§ Suppression of Brothels.
§ Clause 12 (Summary proceedings against brothel keeper, &c.)
§ MR. LABOUCHERE moved to insert the word "lessor" after "lessee." He did not see why the lessor of the house should not be liable to penalty as well as the lessee. He believed that on the property of the Dean of Christchurch there were more brothels than on any other property in London. The lessor should take care to whom he let his houses, and not allow them to be used as brothels.
§ Amendment proposed, in page 5, line 27, after the word "lessee," to insert the word "lessor."—(Mr. Labouchere.)
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'lessor' be there inserted."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER)said, he did not quite understand what the hon. Gentleman meant. Lessor might mean the ground landlord, who might have no control over the property. The person at whom they wished to get by this clause was the occupier of the house—that was to say, the person really in occupation. It would be dangerous to put in the word "lessor" unless there was something to indicate the class of lessor they meant.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, he thought the opinion of the Committee ought to be taken 795 on this clause in its entirety, and not I upon the addition of the word "lessor." The hon. Gentleman the Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) must be pretty certain that his Amendment would not be accepted. Would it not be better, therefore, to take a discussion upon the clause as a whole? He (Mr. Gray) had not hitherto taken any part in this discussion, though he had watched it closely, and was prepared to state his objections to the clause.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREasked the Attorney General if he would be prepared on Report to introduce some words which would define the quality of this clause?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER)said, he would consider the matter; but he was bound to say now that it seemed an exceedingly difficult thing to go further than the tenant, lessee, or occupier of the premises. He would like to meet the ease of any lessor who really had control of the premises, and he had no objection to try to do so. He was sure, however, it would be a very difficult task.
MR. LYULPH STANLEYsaid, he thought the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) had a litttle prejudiced his Amendment by the playful allusion he made to the Deans and Chapters. There were lessors who had practical control of property, and it was those people who ought to be got at.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREDo I understand the Attorney General will try to do something; in the matter?
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREproposed to omit from lines 32 and 33 the words "or in the discretion of the Court," and to insert the word "and." This Amendment was intended to deprive the magistrate or the Judge of the option of fining or imprisoning. Hon. Members knew perfectly well what happened where there was the option to fine or imprison. Rich persons were very frequently fined, and the fine really meant nothing to them. It seemed that a person who offended in this way ought to be imprisoned, and therefore he moved that the magistrate or Judge should have no option.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 5, lines 32 and 33, to leave out the words "or in the discretion of the Court," and insert the word "and."—(Mr. Labouchere.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER)said, he had undertaken a few moments ago to see if he could find words to include the lessor of the premises. Now, if they increased the liability the magistrate ought to have this discretion.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. HOPWOODproposed to insert after the word "person," in line 18, page 6, the words—
Shall not be prosecuted under this section except by direction of the local authority in any city, borough, or place, nor.They might not be the most apt words for the purpose, and he should be glad if better words could be found. He proposed those words so that it should not be a question of a policeman, or even an Inspector, choosing to prosecute in brothel cases. He had a great deal of objection to the clause as it stood; but he fancied that if he allowed that opportunity to slip he would not secure that there should be that control over the prosecution which he thought was desirable. It seemed to him that those who governed in a place—the Municipal Council, or Local Board, or Sanitary Authority, or whatever body it might be—should have the direction of prosecutions contemplated by this clause. He hoped the Government would be able to accept some Amendment of this kind.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 6, line 18, after the word "person," to insert the words "shall not be prosecuted under this section except by direction of the local authority in any city, borough, or place, nor."—(Mr. Hopwood.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir R. ASSHETON" CROSS)said, he would be glad to adopt some Amendment of this kind; but perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman would allow him to consider the matter before Report. Only the other day a gentleman wrote to the Home Office complaining of one of these 797 places; he said he had brought it before the Vestry, and although that body were anxious to have this place prosecuted three names were required to be publicly given before the prosecution could be started, and the gentleman who complained was the only one who would give his name.
