§ MR. CAMERON (Durham, Houghton-le-Spring)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether, during 1904, 107,625 persons were sent 1334 to prison in default of paying fines; and, if so, whether he is prepared to effect such alterations in the law as will give such persons the right of claiming a few weeks' grace before conviction, when they give bona fide and satisfactory addresses, or can produce reasonable security.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) The number of persons received in prison in default of paying a fine during 1904 is correctly stated by the hon. Member. The law contemplates time being allowed defendants to pay the fines imposed on them, and only last year a circular was issued from the Home Office to all courts of summary jurisdiction urging that full effect should be given to the merciful provisions of the law. I have no reason to doubt that the considerations urged in the circular are generally borne in mind, and that a person with a settled home is rarely or never refused time for the payment of a fine; but if information is given me of any case in which they have been disregarded, I will have inquiry made. It should be remembered that while 107,625 persons were received in prison during 1904 in default of a fine, the total number fined was 550,490. Both figures, I may add, include many cases where the same person was fined several times during the year, and therefore appears several times in the registers of the courts or of the prison.