my hon. Friends that this measure is not conservative of the Common Law or of the Constitution of this country. Hon. Members have been beguiled as to the character of this Bill by the fact that the hon. Member who has proposed the rejection of this Bill is supposed to be a Radical, and that Members of the Radical Party oppose this Bill. I rejoice that the ultra-Liberal and the Radical Party are learning to act in a Conservative sense, when the so-called Conservative Party becomes, as in this case, re-actionary in its proposals. I can assure hon. Members opposite that they will gain credit in this country, and a just credit, for persevering in this course. They must see, from the feeble and spasmodic attempts that are made in France and elsewhere to imitate our Parliamentary system, while lacking the other securities for freedom which this country has hitherto possessed, how much this country has to lose in the traditional safeguards for its freedom, of which the greatest is its Common Law. What has been the course pursued by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary? He has, while the Bill has been in this House, been compelled to admit that the legislative powers, which he demands for himself By this Bill, are so enormous that he cannot expect this House to consent to grant them, unless he places upon the Table of the House some account of his exercise of these Legislative functions; but he has avoided including in the documents he has undertaken to lay upon the Table of this House for 40 days the 19 "Orders," which are to be his most important instruments. He has consented to lay upon the Table of this House for 40 days the Rules and Regulations which relate to matters of minor importance referring to the internal administration of the gaols; but even then, when asked to propose these Rules and Regulations to the House, as a Member of the Government having the enormous command over the time of this House which the House has unwisely conceded to the Government, he has refused; and, as the Bill stands, it will be the merest chance if any unofficial Member can acquire through the Ballot the opportunity of calling the attention of the House to these Rules and Regulations. I am, Sir, opposed to this Bill. So is my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter Barttelot). He has expressed a hope that we who agree with him in opposition to this Bill will not divide against this Bill; though, as my hon. and gallant Friend added— "I am as much opposed to it as you are." I am perfectly aware that last Session many hon. Members on this side of the House who voted in favour of the second reading of this Bill now regret that they did so. But I also know how pachydermatous is Party organization. Then I may be asked—why speak, if you will not divide? I answer, that it is due to the Home Secretary that he should be made to feel beforehand the weight of the responsibility he is about to take on his shoulders. It is due to every Member on this side of the House that he should understand the position in which he is placing himself by repudiating for his brother magistrates and himself the performance of duties which have hitherto been held by his neighbours, I will not use the expression to "justify," but I will say to commend the retention of his property and position. And now I will, by permission of the House, shortly point out the great changes which this Bill is about to effect. Under the Act of 1865 it was the duty of the magistrates, as visiting justices, to provide and maintain prisons within their several counties, cities, boroughs, or other prison jurisdictions; and for this purpose to purchase land, direct repairs, additions, or alterations, and to enter into all necessary contracts for provisions and other requisites. To confer these powers upon, and to require 20 the performance of these duties from the justices, was the first principle of the Act of 1865. These functions of the county and borough justices are abolished by this Bill in favour of the Home Secretary. The second principle of the Act of 1865 was that it should be the duty of the justices to appoint, dismiss, remove, or superannuate the governors, chaplains, surgeons, gaolers, prison instructors, and other officers; to grant leave of absence, and to appoint substitutes in the case of death, sudden illness, or other cause. The whole of that second principle of local self-government which is retained by the Act of 1865 will be swept away by this Bill. The third principle of the Act of 1865 is that it is incumbent upon the justices to make rules for the discipline of the prisons; for regulation of hard labour and of employment; for the dietary, bedding, and washing, and for granting special allowances to prisoners; for the classification of, or for the immediate removal of prisoners to other prisons on the occurrence of the breaking out of contagious or infectious diseases; to make rules for the reception of and for allowances to unconvicted prisoners; also for allowances for any discharged prisoner to Prisoners' Aid Societies, and for providing them with means to return to their respective places of settlement. That is the third principle which is to be abolished by this Bill. The fourth principle of the Act of 1865 rendered it incumbent on the justices to visit and inspect the prisons; to hear complaints; to examine into the conduct of the officers, or into the treatment and conduct of the prisoners; to regulate the means of setting them to work; to inquire into the amount of, and to regulate the disposal of the earnings of prisoners for their benefit; to control the expenditure incurred; to inquire into abuses; and to make rules for the alteration and regulation