SECOND READING. (Hansard, 9 June 1884)

THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)
, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, he did not propose to detain the House, because all who were interested in the subject were well aware of the provisions of the measure, speaking generally. It was a consolidating and amending Bill. They had had in Scotland a succession of Bills directing, regulating, and governing the police administration in the urban communities; and in the year 1862 a well-known Statute was passed by which the legislation down to that day—all that experience had proved to be wise—was formulated. They had now had 20 years' experience of the working of that Act, and while a great deal in it had been found to be extremely good, it was also found that there were a number of amendments which seemed to be fitting and desirable. The purpose of the present Bill, therefore, was to consolidate the existing provisions of the various Acts and to make the necessary amendments. The Bill was one of considerable bulk, and therefore he proposed, not to ask that it should be considered in Committee of the Whole House, but, if the House would grant the second reading, that it should be referred to a Select Committee upstairs, thereby not occupying any considerable time in the House itself. The general nature of the Bill was so well known to Members from Scotland that he would not be justified in detaining the House any further.

§ SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS
had only to say that he was very glad to hear the course which the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate proposed to take. They had the experience of many years as regarded the Bills already passed and of the Act of 1862, and he (Sir R. Assheton Cross) should certainly not object to the second reading of the Bill which the right hon. and learned Gentleman now brought forward. All the remarks he had to make were upon details, upon which he might have some observations to make at a future stage, and he was very glad indeed that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had consented at once to refer the Bill to a Select Committee, because he was sure it was a Bill with which a Select Committee would be much more competent to deal than a Committee of the Whole House.

§ MR. ANDERSON
said, he had a Notice on the Paper against this Bill; but it was not his intention to take up the time of the House by making a speech, because in reality the fault he had to find with the Bill was much more one of detail than of principle. There was a Bill on this subject last year; but the present Bill contained a very important uhange as regarded his constituency. Glasgow was unfortunately surrounded by a number of very small burghs, and there was a clause in this Bill by which those burghs might be enabled to clasp hands round Glasgow and so shut her in that it would be impossible for her ever to expand at all. That was the chief and the strongest objection he had to the Bill, but he should reserve his opposition till the Bill came before a Select Committee.

§ SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKE
said, he thought the hon. Member had exercised a wise discretion in his decision; but with regard to the hon. Member's statement as to the small burghs round Glasgow, he must point out that one of those burghs had a population of 50,000, and another a population of 40,000. Whatever questions or differences might be involved, he hoped they would be discussed in an amicable spirit, and that they would be reserved for the Select Committee.