§ 21. "That a sum, not exceeding £426,290, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1897, for the expenses of the Prisons in England, Wales, and the Colonies."
§ *MR. H. C. F. LUTTRELL (Devon, Tavistock)said that he took it to be the duty of a Member to represent any grievances which were well founded of his constituents, and that this duty became more clear when one represented public employés. He had examined these grievances and he was of opinion that there was foundation and justification for them. There were, first, the grievances of the storekeepers and clerks, who maintained that they had not been treated fairly. They said that there had been unfair classification, and that the prospects held out to them when they entered the service had not been fulfilled. A large number of these men had entered the service after passing a special examination in respect of which they had paid fees amounting to £3. From announcements that appeared in the London Gazette, issued by the Civil Service Commissioners, the men were led to believe that they might expect to get a maximum salary of £400 or £450. As a matter of fact, however, they had no prospects whatever of obtaining this maximum salary under the present regulations. The great bulk of them could not hope for more than £200, and it was quite impossible for any of them to get more than £320, except in cases of exceptional promotion. Their classification, 517 they said, was unfair. When they entered the service, in 1879, there were three grades. In 1886 these grades were increased to six, and in 1890 reduced to five. There were now, therefore, five different classes, and there were only two different sorts of work. The employés contended that there should be a reduction by amalgamation to two classes. The contention was that similar work entailing similar duties and similar responsibilities should have similar treatment. They wished to be put on the same footing as Second Class Clerks generally, with an upper and a lower grade. That change had been re-commended by the Commission of 1888. Another class of prison officials who wished for an improvement in their position was the warders. They ought to be treated as well as the London police, but in all important respects they were treated less well. The warders worked for 10½ hours a day, and for 6¼ days a week, whilst the police worked only eight hours a day for G½ days in a week. The warders' work was just as arduous, if not more arduous, than the; work of the police, and it was horrible work that they had to do, and often extremely dangerous. There was also a great difference in the manner of their treatment in respect of retiring allowances. A policeman joined the force at 21 years' of age, and after 26 years' service, at 47 years of age, he could retire on a two-thirds pension. A warder, on the other hand, entered the service at 24, and if he wanted to retire on a two-thirds pension he had to remain in the service until he was 64. The warders asked that they should be permitted to retire sooner—say after 30 years—with a pension amounting to two-thirds of their salaries. There had, he was glad to say, been a falling-off in the number of prisoners, but what had been the effect of that? It was that the country annually saved a large amount of money, and therefore was in a position to deal generously with the warders. He would like to refer to the Report of the Departmental Committee of this year, which was of very great importance. That Committee recommended, amongst other things, that there should be a greater increase in the productive labour in prisons, and that unproductive labour 518 should, as far as possible, be abolished. He was glad to find that the Department were trying to follow that recommendation, but he would like to suggest that, in order to have productive labour, it was necessary to have proper trainers, and he did not think the trainers in prisons were good enough now. The storekeepers, who now had to give instruction, had quite enough to do without this extra duty, and it would be better to have technical instruction given by men with the technical knowledge. Then the Committee reported in favour of the appointment of men who had had experience in the management of prisons to governorships. That part of the Report was most important, and he thought that all connected with prisons thought that it was so. It was thought that those appointed to governorships should be men of practical experience. The Committee pointed out that there had been a large number of military and naval officers appointed since 1877, and they thought that a great improvement might be effected by appointing men of practical experience in the work, men who had worked their way up from being warders or prison clerks, or others who had worked in prisons, instead of Army and Navy officers. He was pleased to find that the Home Secretary had been following the lines here indicated and appointing to governorships men who had experience of prison life. He hoped he would continue to appoint from inside rather than from outside. He did not mean to press the Home Secretary for an answer on these subjects now, but he would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider them, especially, in the light brought to bear on them by the Report of the Committee. In the few months that lay between the end of this Session and the beginning of next, the right hon. Gentleman might well consider these questions, and he hoped that another year the House might be able to look to him for an answer.
§ VISCOUNT CRANBORNE (Rochester)said that, as he represented a constituency in which there was a considerable convict prison, he would like to add his testimony to the various grievances of the warders. The hon. Gentleman opposite had pointed out how arduous were the duties the warders had to perform. It was not merely the danger to which they 519 were exposed, but there was also the unceasing vigilance which it was essential they should exercise, and in that respect their work was certainly more arduous than that of the police. There were two particulars in which the work was very severe, one was the night duty. There was this difference between night and day duty—namely, that whereas on day duty a warder had one half-holiday in the week, the night warder had no corresponding indulgence. It very often happened, too, that a man would be two weeks on night duty and one on day duty, and on one occasion of changing from night to day duty, a warder was most of the 24 hours out of bed, though he, of course, had a very short interval. The warders had petitioned the Home Office for a consideration of their wishes in regard to superannuation, and he had ventured privately to bring the matter before his right hon. Friend. They sent up a properly worded memorial, and, although they did receive an acknowledgment of it, they had received no reply whatever on the merits of their petition. That they considered rather a serious matter, and they very much desired to have a reply. He did not desire to take up the time of the House, but he earnestly hoped his right hon. Friend would devote all the attention he could to the subject, and would bring to bear the particular experience he possessed upon the matter, in order to see whether he could not better to some extent the conditions under which the warders did their work.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY,) Lancashire, Blackpoolsaid that the general position of prison clerks and storekeepers had received the most careful attention, and it was his hope that a scheme which the Department had in hand, and which to a certain extent had received the approbation of the Treasury, without satisfying all their demands, would certainly increase the advantages of promotion, which, he agreed, they ought to have. With regard to the warders, their case was gone into by a Committee in 1891 and 1892, and all their proposals were most carefully considered, and, as the result, their position had been improved to some extent. He would be the last to deny that the warders had very re- 520 sponsible and arduous duties to perform, and he could quite understand that they thought they ought to be put in a better position. His predecessor had made some recommendations to the Treasury upon which something had been done, and he himself had forwarded to the Treasury certain recommendations made by the Prison Commissioners and based on the demands of the warders. With regard to the question of making prison labour productive, there were great difficulties in the way. The moment prison labour was made productive it came into competition with labour outside. Still, he quite agreed that that was the direction in which a move should be made; and, in accordance with the Report of the Committee, a competent head man had been appointed to look after the industries in prisons and the teachers of those industries, and to see that the men and women in prisons should be employed not only in productive labour, but in labour which would be of advantage to them and lead to some useful work when they left prison. He had been blamed by an hon. Gentleman in Committee some time ago for appointing to an inspectorship of prisons a former prison governor. He submitted that that was a case in point of the argument of the hon. Member opposite—namely, that men of experience in prison matters should be promoted. The governor of Portland prison was a very good officer and strict disciplinarian, who had certainly earned the gratitude of the Government of the country for the manner in which he performed his duties, and when he appointed him an inspector of prisons, he not only made an opening in a lower post to be filled, but appointed as an inspector a man who thoroughly knew his work. He thought the argument was right that men in the prison service should be advanced as much as possible to important posts in the service. He could only assure the hon. Gentleman opposite and the noble Lord that he had not lost sight of this subject, and, although he was not in a position to fulfil all their hopes and expectations, he recognised the legitimate desire of the warders to improve their position, and he hoped he might be able to do something to effect it. ["Hear, hear!"]
Resolution agreed to.