of all such matters. That is the fourth principle of local self-government which is abolished by this Bill, and when I say abolished, I mean abolished so far the depositary as these duties, for all these duties imposed on the visiting justices are by the Bill transferred to the Home Secretary and his new Commissioners. Hitherto the law has been that the justices should regulate the religious and secular instruction; the hours for religious services; the ad- 21 mission of ministers of various denominations; should guard against the introduction of improper persons; should regulate the visits of relations or other persons to prisoners before or after conviction; and make rules as to the use of books, printed papers, or written communications which might be required from time to time. That is the fifth principle of the Act which will be abolished by this Bill—I mean abolished so far as the depositary of the functions is to be changed, that they are to be taken from the visiting justices. The sixth principle sat aside is that the reports of deaths and the records of the prison are no longer to be kept by the justices, but to be preserved by the new authority of the Secretary of State and his Commissioners. What, Sir, is to remain to the justices? Certain justices are to visit the prison and to hear complaints. We have no clear notion who these visiting justices will be. They are not to be elected by the quarter sessions as their committee or delegation; they are merely to be recommended by the Court of Quarter Sessions to the Secretary of State, who will nominate such as he may approve; there may be an election, but it is the nomination by the Home Secretary which is to be effective, and these justices, when nominated, are to visit the gaols only as the Home Secretary may direct, and then report, not to quarter sessions, but to him; otherwise their visits will be totally unauthoritative. It is true that there has been inserted in the Bill a general vague permission for other justices to visit the prisons; but when they make these visits they will have no authority except such as shall be committed to them by the Secretary of State, unless it be to order punishment at the instance of the master of the prison, who is to be an officer appointed by the right hon. Gentleman, not appointed by the justices themselves. I think I have gone sufficiently through this Bill to show that it in no sense tends to a continuation of the principle of local self-government, with which the whole Act of 1865 is pregnant. Some of the details of that Act are preserved, but not one jot of its main principle. This is a great change, and I think anything but Conservative, although it is a re-actionary change, towards that system of centralized authority which exists in foreign countries. I know some 22 hon. Members are so worried by the protracted proceedings of this House that they are ready to make over almost any amount of power and authority to the Executive merely to relieve themselves from attendance in this House, but, as country Gentlemen, they may find this self-indulgence costly. The Home Secretary has no right to complain of the extent to which this Bill has been discussed. If he, a Conservative official, introduces a re-actionary, and not a Conservative measure, it is the duty of this House to make him feel the responsibility he incurs. I am convinced that it is the growing dislike among the Members of the House to this measure that has induced the House so long to delay its passage. That delay has, in my opinion, been perfectly justifiable, for it is a good ground of opposition to any measure that the country remains in ignorance of its character. My own belief is that anticipations of economy, which have induced the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read), the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell), and the small knot who direct the action of the Central Chamber of Agriculture to promote this Bill, rest upon grounds at once narrow and deceptive. The hon. Member for South Norfolk and the hon. Member for South Leicestershire have gained great credit for indiscriminately opposing every measure which might have added a penny in the pound upon the rates; but they carry this system much too far when they support this Bill with that single aim. A good deal has been done in this sense. I do not complain of that, because the House at one time seemed inclined to care too little how heavily it might burden the rates; but when it comes to this—that for the sake of saving a halfpenny in the pound we are to have this great political change introduced, this narrow economy carries hon. Members and the House too far. There has been another agency at work. We have had the officers of the Convict department of the Civil Service, and notably Colonel Ducane, vilifying the justices, from a desire, I suppose, to extend the sphere of employment for Government officials. There has been yet another agency at work. The origin of this attack upon the system of local government in this country is within our memory. With respect to the county 23 prisons, the movement in 1862 was originated by the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Some hon. Members seem disposed to doubt this. I will, therefore, read to the House an extract from The Tablet, a newspaper which was then, and is now, an organ of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. On the 17th May, 1862, it contained a letter from the Rev. Canon Morris, secretary of the committee appointed to prepare a Bill to remedy the alleged grievances of Roman Catholics in convict, county, and borough gaols. His letter states that several meetings on the subject had been held in London.
