HC Deb 24 May 1887 vol 315 cc1051-5
MR. PICTON (Leicester)

said, that he wished to bring before the President of the Local Government Board and the Government generally a subject which was one of increasing importance—that was the growing friction which attended the working of the Vaccination Acts. He wanted to urge some reasons why the Government should give attention to the question and look into it under the new aspect which it wore now. Within a very few years there had been thousands of prosecutions under that Act, a great number of conscientious men had been imprisoned, and the goods of many honest and industrious men had been distrained. It should not be forgotten that the people who suffered under what they called persecution were, in almost all cases, men and women of good character, of industry, and of thrift, and of intelligence enough to form an opinion for themselves, and of firmness to stick to it. He thought such people were deserving of a good deal of consideration. They had, at any rate, experience to go by. A large number of them had seen their own children surfer from vaccination. ["Oh, oh!"] At all events, they had seen them suffer in a manner which they traced to the effects of the operation. They were fortified in this view by the opinions of a good many medical men, who not only did not deny, but urged that vaccination was frequently attended with considerable danger. The Government should not look on quietly and see prosecutions increasing by leaps and bounds, and also see the amount of suffering entailed, without trying to find out whether anything could be done to lessen the strain of the law. He had asked a Question the previous day with respect to a case of special hardship which had happened on the borders of his own constituency. He referred to the case of a Mr. King, who, in consequence of what had happened in his own family, had declined to have one of his own children vaccinated. A fine was inflicted. The child died on the 9th May last year; but it was not until the May of this year that the fine was enforced by distraint. The mode of carrying out the law had inspired such a bitter feeling in Leicester, that a sale of King's goods could not be carried out, and it was not surprising that some disorder arose. Besides that, it was said that the provisions of the law were not fully complied with, especially with regard to the time of selling the goods.

MR. SPEAKER

said, that he was sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he must remind him that he was now speaking on a subject—the compulsory vaccination laws—in regard to which he had given Notice of a Motion on a future day.

MR. PICTON

said, that he begged pardon if he had transgressed the Rules of the House. He did not then desire to discuss the operation or the merits of the laws of compulsory vaccination. He was only asking that the Government should direct their attention to the increasing friction caused by the enforcement of the law of compulsory vaccination. The difficulty of enforcing the law was now rapidly increasing, and he trusted that the Government would not allow it to escape their attention, but would, if possible, take measures to terminate the existing state of things.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Ritchie) (Tower Hamlets, St. George's)

said, that after the Speaker's ruling the House would not expect him to enter at any length into the subject which the hon. Member had brought under the notice of the House. The object of the hon. Member had his sympathy, and he regretted that such action as the hon. Member referred to had to be taken for the purpose of seeing that the law was carried out. There were, no doubt, a considerable number of persons who had conscientious objections to their children being vaccinated, but many of the prosecutions arose, not on account of persons conscientiously refusing to comply with the law, but because certain associations urged people not to comply with the law. The Local Government Board had a duty to perform, and were bound to see that the Vaccination Acts were carried out, but at the same time they were desirous that this should be done without undue harshness. He could not say that there was any intention on the part of the Government to institute any general inquiry into the matter. He gave his personal attention to every case brought before him, and he always took care to see that the law was not unduly strained. More than that he could not say.

MR. SWETENHAM&c.) (Carnarvon,

had wished to say something at an earlier moment on the subject of justice in Flintshire, as he did not wish what had been already said by a right hon. and hon. Gentleman on the other side to pass unchallenged. No one had had a greater opportunity for the last 35 years than he had to see the way in which justice in that county was administered. He had the honour of knowing very well the Lord Lieutenant of Flintshire; and of seeing the extremely conscientious manner in which he made his appointments, and he ventured to think that there could be no greater justification of the conduct of the Lord Lieutenant than the remarks which fell from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Flintshire. The nature of the hon. Gentleman's complaint was that Nonconformists ought to be appointed, and in fact, that inquiries ought to be made into their political views. Now, that was the very thing which the Lord Lieutenant of Flintshire refused to do. The Lord Lieutenant said that a Lord Lieutenant, in order to win the admiration and the confidence of the country, ought not to look any way either to religion or politics, and he refused to do so. What he did look to, and rightly in his (Mr. Swetenham's) opinion, was that the gentleman he wished to appoint to the County Bench was both socially, educationally, and financially a desirable person. Therefore, he ventured to think that if the hon. Member for Flintshire had had as much experience as he had had, and the same opportunities of seeing the way justice was administered in Flintshire, he would have spared the House the remark which fell from him to-day—a remark which was calculated to bring justice into disrepute in the county. He thought it quite right to make these observations, and he should not have troubled the House with them if he had not thought it was absolutely necessary that someone knowing the facts of the case should rise in his place and say that which he knew, and be able to refute the arguments used. There was only one other observation he had to make. It had been said that there were no less than 30 gentlemen fully qualified for taking their seat on the Flintshire Bench. No one knew the facts better than he, and he ventured to say there were not anything like that number who were fit and qualified to take that important position. It was said that the hon. Member himself was not a magistrate. He (Mr. Swetenham) did not think the hon. Gentleman resided in Flintshire, but he was quite certain if he did reside there, and if he expressed the smallest wish to become a magistrate, and that wish was conveyed to the Lord Lieutenant, that officer would instantly recommend him for the position.

COLONEL NOLAN (Galway, N.)

said, that the speech of the Member for Caithness (Dr. Clark) had raised several questions which were of interest in the West of Ireland. The hon. Member had referred to the want of the crofters for more land. This was also the case of tenants in the West of Ireland. Whatever the rent might be, the smaller tenants in the West of Ireland could not support themselves and families in decent comfort on their small holdings. Fortunately, with the exception of the coast, all over the West of Ireland there was an ample supply of grass land in each district which could be taken at a valuation and given to increase the holding of the small farmers. As a general rule proprietors would be extremely glad to sell the grass lands at a fair value, and the result would do more good than could be accomplished by any amount of legislation. There would be some objection on the part of the larger grass farmers, but that was a comparatively small difficulty. He should like to see an Amendment of the Purchase Clauses of the Land Act so as to enable the tenants to buy the land adjoining their holdings. This could easily be done if the Government were willing to advance the money at a reasonably low rate of interest. He would impress upon the Government the necessity of giving their most careful attention to this matter.

MR. JOHN O'CONNOR (Tipperary, S.)

said, he wished once more to call the attention of the House to the grievances of the National School teachers of Ireland, a class that had been living on promises for many years. He wanted to know what the Chief Secretary had done towards satisfying the just demands of the teachers. So far as he (Mr. John O'Connor) could gather, he believed that although successive Chief Secretaries had admitted the grievances and promised to remedy them, nothing whatever had been done up to the present in fulfilment of those promises.