§ MR. HOPWOODthought there was some misunderstanding in regard to this point. There was one mode of prosecuting brothels by which those who prosecuted could secure their costs; but on the ground that the place was a nuisance there was the Common Law right of anybody to prosecute at his own expense. He asked leave to withdraw his Amendment.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, that on the Motion to withdraw the Amendment he would like to say that the proposition of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) would meet nearly all the difficulties he (Mr. Gray) had in supporting the clause. He did not deny that some additional powers might be required to deal with disorderly houses; but he thought that if the clause as it now stood were passed a condition of affairs very much worse than that which at present existed would be brought about. At present those who were specially injured by the existence of a disorderly house in their midst must take the initiative; but by the clause as it stood the police were to be the persons who were to deal with the offenders. Now, every disorderly house was known to the police, except possibly a few which need not be taken into consideration, on account of being conducted in a somewhat private manner. He imagined there were from 6,000 to 10,000 disorderly houses in London. Now, was it the intention of the Government, when they introduced this clause, that the police should forthwith prosecute the keepers of the whole of those houses? If not, what was their intention? Was it their intention that the police should discriminate between the offenders, and select just those whom they should prosecute? He supposed that the two right hon. Gentlemen the Home Secretary (Sir R. Assheton Cross), and the late Home Secretary (Sir William Harcourt], would be held to be responsible for this Bill. Both of them ought to have some little knowledge of how the police in London did their duty, parti- 798 cularly when they were required to discriminate as to what individuals and what houses should be prosecuted and what individuals and what houses should not be prosecuted. There was the case of Inspector Minahan, in connection with the notorious Jeffries prosecution. Because he did not consent to receive bribes from the owner of this disorderly house Inspector Minahan was persecuted by his superior officers, and he was at last dismissed without a pension. In this matter he (Mr. Gray) addressed himself to the late Home Secretary (Sir William Harcourt). It had been proved that Minahan was right, and his superior officers were wrong and corrupt. Other cases in abundance had occurred in which it had been shown that the police—not merely the ordinary police who received £1 a-week, but the men who received much larger salaries, even those in the very highest positions in the Force, he made no exceptions—were not to be trusted in matters of this kind; that they did not exercise their duties without fear, favour, or affection; but that, on the contrary, they showed both fear, favour, and affection. It was notorious a few years ago, when the West End night houses were constituted such a public nuisance that the whole police of the district were in the pay of the houses, and when the then Home Office, with a zeal which their successors had scarcely emulated, made a really determined effort to deal with the night houses in the Haymarket and neighbourhood, they found that in the first place they had to deal with the police, and that the only thing to be done was to remove the greater number of them to the East End, so corrupt had they become. The punishment of the offenders was utterly out of the question. Now, if the Committee passed a clause of this kind, directing in terms that the police should prosecute all disorderly houses, while at the same time they had no such intention, because they had a full knowledge that to suppress all disorderly houses was a task completely out of their power, what would they do? They would, in fact, direct the police to discriminate as to what offenders they should bring to justice and what offenders they should deliberately allow to escape. They would simply perpetuate the Jeffries rule—namely, that those who paid should be permitted to 799 escape and those who did not pay should be prosecuted. They would have a general adoption of the rule that fashionable offenders should be permitted to get off with a nominal punishment, that the Judges should have secret interviews with their representatives and tell them—"If you plead guilty and suppress all names in Court you will get off with a fine; but if you do not you will have to go to prison." He objected to such a system; it would corrupt the police, it would corrupt the public. There had been quite enough of it, and the Committee ought to set their faces against it, instead of deliberately encouraging it. If the Bill was not to apply to Ireland he would be quite content to leave to Members for English constituencies the task of framing such laws as they thought suitable to the peculiar condition of affairs which they were told existed in this great and Christian Metropolis. Now, in Dublin the police were not under the control of the people. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Assheton Cross) would remember that when he sat in Dublin as one of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Housing of the Working Classes, some evidence was given as to the existence of disorderly houses in Dublin. Complaint was made of the increase of such houses, and the witnesses said, and he believed said truly, that the population of Dublin would be very willing to submit to more stringent laws for the better regulation of disorderly houses and disorderly characters; but they made this proviso—that the regulations must be made and carried out by officers of the Local Authority, and not by officers of the Imperial Government; they said the people of the City would readily submit to any regulations for this purpose made by their own representatives, but they would not submit or tolerate any autocratic interference by the Imperial Government. He quite admitted that if one-tenth of the disclosures which had been made within the last few weeks with regard to the condition of affairs in London was true, anything the Committee did was justified. London was so abominably bad, according to their own account, that nothing they could propose was too strict to remedy the atrocious state of affairs disclosed. But, putting Loudon aside, the 800 representatives of the people in all the English towns would have the enforcement of this clause; and, under such circumstances, it might