§ SIR CHAELES W. DILKEmoved an Amendment in page 87, line 5, to describe the first division of the county of Fife as the "Eastern" instead of the East Division. He thought it was desirable to make the Scotch county names correspond with those which had been applied to the English counties; and he therefore proposed, in the case of the county of Fife, to call the divisions 1946 "Eastern" and "Western," instead of "East and West."
§ Question, "That the word 'East,' in page 87, line 5, stand part of the Schedule," put, and negatived.
§ Question, "That the word 'Eastern' be there inserted," put, and agreed to.
§ SIR CHAELES W. DILKEmoved, on the same ground, to substitute "Western" in the second division for "West."
§ Question, "That the word 'West,' in page 87, line 14, stand part of the Schedule, "put, and negatived.
§ Question, "That the word 'Western' be there inserted," put, and agreed to.
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)moved, in page 88, line 3, in the Partick Division of Lanarkshire, to describe the contents of the division as so much of the parish of Govan as lies north of the Clyde and beyond the present boundary of the municipal burgh of Glasgow, and "so much of the parish of Barony as lies" to the west of the present main line of the North British Railway between Glasgow and Edinburgh.
§ MR. WARTONrose to Order. An Amendment preceding the present one stood on the Paper in the name of the right hon. and learned Gentleman—namely, to insert "s" at the beginning of the Govan Division.
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)said, the Amendment had reference simply to a printer's error, which had already been corrected.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 88, line 3, after the word "and," to insert the words "so much of the parish of Barony as lies."—(The Lord Advocate.)
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ On the Motion of The LORD ADVOCATE, the following Amendment made:—Page 88, line 6, after "Railway," insert "and beyond the present boundary of the Municipal Burgh of Glasgow."
§ On the Motion of Mr. JOHN HAMILTON, the following Amendment made:—Page 88, line 7, leave out "West."
§ MR. JOHN HAMILTONmoved an Amendment to describe the fourth division of Lanarkshire as the "Eastern" instead of the "North-East" Division.
§ Amendment proposed, in page 88, line 12, to leave out the word "North."—(Mr. John Hamilton.)
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'North' stand part of the Schedule."
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, he knew that his hon. Friend had a strong opinion in favour of calling this division "Eastern" instead of "North-Eastern;" but he (Sir Charles W. Dilke) could not agree to the Amendment, because the greater portion of the division lay to the east of the county of Lanark, and one of the points they had already settled was that even local opinion should not be allowed to prevail if it were not in accord with geographical facts. Therefore he would move, as an Amendment to the proposal of his hon. Friend, to substitute the words "North-Eastern."
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Amendment proposed, in page 88, line 12, to leave out the word "East," and insert "Eastern."—(Sir Charles W. Dilke.)
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ On the Motion of The LORD ADVOCATE, the following Amendment made:—Part 2, page 88, line 13, leave out "Dalzell," and insert "Dalziel."
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)moved Amendments describing the fifth division as "The Mid Division," and the sixth as "The Southern Division."
§ Amendments agreed to.
§ On the Motion of The LORD ADVOCATE, the following Amendments made:—Page 88, line 17, leave out "the parishes of;" line 19, leave out "and the parishes of;" line 35, leave out "and Dunblane," and insert "Dunning."
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEmoved an Amendment in page 88, line 31, to describe the first division of the county of Perth as "Eastern" insead of "East,"
§ Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)moved, in page 89, lines 1, 3, and 4, to leave out "the parishes of;" in line 7, to leave out "Rynd," and insert "Rhynd;" in line 11, to leave out "Crief," and insert "Crieff."
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEexplained that nothing was being done in regard to the county of Perth which had not already been done in the English counties.
§ SIR DONALD CURRIEremarked that, if hon. Members would look at the map of Perthshire, they would see that the county was cut up in an extraordinary way. It was now proposed to take the parish of Dunning from the Western Division and insert it in the Eastern, and to remove Dunblane from the Eastern Division for the purpose of placing it in the Western. He objected to the way in which the county had been divided.