A sub-committee was appointed, consisting of the Honourable Charles Langdale, Canon O'Neal, V.G., and Mr. Ryley, with myself as secretary, to prepare a Bill, which would represent a complete remedy for all the grievances of Catholics, both in convict and county or borough gaols. This Bill, when prepared, was submitted to his Eminence (Cardinal Wiseman) and the Bishops in Low Week, and at the meeting which has just been held it has been resolved that the sub-committee be requested to take steps for its immediate introduction into Parliament.This is from The Tablet of the 17th of May, 1862, but on the 24th of May it was further announced in The Tablet—We have the satisfaction of once more reporting progress on the prison question. Our readers are already aware that at a meeting held some weeks ago at the Stafford Club it was resolved that a Bill, dealing with the whole case, should be prepared; they are also aware that this Bill has been prepared and submitted to the Bishops, by whom it was approved. Another meeting was held at the Stafford Club, at which it was resolved that a sub-committee, consisting of the Very Rev. Canons O'Neal and Morris, Sir Charles Clifford and Mr. Ryley, should be requested to take all necessary steps for the immediate introduction of the Bill into Parliament. In pursuance of this resolution, the sub-committee met and resolved on requesting Mr. Pope Hennessy, M.P., to take charge of the Bill. We are happy to add that Mr. Hennessy has consented to do so, and that in the Votes and Proceedings of the House of Commons, among the Notices given on Wednesday, May 20, appears the following:—'Mr. Hennessy: Roman Catholic Prisoners Bill to amend the Law relating to the Religious Instruction of Roman Catholic Prisoners in England and Wales, Tuesday, May 27.'This is my authority for the statement I have made. When that Bill came to be discussed it was found that the purport of it was to give the Roman Catholic Bishops power to appoint a chaplain for every gaol in which any considerable number of Roman Catholic prisoners 24 were confined; and that where no such chaplain was appointed and paid out of the rates, a priest should be less regularly, but still actually, appointed by the Bishops, and that these Roman Catholic priests should have access at all times to the prisoners, notwithstanding any prison regulations. That was the beginning of this attack. Sir George Grey was then Home Secretary, and objected to this Bill as subversive of prison discipline; and in 1863 he introduced a Bill of his own, meeting in some degree the Roman Catholic demand, but preserving the authority of the visiting justices. The Roman Catholic hierarchy were not satisfied with that Bill, and continued, through their Representatives in this House and otherwise, to attack the county justices, because the principle was preserved that the attendance by the Roman Catholic chaplains on the prisoners should be regulated by the visiting justices, and the acceptance of these priests' ministration was not made compulsory on the prisoners. The agitation continued, and in 1865 the Prisons Act was passed; but this Act preserved intact the local jurisdiction of the justices of the peace, which the Bill of Mr. Pope Hennessy, introduced in 1862, would have invalidated, and which this Bill proposes to sweep away altogether. I hope the House will forgive my having gone through these details of evidence; but as I was a Member of the House during the years 1862, 1863, and 1865, and as the right hon. Gentleman was not a Member, and was, consequently, comparatively ignorant of the proceedings which led up to the Act of 1865, I may be excused for thinking that when he launched this Bill, containing the transfer of such enormous powers to the Home Secretary, he may have commenced action without being personally cognizant of the circumstances that led to the introduction of the Bill of 1865. I am aware that the hon. and learned Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Serjeant Simon), who co-operated with me in some details, is in favour of this measure generally. I regret that such seems to be his inclination. My object in rising is this—It may be that Parliament will decide in favour of this great change in the administration of justice; but I am strongly of opinion that the House has sanctioned this Bill under circumstances and at a time when the 25 vital magnitude of the change proposed was not adequately foreseen. I rejoice, however, to find that many of the Liberal Party have opposed this Bill, and that they seem to be becoming conscious that if they are to be worthy inheritors of the great traditions of the whole Whig Party, who were in years gone by the defenders of constitutional freedom in this country, they must act in a Conservative sense, when a Government, supposed to be Conservative, adopts reactionary measures of this type.