be reasonably conjectured that local abuses would be remedied from time to time. In Ireland it would be totally different. Power would be given to an Imperial Force over which local opinion would have no kind of control. The people of the Irish towns would regard with strong dissatisfaction the passing into the hands of the police of further power in connection with this matter. But if the Proviso of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hop-wood) were adopted, and the initiative were given to Local Authorities, he (Mr. Gray) would offer no objection to the clause. It must be borne in mind that, in regard to London and other large cities, it was proposed to make a crime what was not now a crime, but a matter which was to be remedied at the instance of the persons particularly injured by the existence of disorderly houses in their midst. It was proposed to make a general crime. All those who committed that crime could not possibly be prosecuted for it; and, therefore, he thought it was a dangerous precedent for Parliament to teach the police that they were to have full personal knowledge of the persons committing a legal crime, and that they were to use their discretion as to who they prosecuted. The most that could be done was to reach 1 per cent of the criminals. As far as London was concerned, he cared little whether the task was attempted or not—it did not concern him very much—but what he wanted to secure was that in Ireland, where the circumstances were totally different, where the existence of vice was not so rampant as here, but where it was acknowledged that better provision for the regulation of disorderly houses might be made, the exercise of the powers sought to be given by this clause should not be entrusted to an Imperial Force, but to a force over which the representatives of the people had control. He protested against such a clause as this being extended to Ireland simply because the House had been frightened by an agitation which had been started by a newspaper within the last week or so, and because right hon. Gentlemen on both Front Benches were extremely anxious to get rid of any 801 further disagreeable questions on the subject.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he was glad that the hon. Member (Mr. Gray) had made in the House the statement which had been made elsewhere with reference to the police. To that statement he desired to give an absolute contradiction. Speaking of Inspector Minahan, the hon. Gentleman said it had been proved that Minahan was dismissed from the Force in connection with the Jeffries case, and that Minahan was right in charging the police with corruption in that matter. In the first place, Minahan was not dismissed from the Force in connection with the Jeffries case. The charge against Minahan was that of general insubordination. ["Oh, oh!"] He was speaking what he knew. Hon. Members had read statements in a newspaper which were absolutely untrue, and for which there was not a colour of foundation. It was in the year 188.'! that Minahan, who had been an insubordinate officer, who had been removed from one district to another on account of his misconduct, and expressed his gratitude for having been so leniently treated, brought something like 15 charges against his superior officers, only one of which had any reference to Jeffries. The 15 charges were examined and found to be entirely untrue from first to last. Having made the charges, he was told, as a matter of discipline, that a man who was guilty of that general insubordination could no longer hold high rank in the police. He was degraded in his rank, whereupon he resigned, and that was a year and a-half before the trial of the Jeffries case. It was after he had left the Police Force, and as a means, he (Sir William Harcourt) believed, of forcing his way back again, that he took up the Jeffries case. ["Oh, oh!"] Again, he was stating the absolute facts of the case. Hon. Members below the Gangway were so constantly in the habit of attacking the police and everybody connected with the administration of justice in Ireland, that it seemed they could not refrain from doing the same in England. They might attack him (Sir William Harcourt) as much as they liked—be was there to defend himself. But he did not think that the charges which had been brought against him of having taken part in these transactions 802 would receive any countenance either in or out of the House. He felt bound to speak for the police, because if the charges against them were to be sown broadcast as they were being sown the people would have no faith in the Force. If the police were to be discredited on the authority of a discharged officer, who was going round collecting subscriptions for himself, and setting up the charge that all the police, from, the highest to the lowest, were corrupt, and took bribes from brothel keepers, the Force must be disbanded. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gray) had said that everyone in the Force, even those in the highest positions, were corrupt.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, the right hon. Gentleman was mistaken in supposing that everyone in the Force was corrupt.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, that that was a charge which ought not to be made. It could not be proved; there was no foundation at all for it. He had seen it stated that he refused to examine into the case, but allowed the Chief Commissioner to make the inquiry. Who else was to make the inquiry he should like to know? If a soldier or officer was insubordinate, and there was a military inquiry, was it to be said there was no inquiry, and everybody up to the Commander-in-Chief was partial and corrupt in the matter? Now, with reference to prosecutions generally. The hon. Member (Mr. Gray) said there was to be a selection, as there was in the Jeffries case. The hon. Gentleman assumed that the police had something to do with the prosecution of Jeffries. The police had nothing to do with that prosecution. ["Oh!"] He repeated that the police had nothing to do with that prosecution. It was taken up by a different authority altogether. The case was taken up by an Association for the protection of young girls, and if it was hushed up it was hushed up by that Association. The prosecution was absolutely in the hands of that Association, one of the leading members of which was a person named Mr. Benjamin Scott, who he saw had attacked him the other evening. If the case was hushed up, therefore, it was hushed up by Mr. Scott. For his part, he never heard of the prosecution at all, and never knew of it until the whole case was over, and until