§ Amendments agreed to.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, the Boundary Commissioners had consented to alter their original scheme in the case of the county of Perth on the ground that the changes would be more suitable as regarded the number of population. Considerable alterations had been made, and he believed the result had been to irritate to a considerable extent the Liberal Party in the county, who thought they were deprived of advantages they would otherwise have enjoyed. He thought, however, that the Committee were bound to carry out the recommendations of the Boundary Commissioners, who had acted only in accordance with the Instructions given to them. He moved, in line 9, to omit "West," and substitute "Western."
§ Amendment proposed, in page 89, line 9, to leave out the word "West."—(Sir Charles W. Dilke.)
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'West' stand part of the Schedule."
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he did not understand why they should change "West" into "Western." At present they all knew the Member for North Lincoln; but who would know the right hon. Gentleman as the Member for Northern Lincoln? In this case, were hon. Members to address the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Donald Currie) as the Member for the Western Division of the county of Perth? The change appeared to him (Mr. Callan) to be ridiculous and nonsensical. It would be much more simple and sensible to speak of him as the Member for West Perth, although in the Writ he might 1949 be returned as the Member for the Western Division of that county. If it were hereafter necessary to give such long names to hon. Members, the only effect would be obstruct the transaction of Business and prolong the debates unnecessarily. When the Committee came to discuss the Irish counties, which he presumed would be reached in a few moments, he should certainly prefer North, South, East, and West to Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western. Why should it not be North Antrim and North Fermanagh, instead of Northern Antrim and Northern Fermanagh? He wished to know, therefore, why, in the case of the county of Perth, "Western" should be substituted for "West?"
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, the view of the Government was that which had been expressed by the hon. Member; but the Committee, generally, had taken a different view, and had accused the Government of being guilty of using bad grammar. The whole of the English names had therefore been altered, and "Northern" adopted instead of "North." The hon. Member said the names would be very long; but, in this instance, the name was one of the shortest in the Bill. In some instances, the Committee had inserted names which covered two lines of print, very much against the protest of the Government. For himself, he should still continue to call the Member for the Western Division of the county of Perth the Member for Perthshire.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, he had put the matter clearly before the Committee, and he would not now waste time by fighting the question. When they came to the Irish counties, he did not know why they should adopt a different grammatical construction from that which had been adopted in England and Scotland. In former Acts of Parliament, as a matter of fact, both forms had been adopted—for instance, East and West Sussex and the Northern and Southern Divisions of the West Riding of Yorkshire.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, that in Ireland the Commissioners had adopted the compass points in naming the counties. Personally, he entertained a strong opinion that the name inserted in the 1950 Schedule should be as brief as possible, and that it ought to correspond with the name given by the Commissioners. Upon the map the county of Armagh was divided into North Armagh, Mid Armagh, and South Armagh, and he thought the same names should appear in the Schedule. The question would have to be discussed when they proceeded with the Irish counties to-morrow; but he should not be prepared to fight it at any length. "North Armagh" would certainly be shorter than "The Northern Armagh Division."
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Amendment proposed, in page 89, line 2, to leave out the word "Dunning," and insert the word "Dunblane."—(The Lord Advocate.)
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'Dunning' stand part of the Schedule."
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)said, that these places had been transposed in the Bill, and the Amendment was therefore of a merely clerical character.
§ MR. HEALYYes; but why were they transposed? Probably the people in the locality desired that the thing should be reversed.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKENo; that is not the case. Objection has been raised to what has been called the jerrymandering of Perth; but no objection is raised upon this particular point, which relates to a mere accidental error in printing the contents of the Schedule. It is a geographical necessity that Dunning and Dunblane should change places in the Schedule.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ MR. WARTONsaid that in page 89, line 14, he saw, after "Kippen," this sentence in parenthesis—namely, "except the detached part locally situate in Stirlingshire." He would propose to omit "the detached part locally" in order to insert "so much as is." They might as well be consistent so far as they could in this Bill; and as those words had been adopted in previous cases, he thought that they should be inserted here. They had never yet had in any part of the Bill "the detached part locally situate," and all through 1951 the Bill they had had the expression "so much as is."
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 89, line 14, after the word "except," to leave out the words "the detached part locally," in order to insert "so much as is."—(Mr. Warton.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Schedule."
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)said, the difference of phraseology in this case was attributable to the different conditions of the district the words described. The district was not physically joined to any other, but was an Island, so to speak, or an oasis situated in another place.
§ MR. WARTONThen I withdraw.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.