§ MR. SERJEANT SIMON,while expressing his concurrence in almost everything which had fallen from the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Taylor), would remind him that the present Bill did not introduce flogging or any of the other punishments to which he had referred, though he regretted as much as his hon. Friend that the Home Secretary had not found himself in a position to deal boldly with those brutal and brutalizing punishments by sweeping them away altogether. He could not, however, on that account withhold his support from a measure which would mitigate the severity of the lot of political prisoners, and make better provision for the care of those who were detained in our gaols before conviction. He was sorry to find that so poor an opinion had been expressed of the justices, and that if this Bill passed, they would no longer visit the prisons. He could not recognize the connection between the office of a justice of the peace and that of goaler of which some hon. Gentlemen seemed so tenacious. On the other hand, he thought that the justices could perform no nobler work in connection with the prisons than that of standing between the prisoners and the Crown, and preventing an abuse of authority. Again, the Bill would shut up at first 70 useless prisons, re-organize others, and bring them all into combination, under one uniform system of discipline. It was desirable that we should have a prison discipline of which our criminals would stand in awe, and that we should no longer hear that criminals selected the district in which to commit crime, because the discipline in one district was lighter than that in another. With regard to the objections raised to the Bill, on the ground of its centralizing character, he saw no reason why prisons 26 should be looked upon as local institutions. They formed part, so to speak, of the criminal law of the country, and they ought to belong to the country at large. He did not believe that the county gentlemen would cease to take an interest in the prisons if this Bill were passed. There would be ample scope for their energies, seeing that they would be able to make their complaints heard in the House of Commons. Considering the objects of the Bill, he could not understand objections to it on the ground of economy. He regretted that the Secretary of State had not acceded to the proposal he made the other night to allow Parliament to have a complete control over the prison rules he proposed to make. While he would not say that the measure was without faults, he thought that the right hon. Gentleman in introducing it had done one of the most signal and beneficial acts of his official life. He gave it his most cordial support.
§ MR. DODSONsaid, this Bill was introduced last year for the purpose of affording relief to local taxation and the establishment of absolute economy; and in the Speech from the Throne this year economy was put forward as the main object of the Bill; but as the discussion of the measure had gone on, less and less was said about economy in the transfer of the prisons to the Government. The great argument now was uniformity of prison management. In proposing to take away the management of the prisons from the local authorities, economy and the relief of local taxation had been offered as a quid pro quo. If the object had simply been to secure uniformity of management, that could have been done by means of rules, without transferring all power and patronage to the Government. In introducing the Bill last year, the right hon. Gentleman anticipated that it would lead to a saving of £100,000 a-year; £50,000 he expected would be gained by greater efficiency of labour, while £50,000 would be saved by reducing the number of prisons in the country. Was the right hon. Gentleman still as sanguine on the point of economy? Gentlemen who had analyzed the prison statistics had come to the conclusion that if the right hon. Gentleman closed 54 prisons, there would be a saving of only £21,000, It was to be remembered, 27 moreover, that concessions had been made, not in the direction of economy, for the right hon. Gentleman had undertaken to compensate local authorities in respect of superfluous prison accommodation. In connection with the subject of prison labour, the Secretary of State had already found, and in future would probably find his duties under the Bill invidious and difficult. It might be expected also that there would be an immense increase in the number of Questions put to him in that House with reference to the treatment of prisoners when he had assumed the exclusive responsibility. Another great responsibility which the right hon. Gentleman had undertaken was the framing of rules for the regulation of prisons. Those rules were to lie 40 days on the Table of the House, and it was to be hoped that they would actually be presented, and not, like some other rules, lie there for great part of the time only in dummy. With regard to the centralizing character of the Bill, he could not but think that if the visiting justices came into collision with the officials of the central Government, they would find the influence of the latter too strong for them, and they would be sent to the wall. He maintained that in all cases where centralization was not necessary, or highly expedient, it should be abstained from, or abandoned. After all the discussion on the Bill, he still retained his former doubt whether its advantages would be compensated by its disadvantages. He suggested that his hon. Friend would content himself with having protested against the Bill, and not put the House to the trouble of a division.