the attacks were made by Minahan against the police. Then 803 he investigated the charges that Minahan had made, and he came to the conclusion that they were absolutely false. That was the whole case against the police and against him, and that was the ground on which the charges were made against the authorities of hushing up this case. That was the way in which these things were worked up—without the slightest regard for truth. If they would believe the word of a discharged policeman against the testimony of the whole body of the police, the magistrates, and the Secretary of State, they would believe anything. He had stated all the facts as accurately as he knew them. He said that the case never came before them, the Home Officer knew nothing of it, and the police made no charge whatever. It was in the hands of an Association; and as for the charge made by Minahan against the police, there was, as far as he knew, no foundation whatever. Having disposed of that matter, he would now touch upon the other question raised by the Amendment. The hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) said he would not trust the police in dealing with these matters. Well, for his part, he thought it was not desirable that the police should be mixed up in such questions as the Bill dealt with. He quite agreed that the Local Authorities should be the people to make charges in these cases; and he thought that the clause ought to provide a simpler method and a more summary procedure for dealing with these matters. He believed that these general charges against the police had utterly and entirely broken down—he did not say that no case of corruption had ever occurred amongst the 12,000 men in the Police Force. But, when they did happen, how were they dealt with? The hon. Member knew that where there was the slightest suspicion of a case it was fully inquired into at once. Some time ago he himself wrote a Memorandum to the Commissioners of Police, in which he directed that, where there was the slightest suspicion of anything of this sort, it should be fully inquired into, and, if found to be well founded, should be punished severely. If the hon. Member was under the impression that offences of that kind were winked at, he was very much mistaken. Whenever they were found out they were punished, and he did not think it 804 should be allowed to go forth that the police were in the habit of receiving bribes in these cases. He did not think such a statement was true, and he believed there was no foundation whatever for the suggestion that the police trafficked in these matters. In order to keep them out of every sort of temptation and suspicion, however, perhaps it might be well not to extend these powers to them.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he did not wonder, after the remarks of the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray), that the right hon. Gentleman had felt called upon to enter at some length into the subject on which he had spoken. He only regretted that his remarks had not been made at an hour when they could have been reported, as they furnished a perfect and conclusive defence of the Police Force. He would point out, however, that if they were to go on discussing these matters at length, it would be exceedingly inconvenient. This case did not really arise on this clause, and he ventured to hope that the Committee might now be allowed to go on with the discussion of the clause.
§ MR. COURTNEYsaid, he was afraid that this discussion would not close as soon as the Chancellor of the Exchequer imagined, or as he himself would desire; and, therefore, he thought it would be as well if they reported Progress now, in order to allow the remainder of the discussion on the Bill to be taken at a reasonable hour. He would not make a Motion to that effect at present; but he thought the Committee was not in a condition to discuss the new clauses that night.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Courtney.)
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir R. ASSHETON CROSS)thought the suggestion was a reasonable one, and when they came to the end of the Bill, as it stood, they would report Progress. Perhaps the hon. Member would allow him to take the Exemption Clause that night.
§ MR. COURTNEYwould not press his point.
§ MR. MOLLOYthought they ought to report Progress. He believed that the 805 charges of corruption made against the police were true.
THE CHAIRMANpointed out to the hon. Member that the Question before the Committee was that Progress should be reported.
§ MR. MOLLOYthought he was adhering to that Question. There were a great many things to discuss in connection with this matter, and he thought they ought to report Progress. There were a great many things to be said with regard to the police, and he would strongly urge the Home Secretary to adopt his suggestion, so as to enable them to continue the discussion tomorrow.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir R. ASSHETON CROSS)said, perhaps the hon. Gentleman would allow him to point out that if it had not been for the nature of the charge which had been brought forward by the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray), he would have risen long ago to have asked whether the discussion which had been going on was in Order. It appeared to him that neither the speech of the hon. Member nor that of the right hon. Gentleman were in Order.
§ MR. MOLLOYsaid, he knew nothing about this question before that evening; but the great question now was whether these powers were to be left in the hands of the police or put into those of the Local Authorities?
THE CHAIRMANI have already pointed out to the hon. Member that the Question before the Committee is that I report Progress, and ask leave to sit again. I must request the hon. Member to confine his remarks to that Question.
§ MR. MOLLOYsaid, he was only pointing out to the right hon. Gentleman the necessity of reporting Progress.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. HOPWOODsaid, he had a few words to say on this clause before it was adopted. It was ridiculous for the Committee to go on in this Puritanical fashion. As he understood it, this clause was merely to give facilities for breaking down the houses where these loose women took refuge. If it only applied to cases where it could be proved that they were a nuisance to the neighbour-hood, then he had nothing more to say; 806 but he did protest against a wholesale attempt to drive out these unfortunate women, as had been done in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other places. It only distributed the evil and spread bad exam-pie.
