SECOND READING. (Hansard, 10 September 1887)

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER) (Isle of Wight)
said, the valuable work of the Revision Committee could not become apparent until effective steps wore taken to clear away a large number of obsolete Statutes.

§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, 206 Westminster)
asked the House to allow the remaining stages to be taken at once, and moved that the Speaker should now leave the Chair.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
inquired whether the White boy Acts were included in this measure?

§ SIR RICHARD WEBSTER
said, they were not.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
They are spent.

§ SIR RICHARD WEBSTER
said, he could not say that, not being an Irish lawyer. The Bill only included those Acts which the Law Officers knew of their own knowledge, without elaborate investigation, to be obsolete.

§ MR. CONYBEARE
said, he must protest against the White boy Acts not being included in this Bill.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
said, he would oppose the Motion that the Speaker do leave the Chair.

§ MR. SPEAKER
Order, order ! The hon. Gentleman has already spoken on the Motion.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
I only asked a question.

§ MR. CLANCY
moved the adjournment of the debate.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR (Donegal, E.)
I merely wish to point out clearly, and in express terms, what it is we are doing. We have been taking the second reading of a Bill of an important character—the importance of which has been impressed upon us by hon. Gentlemen—and then, without any Notice given, we are invited at once to go into Committee. We may have Amendments moved which are not upon the Paper, and which not one single soul in the Committee, except the hon. Member who moves them, knows anything at all about. I do say, 207 with all due respect to the Government that, whatever the period of the Session is, that is not the proper way to conduct Public Business.

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER) (Isle of Wight)
I shall be happy to give the fullest explanation with regard to the Bill in every particular in which explanation can be required. There are only three Amendments, and all these but one are verbal. One of them has been passed and I will state what it is if the Committee will permit me. It was merely the insertion of the date of a certain Statute which had been omitted by accident. I think the hon. Member for East Donegal (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) will admit that there has been nothing very unconstitutional in making that Amendment in Committee without Notice. The second Amendment is a mere verbal improvement effected by the draftsman, who saw that there were certain words after the name of the witness Eva Thornton. The third is the omission of a Statute which ought to be struck out, owing to a learned Judge having raised a doubt as to whether it is obsolete or not.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
No doubt, the particular Amendment before the Committee is trifling in its character; but I think we have a right to ask that this Bill shall not be taken until Monday.

§ SIR RICHARD WEBSTER
The third reading will not be taken until Monday.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
It was proposed before going into Committee that the Committee stage should be deferred until Monday; and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General, because he would not assent to that proposal, put us to the trouble of assembling for a Division, although a Division was not taken. If we had been allowed time, we should not only have understood the point of the Amendment now before the Committee, but we should have understood all the other points which could be raised on the Bill. This particular Amendment refers to putting away "certain divers books and images."

§ THE CHAIRMAN
We have not come to that yet. The Amendment is, on page 10, to leave out lines 34, 35, 36, and 37. The Question is, "That these words 208 stand part of the Schedule to the measure."

§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, Westminster)
If hon. Gentlemen, wish, to have until Monday to consider the effect of this Amendment, there will be no objection on the part of the Government to postponement. I trust, however, that on Monday, when these things have been thoroughly considered, there will be no difference of opinion on the matter. If that is understood, I shall agree to report Progress.

§ MR. CONYBEARE (Cornwall, Camborne)
I have not, in the case of this Bill, Sir, been able to follow your salutary advice to make' myself acquainted with, everything in the measure; but, taking from the Table a volume of the Statutes, I find that this Statute we are asked to prolong in the present Bill has been spent—namely, that the 3 & 4 Edward VI. c. 10 is really so far spent as to have been eliminated from the Statute Book.

§ SIR RICHARD WEBSTER
The hon. Member has taken up a volume of the Statutes, in which he will find the 3 & 4 Edward VI. c 10, but not in the proper rotation. That arises from the fact that there are in some years several Acts bearing the same number. If the hon. Member will refer to the Statutes at large he will find that what I say is correct, and that the Act he is speaking of is the one continued in this Bill.

§ MR. CONYBEARE
We have kept on the Table of this House a revised edition of Statutes for reference; and when one gets up and appeals to this revised version, and finds it inconsistent with what we find in the proposed Bill, he is told that he is altogether wrong in the matter, and that there is a different rotation. Of what year is the Act of Edward VI. to which the hon. and learned Gentleman refers?

§ SIR RICHARD WEBSTER
The hon. Member has not read the Bill. He will find in the Bill the precise reference to the Act which is now continued—on page 10 of the Bill, volume 15 of the Statutes, page 1,266. As I am now addressing the Committee, I may as well say that I will not go into the other Amendment, but will put it on the Paper, so that hon. Members will see 209 what it is. The object of it is to strike out certain words on page 15.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
I give credit to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House (Mr. W. H. Smith) for Ms dexterous Parliamentary tactics. I compliment him upon the success of his stratagem. He has made progress with this measure because, now that the Bill has reached this stage, it is impossible to block it. The right hon. Gentleman has very dexterously effected his object; but the Government ought in all fairness—having had this Amendment up their sleeves as it were—to have given us some indication before the Speaker left the Chair that it was their intention to alter the Bill when they got into Committee. Apparently, at least so far as we can judge, they seem to be anxious to amend a Bill which called for no Amendment whatever in Committee, and therefore the Committee stage appeared to be, practically, a merely formal proceeding; but now we find that it is nothing of the kind; and with regard to that Amendment last moved, I was desirous of endeavouring, if possible, to get included in the Bill certain matters cognate altogether to books and images which the Amendment dealt with. On the mere Question that the Chairman report Progress, of course I am again debarred from going into the subject-matter of this Amendment, which I desire to secure. My Amendment related to what is really an obsolete law. It had reference to the position of Members of the Orders of Jesuits and other religious bodies in Ireland and the penalties attaching to certain proceedings by them. The Motion to report Progress is of such a character that one is obliged to confine himself to the particular point. It does appear to me that on this occasion the Government has been guilty of what, without desiring to be offensive and giving the Government credit for all dexterity, I do think is a piece of sharp practice. They have got their stage, and, no doubt, they will be able to carry through the Bill and be able to resist any Amendment which we may move, however reasonable it may be.

§ MR. CLANCY (Dublin Co., N.)
The hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General (Sir Richard Webster) complained a little while ago of our discussing a question of which he had received no Notice. I now beg to give Notice that I, for one, when the Bill next comes before the House, will move to insert in the Schedule those provisions of the Emancipation Act, 1829, which renders absolutely every priest in Ireland and the member of every religious order a felon liable to transportation for the term of his natural life. I give the hon. and learned Gentleman Notice that I will raise the question, and I hope he will not then plead that he has not had time to consider this matter.