§ MR. M'LARENasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the fact that several of the Scotch County Prison Board Clerks, who are in receipt of salaries for other public offices, some of them solicitors in large practice, 1369 and others acting as bank agents, are demanding compensation under section 60 of the Scotch Prisons Act of 1877; and, whether it was the purpose of Her Majesty's Government, in assenting to this section of the Act, to include such cases, or only persons who are deprived by the said Act of all other ostensible means of livelihood, or by the abolition of prison offices to which their time was mainly or wholly given?
MR. ASSHETON CROSSPerhaps my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate will answer the Question.
THE LORD ADVOCATESir, the Prisons Act of last year gives, in the first instance, to the old prison authority a discretionary power of awarding compensation to officers deprived of their offices, their decisions being liable, however, to review and correction by the Commissioners of Supply. We have not had an opportunity of knowing, except by the Question of the hon. Member, the fact that demands of this extravagant kind have been made upon the prison authorities. It was not the intention of the Government or of the Home Secretary to have anything to do with awarding these pensions. We thought it better to leave this matter entirely to the good sense and discretion of the local executive bodies, who ought to be best able to judge of the requirements of each applicant. I have only to say, further, that although, no doubt, applications have been made of the character indicated by the hon. Member, we see as yet no reason to suppose that the discretion intrusted to the local bodies will be abused by them.