§ CAPTAIN PRICEsaid, he hoped the Government would be induced to withdraw the clause altogether. It was a most mischievous one. Was it to be carried out in a half-and-half manner, or was it to be carried out in its entirety? If it was to be carried out in a half-and-half manner, it would be of no use at all; and if it was to be carried out in its entirety, the effect would be to flood the streets with prostitutes. He believed, to a great extent, in the system adopted in other countries. He was not altogether an advocate of the principle of registering houses of ill-fame, and so giving official recognition of that kind of thing; but he thought their streets were much more free in consequence of their not hunting these women about, as it was now proposed to do in England.
§ MR. MOLLOYasked whether it was clearly understood that the police were in no way to have the initiative in these prosecutions? He would give his reasons for asking this question. The late Home Secretary had made a great deal out of the statement that the police were not in the habit of receiving bribes from these people. Now, he would call attention to the case of the Argyll Rooms, when they were open, and appeal to those who knew what London life was at the time. It was well known at the time that they were kept open as a place where prostitutes met men about town, yet every licensing day the police agreed to the lie that the rooms were not frequented by loose characters, and that there were no improper characters going there without gentlemen. Well, every man about town knew that those statements were deliberate untruths. It was a matter of notoriety at the time, and it was equally notorious now, that the police did, in many cases—he did not say in all—receive bribes from the keepers of brothles. Do not lot those who knew Loudon at night try to pretend to each other that they did not know these things. It was a monstrous farce for them to talk to each other as though they did not know these things. Let him give an example. A short time 807 ago there was an order issued, and 40 women were taken by the police from the streets near Waterloo Place. Well, when he came out of his club the very night afterwards he himself saw the same policemen who had apprehended some of the women talking and chatting with them in the most friendly manner. There was no doubt that there were a great many good men amongst these policemen; but if they put these temptations in their way they could not expect anything else to happen but what he had described. They ought to make them the protectors of the public, and not the institutors of prosecutions.
§ SIR ROBERT FOWLER (LORD MAYOR)said, he did not see how they could exclude the police altogether from these cases.
THE CHAIRMANsaid, the discussion was going a little wide of the clause, which contained nothing on this subject.
§ SIR ROBERT FOWLER (LORD MAYOR)said, he would not detain the Committee; but he did not see how they could prosecute brothels unless they took the evidence of the police.
§ MR. EDWARD CLARKEsaid, he hoped that the Home Secretary would not put words into the clause which would exclude the police altogether. It might be proper not to allow them to institute prosecutions; but it would be a very serious thing to exclude them altogether.
§ MR. JAMES STUARTsaid, he was altogether opposed to giving the police the power of instituting proceedings against these women. It would be placing an unfair temptation in the way of the police; and he could not help suspecting that those who had the control of the Force must feel very great doubt and hesitation with regard to putting these powers in their hands. He was altogether opposed to the police instituting anything against brothels and prostitutes.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, he did not wish to pursue the discussion at that moment; but he ventured to say that there might be some few people here and there who would not think the late Home Secretary's statement so absolutely convincing as he seemed to think. For his part, he had always held the opinion that the police were an exceedingly useful and able body of men; but in stating what he 808 had done he had simply related facts which were notorious. He had not intended to make any general charge against the Police Force beyond this—that they were ordinary human beings, exactly the same as hon. Members all were; and if temptations like those held out to the police were held out to them they would probably succumb as any of the police would give way. Where was there anything in the clause to show that the initiative was not to be taken by the police? The keeping of these houses was declared to be illegal under the Summary Jurisdiction Act; but there was not one word in regard to the institution of proceedings; and if the police were not to initiate who was to? Where was there any person but the police given the power of instituting these proceedings?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he could answer that at once.
§ MR. GRAYpointed out that if the right hon. Gentleman could do so it would shorten the discussion materially. All he was anxious for was that the police should have nothing to do with these matters.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, the police were not prosecutors at all, and when they did do so it was only for general convenience. They were not supposed to prosecute in any case, and their doing so was only for convenience. If it was desired to exclude them absolutely, then some words should be put in to that effect. He would have no objection whatever to that course. He had always thought it better to keep them out of these matters. He was not responsible for the actual drafting of the clause; but certainly the object of it was, not to alter the existing prosecuting authorities, who were the Local Authorities, but to enable the magistrates to exercise a summary jurisdiction.
§ Clause agreed to.