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSSir, I have not very much to say with respect to this Bill, because I have already troubled the House very often. I must, however, object very decidedly to one word that fell from the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), for he said that there had been "precipitate" action in the matter. Well, there was a very long debate last year, such as hardly any Bill ever went through before, and a most decisive expression of opinion, as the second reading was carried by an almost unprecedented majority. I am bound to say that I can never expect such a majority again. Since that time 28 the Bill has been completely discussed throughout the country, and the general conclusion is that it is a good Bill, and a wise one, and ought to pass into law. I hope that nothing I have said will lead any hon. Member to suppose that I wish to prolong the debate, now that the subject has been discussed—and very properly—at much length. I may say that the speech of the hon. Member for Burnley is a most valuable index to the debates, and any one referring to it will find a summary of everything that can be said, or suggested, or imagined against the Bill. He has spoken of the increase of local rates and taxation. I wish he had mentioned two matters connected with it, and that when he touched upon this vital question, he had stated the cause of the increase and the increase of local taxation in the municipalities. The hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) said that his objection to the Bill—his sole objection almost—was that it did not abolish flogging. At all events, if the Bill does not go so far as that, it includes better safeguards against the abuse of flogging than have been embodied in any previous measure. While I am touching upon this subject, I must allude to Holloway Prison. Some time ago, a letter was made public which gave strong expression to the notion that all manner of hardships went on in that prison, and I made it my first duty to communicate with the authorities. In consequence, I have here a long statement in contradiction to that letter. I am bound, however, to say that the writer of the statement alleging cruelties is a person who has been given to intoxicating drinks for a long time, his health became so seriously affected as to require his confinement in the lunatic asylum; and during his stay in Holloway Prison knives and other sharp instruments were always kept out of his way, so that his meat had to be cut for him. I wish to explain that when he wrote that letter he was very probably suffering from some mental affection which warped his judgment. The statement of the authorities is too long for me to read, but it is a substantial denial of every accusation. I have also in my hand a letter, of which, if the House will allow me, I will read one sentence without naming the writer, for that is the condition on which I may use the 29 letter, but I will show the seal to the hon. Member for Leicester afterwards. The writer says—
The extraordinary statement of cruelties furnished by Mr. P. Taylor appears to me to be so far from the truth that, in the public interest, I come forward to refute it. I am a man who suffered 12 months' imprisoment in Holloway Gaol, but I never saw or heard of one single act of cruelty beyond the strict discipline of the prison; nor do I believe these charges.The hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Hibbert) naturally went to a considerable length in comparing the expenses of the county and borough prisons. He must remember, however, that there is a great difference in the number of persons required to look after them. One of the prisons particularly mentioned— that of Woking—is practically a hospital and not a prison; and, so far as I know, the only fault of the Lancashire prisons is that the county is too proud of them. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) is a persistent opponent of the Bill, but I cannot follow his argument about the Common Law, and I cannot understand whether it is his opinion that the Secretary of State or the visiting justices will have too much power under this Act. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Dodson) has asked me four questions, and I will answer them very briefly. First, as to the question of economy, that matter has been considered very carefully, and I believe that £50,000 may be saved both in the one case and the other. But the compensation to counties and boroughs which the House thought proper to agree to, must be deducted from any saving that may be made. I believe the hon. Member for Burnley was one who voted in the majority on that point, and compelled the Government to yield to what was proposed. With regard to prison labour, there are, no doubt, great difficulties in administering that part of the Bill. But it is more likely that prison labour will interfere much less with the ordinary run of labour throughout the country when it is in one hand than when it is in many hands. Then the right hon. Gentleman says that many more Questions will be asked of the Secretary of State as to the treatment of prisoners than have been asked hitherto. My answer to that is this—if the treatment of prisoners is bad, the more Questions 30 asked the better; if the treatment is good, the more easy to answer them. Then the right hon. Gentleman says that the rules must be laid on the Table for 40 days. I am glad that he pressed that subject on the attention of the House; the question of the rules will be considered during the Recess, and the rules will be laid on the Table. I will not take up any more time, but will only express a hope that the House will agree to the third reading of the Bill without a division.
