§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE (Exeter)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that, on Monday 25th July, 1898, Inspector Outram, with two detectives from the Criminal Investigation Department and two officers from the Assay Office of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, proceeded with a search warrant to the premises of Mr. Reuben Lyon, 125, High Holborn, London, and seized over 300 pieces of modern silver plate into which counterfeit hall marks had been transferred for the purpose of fraudulently and largely increasing their money value by representing them as antique silver plate; and if the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, instead of 600 publicly prosecuting Mr. Reuben Lyon, privately fined him a sum of money, withholding his name from publicity? I beg also to ask the Secretary of State for the Rome Department if he is aware that in April, 1897, William Wyatt and Charles Rimer were prosecuted by the Assay authorities and were found guilty of fraudulently transposing the hall mark from certain wares of gold to other wares of gold, without lawful excuse, and were sentenced to 14 months' imprisonment with hard labour; that in October of the same year John Jefferay pleaded guilty to a like offence and was sentenced to five years' penal servitude; and that in March of 1898 Isidor Weil was found guilty of feloniously producing imitations of the dies of the Goldsmiths' Company, and was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment with hard labour; and whether the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths possess the optional power of either privately fining or publicly prosecuting for such an offence; and, if the former punishment is inflicted, do the fines go into the funds of the National Exchequer or into those of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths? I beg further to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if in order to minimise the depreciation in the value of genuine antique gold and silver plate, such as that owned as family heirlooms, by private collectors, and by respectable dealers, and for the better protection of the public generally, he will take the necessary steps to have the law so amended as to transfer to the Public Prosecutor the duty of dealing with persons charged with forging or otherwise tampering with the hall mark, and persons dealing in counterfeit modern or antique gold and silver plate, with a view to their being adequately tried and punished?
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSThe prisoners referred to in the honourable Baronet's second Question were convicted and sentenced as stated. Wyatt and Rimer were prosecuted by the Birmingham Assay Office, and Jefferay and Weil by the Goldsmiths' Company. With regard to Lyon, the Goldsmiths' Company inform me that, having received information that a large quantity of silver was deposited on his premises, the marks upon which were either forged, or had been tampered with in various ways, a 601 search warrant was applied for and obtained, and a large quantity of spurious silver seized under it. The forgeries and transpositions of marks on this silver had been very skilfully effected, and no evidence being forthcoming that Lyon had himself made them or caused them to be made, the Company were advised by the counsel, on whose advice they had acted in prosecuting Jefferay and Weil, that, though the case was one of great suspicion, there was no material for a criminal prosecution, there being not sufficient evidence of guilty knowledge on Lyon's part. The Company therefore took proceedings, under 7 and 8 Vic, cap. 22, sec. 3, to recover the full penalty of £10 in respect of each article, and confiscated the plate which had been seized. Lyon professed inability to pay, but after some demur the amount was forthcoming, and was paid through a solicitor. The result of the action of r the Goldsmiths' Company is that Lyon no longer carries on the trade. In cases where the Company sue for penalties and those penalties are paid, they have no power to advertise the name of the offender. By Section 10 of the Act mentioned penalties recovered are to be applied by the Company "in defraying the expenses of their Assay Office and of detecting and prosecuting offenders" against the Act. By an earlier statute the Company are prohibited from making any profit out of their Assay Office, and I am informed that the Company perform the duties imposed on them at considerable cost to themselves. I have consulted the Director of Public Prosecutions as to the suggestion in the third question. The only offence (except bankruptcy offences after an order made by the Court under Section 166 of the Bankruptcy Act) which is specified eo nomine as one in which it is the duty of the Director to prosecute is murder, the other cases in which it is his duty to take action being generally defined in Section 2 of 42 and 43 Vic, cap. 22, and Regulation 1 of the Regulations made under the Prosecution of Offences Acts. I agree with the Director's view that there is no good reason for placing offences of the kind in question in a special category. I see no reason for finding fault with the way in which the Goldsmiths' Company or the Assay Offices carry out their statutory powers; and there is nothing to prevent the Director from taking 602 action in any case should he think it desirable to do so, nor any person who may think there has been any failure of justice from communicating with the Director.