§ MR. BARNES (Kent, Faversham)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the reports of recent proceedings in the Sheerness Police Court, with the written authority of the Chief Constable of Kent, against small shopkeepers under the Sunday Observance Act (29 Car. 2, c. 7); whether he is aware 1476 that the defendants were convicted and fined sums varying from 6d. to 5s. for selling cakes, ice creams, tobacco, lemonade, fruit, and milk on Sunday; whether his attention has been called to the fact that the police magistrate characterised the proceedings as most imprudent and absurd, and expressed the opinion that the Home Secretary might very properly remit most of the penalties, which he was bound by law to inflict; and whether he would give the matter his careful consideration, with a view to the remission of these penalties.
§ SIR. M. WHITE RIDLEYI have obtained a report on this case, the. facts of which are substantially as stated in the question. The Sunday Observance Act of 1871 provides that no prosecution shall be instituted without the consent in writing of the chief officer of police of the district or of the magistrates. The Chief Constable of Kent has chosen to exercise the discretion vested in him by the Statute by consenting to the prosecutions. It would not in my opinion be a proper exercise of the prerogative to use it for the remission of penalties which are allowed by the Statute and where no special circumstances justifying that course are brought forward.