SECOND READING. (Hansard, 23 July 1885)

MR. THOROLD ROGERS
said, he was prepared to say, with regard to the Bill, that he strongly sympathized with its principle. He saw no particular reason why the police should not be enfranchised as well as any other class of the community. But, on the whole, he thought it should be remembered that Bills for the enfranchisement of persons who ought to have been admitted had been resisted in that House. The Woman's Franchise Bill had been dropped; and he confessed that so large a question as the present should not, in his opinion, have been brought forward in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department. This was a question which particularly referred to the functions of domestic legislation, and he thought that a Bill of the kind ought not to be read a second time at that late period of the Session; he objected to it also on the ground that the Home Secretary was not present on the occasion. Further than that, he should like to call attention to the fact that the police had at the time of elections a peculiar and important function to discharge. By law, whatever might happen at the time of elections, the military were disabled from being called out; and, therefore, if it became necessary to keep the peace at the time of election, the police were necessarily employed for the purpose. It seemed to him that a very large principle was involved in the present Bill. Unless some provision were made for the conduct of elections, it seemed to him that it would be extremely unwise to be debarred from the services of the police in districts where the election going on might put them in the position of partizans. He strongly sympathized with those who moved this Motion. [Laughter.] Hon. Members might laugh at that, but he should not 1732 reply to their interruptions. He had spoken a dozen times on this point. Where disturbances might occur he did not pretend to say; but he thought it was possible to imagine that, even in this peaceful country of theirs, it might be necessary at election time to employ other officers than special constables to preserve the peace. There were, no doubt, parts of the country where there might by accident be some machinery that would achieve that result. Although he was perfectly in favour of enfranchising the police, he did not feel disposed to join in any Bill for their enfranchisement without previous consideration of the matter, and on what he conceived to be a very logical objection on the part of his hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Kennard), without any statement on the part of Her Majesty's Government. He begged, therefore, to move the adjournment of the debate.

§ THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Mr. E. STANHOPE)
said, he hoped the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Thorold Rogers) would not press his Motion for the adjournment of the debate. The hon. Member had urged that he had not heard the Government upon the Bill; but he would point out that if he wished to hear them it was impossible that they could say anything about it on his Motion for Adjournment. He hoped, however, that he would not press his point until the general views of the House on the subject had been made known.

§ SIR HENRY JAMES
said, the understanding was that no measure of a contentious character would he taken. All he could say was that this was a very contentious matter. There was no great principle involved in it; but a great deal could be said as to its expediency, and there would be a long debate on the Motion, which he hoped would terminate in the rejection of the Bill. At present they were without the presence of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and hon. Members wanted to have a statement from him as to the opinions of the heads of the Police Force. For his own part, he could not possibly agree to the Motion.

§ SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON
strongly appealed to the House to agree to the second reading of the Bill. It was all very well for the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Henry James) to say that because this was a contentious Bill, and because there would be a long debate upon it, that, therefore, they ought not to take the second reading stage. There was no opposition to the Bill on the Notice Paper, and under those circumstances they wore entitled to suppose that the Bill was not an opposed measure. As to the question whether the police ought or ought not to be enfranchised—

§ MR. SPEAKER
I would remind the hon. Baronet that the Question before the House is that the debate be now adjourned.

§ SIR HENEY SELWIN-IBBETSON
said, he should, of course, not pursue that subject. He believed he was entitled, on a Motion for the adjournment of the debate, to point out that at that late period of the Session it was only possible to advance measures like this when such opportunities as the present presented themselves. He trusted that the House would not agree to the adjournment of the debate.

§ MR. BRYCE
said, that there had been two Notices of opposition on the Paper, and that was why other Members had not put down their Notices of opposition. These two Notices had been unexpectedly taken off, else the Bill could not have come on to-night. It appeared to him absurd to ask the House at that hour of the evening to go into a discussion upon the principle of the Bill, which was strongly opposed by a great many Members.

§ MR. H. H. FOWLER
said, he should like to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who represented the Government, to what had passed that evening—namely, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer distinctly informed an hon. Member that after half-past 12 o'clock no contentious Business should be taken.

§ THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL
said, that if this was a contentious Bill, he was utterly at a loss to know what a non-contentious Bill was like. There was absolutely no opposition to it.