§ MR. PICKERSGILLI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the case of a man tried before Mr. Justice Walton at Chester a fortnight ago, who had been kept in prison for five months before he was brought to trial, and, according to the statement of the governor of the prison, had during that period been confined to his cell twenty-two hours out of every twenty-four; and whether he will consider the present treatment in prison of untried prisoners, with a view to its revision, especially in regard to the size and appointment of their cells, and their opportunities for exercise and intercourse.
§ *MR. GLADSTONEI am entirely in sympathy with the hon. and learned Member's feeling about the long detention of prisoners waiting trial; but I 1058 would point out to him that untried prisoners cannot be allowed to associate freely with others of the same class, still less with convicted prisoners. The majority even of prisoners waiting trial are old criminals, and it would be the worst possible treatment for an innocent man or a first offender to allow him while waiting trial free intercourse with such persons. Subject to this consideration, the prison rules allow to untried prisoners the utmost possible liberty and in diligence, consistent with safe custody and with order and discipline in the prison: and, where the rules appear to act hardly in any case, the visiting committee have a wide discretion to modify the treatment. In the case to which the Question refers, the prisoner applied to be allowed to work elsewhere than in his cell, and a special cell for his work was assigned to him: and he was therefore constantly walking to and fro between the cells besides having his regular two hours a day for exercise. I am anxious to do all I can to alleviate the lot of untried prisoners, but I do not think I can make the rules more elastic or lenient than they already are.