§ MR. PARNELLthought that a great opportunity had been lost by the Liberal Party in not fulfilling what he considered to be the proper mission of the Liberal Party in Opposition in reference to such a Bill as this. There could be no doubt that the legislation of the present Government had been marked by a centralizing tendency. They pledged themselves on coming into office to direct their attention to measures of a domestic character, and not to continue the sensational legislation of the late Government. It was also understood that they intended to take the ground from under the feet of those Liberal Members who had endeavoured to promote the power and spread the number of local institutions and local self-government. He was much struck by some remarks of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), who told them that if the Government went on in that way, by introducing measures like the Valuation Bill, they would gradually do away with the raison d'être for the existence and for the establishment of county government. He was thankful for the support he had received when endeavouring to improve the treatment of political prisoners, both during and after trial; but, at the same time, he could not help regretting that a great opportunity had been lost by the Liberal Party. This Bill held out a sort of bribe to the ratepayers, in the shape of a fancied reduction of the rates; but in reality it would effect no such reduction, and the ratepayers would find that the money for the support of the prisons would still come out of their pockets, though not exactly in the same way as before. What was the action of the Conservatives who represented the interests of the unpaid justices of England? From the first they introduced Amendments in favour of their own order. They were most indefatigable in their 31 attendance and in their hostility to such portions of the Bill as seemed to trench on their privileges. Many provisions had been introduced saving the power of visiting justices, and giving powers which the Home Secretary did not contemplate when he introduced the Bill. He should have preferred, if this question had been postponed by the Government until they had dealt with the system of county government in England, Scotland, and Ireland. When they had completed that legislation, it would have been a noble act to have handed over these prisons to the county authorities. However, they could not now hope to stop the progress of the Bill; and he had seen the necessity for this Bill becoming law. He hoped the hon. Member for Burnley would not take a division at this stage.
§ MR. ALDERMAN LUSKtestified to the character of the Governor of Holloway Prison as an able, kind, and judicious officer, and one who had the thorough confidence of the magistrates. That gentleman had written a letter to him, in which he had stated that the charges of cruelty and violence to prisoners, of the use of thumb-screws, of the fastening of prisoners to walls and starving them, and other such accusations were totally untrue. All the prison officers stated that these things were merely creations of the imagination. The Governor added that he had never seen a thumb-screw in his life.
§ MR. BIGGARnoticed several objections to the Bill, and remarked that the Government had refused to give the House the option of affirming or not affirming the rules adopted for prisons. He thought additional facilities should have been given for enabling Roman Catholic prisoners to have chaplains of their own faith. He thought also that it would have been well if the Government had agreed to a clause abolishing flogging entirely in prisons.
§ MR. RYLANDSsaid, after the discussion which had taken place, he would ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Main Question put, and agreed to.
§ Bill read the third time, and passed.